Piracy is still justified.

Piracy is still justified, especially now more than ever.

Way back in 2011 I wrote an article titled “Piracy is justified“, where I criticized the poor quality of media and software and used that as justification for piracy. Fuck paying for things when I can get them for free, especially crappy things.

It’s now 2023, and I still stand by my statement: Piracy is completely justified. In fact, in this day and age I’d say it’s justified more than ever.

With the advent of streaming services, I slowed down on pirating media a lot. It was simply easier and more convenient to pay Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and whoever else a few bucks a month to have access to entire libraries of movies, TV shows, and music. I wasn’t breaking the bank, my combined monthly spending on streaming services was barely $40. Streaming was easy, cheap, and convenient. Sure, I didn’t actually own any of the movies or music and was basically just leasing it all, but I didn’t mind. My favorite shows, songs, and movies would always be available on-demand, and it saved me the time of tracking down a torrent and risking an annoying letter from my ISP. Plus, using a service made it easier to discover new content that I might not have found otherwise.

It started with movies being removed from services. Netflix wanted to focus more on creating their own content, and slowly began removing other shows and movies. It was common for me to search something out only to receive “Titles similar to…”. Rights holders were getting more and more involved, and they were also getting more and more greedier. Soon other companies began releasing their own streaming services, where stuff produced by them could be found. You wanted to watch Adult Swim stuff? Go to HBO Max. Star Trek? Paramount Plus. Always Sunny? On Hulu. Now everyone has their own streaming service with their own libraries of movies and shows. There’s so many services with so many different shows it’s enough to make my head spin.

Then came the price hikes. Slowly, the prices started going up every year. I started out paying Netflix $8 a month for a wide selection of content ad-free. Now it’s in the ballpark of $20 a month. Hulu, Disney, Paramount Plus, and HBO Max have all had similar price hikes. I’m currently paying somewhere around $100 a month for all the various streaming services I have.

I’m not sweating $100 a month, I’m lucky enough to not be that poor. What bothers me the most about this is that these services not only jack their prices up every year now, but they also continue to remove content and replace it with trash. We can’t get another season of The Orville but we can keep getting more Real Housewives and garbage Marvel capeshit spin-off series?

I already mentioned my biggest gripes with Spotify in a previous article, but I didn’t mention one big issue in particular: Artists being able to remove their music on a whim.

In 2022 some whiners decided that they wanted Joe Rogan removed from Spotify, because anyone even slightly to the right of left is an evil Drumpf-loving fascist Nazi devil and literally Hitler. In a surprising move, Spotify refused to deplatform their number one podcaster. In response to Spotify’s refusal to remove Rogan, multiple artists pulled their music from Spotify in protest, one of the most vocal being Neil Young. I’m not a Neil Young fan by any stretch, but there’s one song in particular I like that he made. During his time with the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Neil had writing credits for the song “Ohio”. But because Neil threw a temper tantrum over Joe Rogan, myself and millions of others can no longer listen to that song on Spotify. Sure, we could listen to it on Amazon Music or one of the other countless services, but why should people have to sign up and pay for more services just to hear your music dude? Great job caring about your fans Neil you self-righteous conceited prick. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Obviously my rage isn’t just because I can’t listen to a Neil Young song on Spotify. The entire incident highlights a bigger problem: Others have full control over what you can watch or listen to, and there’s too many goddamn services to choose from.

We’re at a point now where everything is scattered across a hundred different services, and these artists and companies can just remove stuff on a whim. What’s more, they’re not just removing stuff, but they’ve also edited stuff too in the name of political correctness. Disney has always been notorious for going back and removing stuff from their movies or simply not releasing them altogether (as a kid I got to watch a bootleg VHS tape of Song of the South with Japanese subtitles), but the advent of Disney+ has made it even easier for them to go back and cut out “undesirable” dialogue and scenes. And since they never stop buying out other companies, other classic stuff is now getting censored by the Mouse, including episodes of The Simpsons. I’ve also noticed that the censorship seems to be heavily focused on criticism of China.

