Should People Pirate Media?

On August 14, thousands of anime fans mourned the loss of the largest anime piracy website, KissAnime. Even with its sketchy ads, malware, and “Are You A Robot” checks, KissAnime was a staple within the anime community for providing fans around the globe with thousands of series for free that you couldn’t find elsewhere. However, the closure of the site has allowed a classic internet debate to surface once more: should people pirate media?

Now, what exactly is online piracy? Well, online piracy is downloading and distributing copyrighted content, such as music or software, digitally without consent of the original creators. In short, online piracy is theft. So, if online piracy is illegal and is technically stealing… then why do people do it?

Although there’s multiple reasons why people illegally download content, many argue that piracy is justified by being the only way to access certain titles and for preservation and archival purposes.

To start off, piracy is usually the only way many people can access certain shows, games, anime, etc. This argument has many parts to it, so I’ll attempt to explain the primary reasons. First is that some games or shows are what’s known as region locked. As the name suggests, this is when something is only accessible in certain places around the world. This includes TV shows, video games, and even certain songs. To experience these pieces of media, many have no choice but to turn to piracy.

Take the cult classic Mother franchise, for example. Better known as Earthbound in the west, only 2 of the 3 available Mother video games have been officially released outside of Japan. Almost 15 years later, Nintendo still hasn’t let the game leave its’ country of manufacture officially because of unknown reasons, however it’s speculated to be due to the games’ depiction of drugs and transgender women. For those who have played the first two games in the series and want to play the next one, there’s only one choice: find a fan translation of the game online and play it illegally.

Not to mention, some services aren’t available in every country such as Steam, an online platform with a library of thousands of games from indie and major developers, and Crunchyroll, a legal anime streaming platform. Steam isn’t available in third world countries like Ethiopia, and Crunchyroll is just barely coming to countries such as Mexico. Having entertainment blocked just because of where you live gives people incentive to pirate even more.

Another reason online piracy is on the rise because of competition in services and their exclusives. To be more clear, people pirate because of how much money it would cost to have access to exclusive content. As an example, owning one or two streaming services can cost somewhere around $15 to $25 a month, but try having every major streaming service. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and more --- it can cost a lot. This also goes for video game consoles and anime. Video games have their console exclusives as well, and not everyone can pay $300+ every time a company releases a new console. Because anime streaming services often get exclusive licensing for their shows, you would need 5+ subscriptions just to keep up with the current airing season and even after paying over $300 in half a year, you STILL don’t have access to every single anime. To save money and for one’s convenience, many turn to piracy. There’s a reason exclusives are among the most pirated shows.

More justification for online piracy comes in the form of inaccessible media. Take the video game Scott Pilgrim vs. the World the Game for example. This “beat-’em-up” styled game, created in 5 months by Ubisoft Chengdu, featured a funky art style and a great chiptune soundtrack and was once available for download via Xbox Live Arcade alongside the Playstation Network, but has since been removed along with its DLC possibly because of the license expiring. This game, which many remember fondly, has never had a proper re-release since. Once more, piracy is the only way to get any form of “lost media”.

With the mention of lost and unobtainable media, piracy is useful for the archival and preservation of media. Nothing is forever–many already count on computers and such to save their treasured pictures and videos. If that’s the case, then why can’t we count on them to save any media? There're tons of obscure and old games, anime, shows, and so much more only available through piracy or paying hundreds to get a copy of them. Piracy helps continue a piece of media’s legacy such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was messy when it came to rights ownership and lived on through illegal anime streaming sites and bootleg dvds on eBay until it was officially licensed by Netflix a few years back.

In fact, we only know about one of the most famous films in classic horror because of piracy. Nosferatu was a horror film produced in 1922 based on Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. Although a rip-off of Bram’s novel, Nosferatu started the vampire genre that we know and love today. To sum it up shortly, a while after Nosferatu first premiered in Berlin, Florence Stoker, the widow of Bram Stoker, received a package in the mail containing a poster for Nosferatu. Because the line “Freely adapted from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” was on the poster, Florence took legal action against Prana-Film, the studio in charge of the film. However, Prana-Film was already bankrupt from poor business decisions. When Florence learned she wouldn’t be making a dime off the existence of Nosferatu, she did everything in her power to destroy all copies of the film. Luckily, Nosferatu was difficult to kill and lived on as pirated bootlegs.

Even though one can attempt to justify piracy, there are still many reasons one shouldn’t do it. Piracy is still theft and is a crime. Millions in revenue are being lost because of it, and this can affect the production and budget of any future titles, sequels, and seasons. Also, the video game and anime industries are in terrible places; developers and animators already don’t receive good pay, and piracy doesn’t exactly help that. These hard-working people deserve to receive money for their work.

Piracy truly has its fair share of pros and cons. On one hand, you can get a piece of entertainment for free and won’t go to jail for it. On the other, pirating affects the original creators and how they continue to work from then on. Whether you continue pirating or stop doing so is up to you, but try to understand the affect your actions have on inspiring creators and yourself.