this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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How do piracy websites exist when games, movies and tv shows are so expensive and require quantillion bites to storage? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 day ago by Confidant6198@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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I pirate like crazy, but I never understand how these sites can exist with how costly they must be

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[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 day ago

Well there's a couple factors at play:

  • Some disgruntled people who are just frustrated with the current ecosystem of software/media gouging (Piracy of Nintendo and Sony ROMs are the first thing that come to mind, along with things like Adobe product cracks). Slogans would be things like "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing", and "It's always morally correct to pirate Nintendo games".
  • Places that ignore Western/International copyright law and don't seriously prosecute their citizens, who are then able to host databases where anyone can download/stream from, with income from ads and donations (Basically China/Russia, and some countries outside like Brazil)
  • Places where the price of purchasing legitimate media is just so insanely high (compared to average income) that having an online distribution network hosted no matter the risk would be the most accessible option (most notably Brazil with their high af import taxes, along with other LATAM nations). This is even seen in places that have no distribution officially period, such as Cuba's "paquete" (Literal HDDs and flash drives being smuggled with foreign data through informal networks)
  • "Software Cracker"/"Aaron Swartz" ideologists who believe information should be free and accessible to anyone, no matter what and who pride themselves on releasing protected media not out of financial gain or hatred for the publisher, but for online street cred and to "Democratize" information. This is most notable through shadow libraries like Anna's Archive.

There are probably other cases I have not mentioned, but these are the big ones.