Other services are also doing the same thing. I’ve noticed a few episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Hulu that have been edited or outright removed. I’m sure I could find more examples of services removing and editing stuff, but that topic would probably be enough to warrant several new articles of its own.

In the last article I complained about the quality of the media, saying that most of it was generic thoughtless mass-produced crap. Nothing’s changed. If anything, it’s gotten worse. Now everything has to have left-leaning political commentary and social justice bullshit crammed into it. Hey assholes, I’m watching a fictional story because I want to get away from the bullshit of the real world. Stop injecting your politics into my distractions. Whatever happened to just telling an entertaining story? Now we need to hit imaginary diversity quotas and constantly be reminded that white people are evil or some other load of crazy bullshit.

I have no problem with promoting an anti-racism message or calling attention to an overlooked social injustice. I also have no problem with things like changing the race of an established character if the casting choice is good or the race change can be used to tell a good story. For example, I would have loved nothing more than to see Idris Elba as the next James Bond, he’s a great actor and would have brought an impactful and meaningful performance to the role. But these social justice retards ruined that by making the whole thing solely about race, and Elba turned down the role because he knew he was only being considered because of racial pandering bullshit. You don’t cast Idris Elba just because you need to virtue signal to other rich white retards that you’re progressive by casting a black man as James Bond. He’s Idris motherfucking Elba, you cast him because he’s a great actor and a perfect fit for the role in his own right. I hate SJWs and virtue-signaling assholes so much it’s unreal.

Stop changing the races of established characters for political brownie points, and stop injecting your political bullshit into literally everything. There’s a time and place for political commentary, and that time and place isn’t always every single movie and show you fucking make. Seriously, they’ve turned even the most innocuous of shows into political commentary shitfests. They ruined fucking Animaniacs. How do you ruin the fucking Animaniacs? By turning it into a giant conservative-bashing fest. Seriously, you guys used to make fun of both sides, what the hell happened there?

How does all of this tie into piracy being justified? It’s simple: I want to make the movie, TV, and music industries bleed.

I’m fed up with their bullshit.

I’m tired of having to pay a hundred different subscriptions for shit that they can revoke or edit on a whim. I’m tired of the yearly rate hikes. I’m tired of the apps that don’t fucking work right half the time. I’m tired of them churning out nothing but political propaganda. I’m tired of being called a racist if I say their shitty race-changed remakes suck. I’m a racist? No, you’re just an untalented fraud who has to resort to controversy to generate sales because you can’t create good original content, and I’m going to bleed you dry by pirating fucking everything. Hell, I pirated the Little Mermaid reboot. I ain’t actually watching that shit, but I did it anyway out of principle on the off-chance that anyone I know wants to watch it and I can take money and views away from Disney by letting them watch it at my place. Fuck you, Mouse.

Starting now I’m cutting the streaming services and keeping my hard-earned money by building my own media server, and I encourage those of you who can afford it to do the same. Grab a few terabytes worth of storage, pay the $5 or so a month for the VPN (I know I’ve criticized paying to pirate before, but nowadays VPNs are the smart move and fairly affordable), and torrent the hell out of everything you want to watch. Plex is free and it works. Build your own media library, free from arbitrary censorship and copyright bullshit. If you’re as tired of the entertainment industry’s bullshit as I am, join me in not funding it anymore. If enough people stop giving them money, they’ll either change their shitty practices or they’ll go bankrupt. We’ve seen this tactic used on Bud Light, it works. Let’s use it for something actually worth using it on.

Media, AJnet is officially putting you on notice. Your time is up. We’re coming, we’re not pulling out, and we’re not gonna pay child support either.

Nah but for real why are there so many goddamn streaming services and why do they gotta keep pulling good stuff down, shit’s fucking annoying.

12/5/23: Need more proof that piracy is completely justified? Sony recently announced that, due to licensing issues, any Discovery-owned content users have purchased on the PlayStation Store will be removed at the end of the month, and no refunds will be issued. Get fucked, Sony.