(Image courtesy of Aurich Lawson) “‘Shiver me Timbers”
Alyssa Mascarenhas
Connector Contributor
I have no issues with piracy.
Media piracy is generally used to get around the price of access and has been around in one form or another for centuries. Manuscripts and books were historically largely produced by the state and church for a high price but were copied and sold illegally as a means of broadening access and revenue for the trader. Burning CDs, downloading files, and accessing torrent sites offer much of the same for similar purposes and follow a known trend. When access is constrained and artificial scarcity becomes apparent, people turn away from formal vendors and search for an alternative. I believe the presence of an alternative is central to providing competition against mainstream markets and, with the selection of online hubs and archives, preserving media that is vulnerable to being lost or destroyed.
From books, to music, to games and movies, piracy has been there, offering a secondary point of play when primary means fail to be in reach. Yes, there are plenty of people who have the means to pay and do choose not to pirate games, but modern media piracy holds more to it than simply penny-pinching. There’s a code of ethics behind it because of its nature as a reactionary act than a malicious one.
I’ve seen people using piracy as a means of solidarity with striking actors, freedom from exploitation or corrupt business models, and resistance against censorship. The modern pirating community will discourage piracy of media from fair indie productions. “Hollow Knight: Silksong”, a highly anticipated platform and combat game sequel to “Hollow Knight”, was put on market for $20 in 2025—a sharp contrast to the average 70–80-dollar price tag expected of a game with a sizeable fan base—and resulted in a push against bootlegging the game. It may come as a surprise to some, but piracy has less to do with saving and more to do with consumer choice and satisfaction. People are willing to express support when it feels worthwhile and turn to piracy in droves when it’s not.
I feel now a need to clarify what counts as piracy; it’s specifically creating a copy of a work that is not your own and distributing it or with the intent of distribution. Using a website that features pirated content technically is not piracy unless you stream it to others. The legality surrounding it can get somewhat muddled, hence the general advice to avoid partaking in the practice. The major appeal of true piracy was that you had a copy of the original that was entirely in your possession. Sharing pirated copies was a way to get around the cost and have access to media for cheap—if you kept the file.
Subscription streaming services function by selling access to a wide range of content. In its early days, their main appeal was the lack of commercial segments and increase in control for the user, so, while a subscriber had no ownership of content, it was an upgrade from cable and torrent sites because it was succinct and easy. It was almost a perfect system that worked well in the face of its competition because of the focus on user experience. Cable fell as streaming became the new frontier, and developments began on the budding landscape that later came to tear it apart. Shows produced by streaming platforms began to be confined to them indefinitely; indie projects were subject to be abandoned, older or lesser-known media were shuffled off, while advertisements moved onto the scene. Torrent sites grew as well, developing a user interface that allows for free or cheap viewership with advertisements and slight risk of device corruption. In the current landscape, piracy is a reliable—but occasionally risky—alternative.
It is in this area where you can find “lost media,” content that at one point was openly available but has since been pulled or barred from the public market. There are entire communities and organizations that exist with the goal of creating copies, so they are accessible and not lost to time, one of the most well-known being the Internet Archive.
Given the state of the world, I developed the taste of reading banned books. More specifically, I seek out books banned in various parts of the US and buy physical copies. An alternative for those who cannot buy but still want to engage would be piracy, and that is not something I am willing to hold against them.
