In Defense of Piracy: Why Access Should Outweigh Ownership

Piracy is a contentious issue, often framed as a clear-cut case of theft versus rightful ownership. Yet, as with many matters in the digital age, reality is more nuanced. While it's true that creating media -- films, books, music, games -- takes time, talent, and money, it's equally true that the rigid structures of media distribution and pricing have failed to evolve in step with modern technology and global accessibility. In this context, piracy emerges not as a moral failing, but as a symptom of a broken system, and, for many, an act of necessity or resistance.

1. Digital Goods Are Not Physical Goods

At the heart of the piracy debate is a fundamental misunderstanding: digital goods are not physical goods. When someone shoplifts a book from a store, the store loses a copy and incurs a financial loss. When someone downloads that same book illegally, no physical item is missing from the shelf. The producer is not deprived of an object. They are, at most, deprived of a potential sale.

But what if the person pirating the book never had the means or intention to buy it in the first place?

2. Poverty and the Myth of the Lost Sale

A large segment of pirates are not choosing piracy over purchase, they are choosing piracy over nothing. In many parts of the world, even a modest subscription to Netflix or a single game purchase is out of reach due to economic hardship, currency differences, or lack of local availability. For these individuals, piracy is not a malicious act, but a lifeline to art, culture, and education they would otherwise be denied. To argue that these people are "stealing" is to ignore the reality that their access does not equate to a lost profit.

If the option is piracy or nothing, the producer has lost no more from piracy than they would have lost from total inaccessibility.

3. The Vanishing Past: Preservation Through Piracy

Art and media are not always eternally available. Licensing issues, legal disputes, or simple corporate neglect often lead to media being taken off shelves and streaming platforms, locked away in vaults or forgotten entirely. When games go unpatched for new operating systems, when films are never released outside a specific region, when TV shows vanish mid-series, piracy becomes the only means of preservation. These are not pirates seeking to avoid payment, they’re archivists, cultural historians, and nostalgic fans trying to keep art alive.

Without piracy, countless pieces of media would simply cease to exist in any accessible form.

4. Access Over Profit: The Frustration of Legal Consumption

Then there are the users who can afford to pay, but find the legal options so convoluted or exploitative that piracy becomes the more rational choice. In today’s fragmented streaming economy, watching a few popular shows might require subscriptions to five or more services, all with different prices, platforms, and regional restrictions. Add to that intrusive ads, DRM restrictions, and poor user experiences, and you get a marketplace that feels like punishment, not convenience.

Ironically, piracy often offers a better user experience: one file, no ads, no subscriptions, and instant access. Why punish users for choosing the easier, cleaner option?

5. Not Theft, But a Message

Ultimately, piracy is not a monolith. It’s not always right, and it's not always justifiable. But it is a response, a message to the industry that accessibility, pricing, preservation, and customer experience matter. People aren’t pirating media just because they can, they’re doing so because the system built to sell media is often inaccessible, incomplete, or inhospitable.