Would you teach your kids how to pirate?

My gf and I have had discussions about teaching morals to kids. In that vein, I asked myself, would I teach piracy to my kids? Yes, it’s technically illegal and carries inherent risks. But so does teenage sex carry the risks of teenage pregnancy, and so we have an obligation to children to teach them how to practice safe sex. So, is it necessary to teach them how to stay safe in the sea? How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.

I definitely want my kids to know about libgen. Want a book you want to read about? Wanna learn about dinosaurs from a college level textbook for whatever reason? Just go to libgen, son!

And I attribute most of my computer literacy and education to piracy, trying to install cracks to various games, trying to make games work, and modding the fuck out of skyrim as a young teenager. That, and also jailbreaking android phones. All the interesting things i’ve ever done with computers was probably against some BS terms of service.

So, is piracy something you would actively teach your kids? Sit them down and teach them how to install a Fallout 3 FitGirl repack? Or is this something you’d want them to figure out themselves?

FriendlyBeagleDog ,

It's not as though the existence and mechanisms of piracy are a coveted secret. There's a decent chance that they'll learn about and attempt it independently, and the method they learn about online might expose them to greater risk than if they did it with more consideration.

On that basis, I think that knowledge transfer is at worst harm reduction. If it's immoral, which I don't believe it is, then at the very least your intervention could prevent them from being preyed upon by some copyright troll company when they do it despite your silence or protestations.

dutchkimble ,

I'd never thought about this but when the time comes I'll teach my sons, but hopefully they'll tell me some new way I don't know yet. Also a true pirate should check out Usenet.

scoobford ,

I'd teach them once they are old enough to understand it on a technical level, as well as the potential consequences.

And I find your comparison to sex ed very strange. Sex is something they will do with huge consequences if they fuck up. They need to understand it, and they need to understand it early.

aldalire OP ,

Yee idk just a showerthought

Omgboom ,

Of course, if I didn't they might end up using a public tracker to download torrents

halm ,
@halm@leminal.space avatar

If the way you navigate online life is based on your reflections regarding safety, convenience (and anticorporate, possible anticapitalist sentiment), why not pass your advice on? It might save your kids from getting caught pirating.

ReversalHatchery ,

Adblockers? Absolutely! The good adblockers (ublock origin with more lists enabled) also help to thwart trackers.

And by your example, yes, even piracy, not just because I agree with doing it, but because if they will be going to do that too, they could as well do it safely, to the extent it's possible.

Interestingly, as I read your post, a lot of topics align already with what I deem even more important: privacy. It seems it's not only the words that are similar.

AnarchistArtificer ,

Comment that I'm adding on a couple of friends'. One lives in Norway, one lived in India. They told me that both of these places have an issue with accessing media and other digital goods legitimately, often finding themselves willing but unable to pay for something (I was surprised to hear this about Norway — my friend speculates that Norway is small enough that it might simply be forgotten about when big media companies negotiate rights). They both said that VPNs and piracy are way more normalised in their home countries, because it was either that, or miss out on loads of stuff.

Feel it's useful and important to highlight that the degree to which piracy is normalised depends on where you are.

MachineFab812 ,

ANY
DAY
NOW

We pay for subs to damn near every streaming service. I am constantly having to send them the passwords or even reset the passwords(to the same password), so they can login devices they've logged on a hundred times.

JasSmith ,

I hit my limit years ago when Netflix removed the (then) very good rating system in favour of their algorithmically gamed thumbs up/down. Then they started auto playing content when one hovered over it. Then they started cutting third party movies and shows in favour of their own… content. I was paying a lot for the privilege of an inferior experience. Now I have a Plex server with everything I like in one place, no ads, and real ratings on the content. Sonarr and Radarr are my favourite apps ever.

MachineFab812 ,

I use ... Plex ... as a gap-filler, but I don't become aware of the gaps(in what-I-thought-I-had-subbed-and-actually-had-paid-access-to-for-years versus what-is-actually-still-available) anywhere near as quickly as each of my children.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Absolutely. If I had any

Appoxo ,

I would not teach them safe piracy but rather safe computer literacy and usage.
Exactly like you said: How to spot fake ads or scams etc..
But if my child would like a book from XYZ and they would pirate it I would question the motive instead of getting it from, for example, a library.
Doing illegal shit out of convenience (like pirating a book instead of showering, getting out and enter a library searching for it) is still illegal. Even if you juat read what you want and put the book back in the shelf.

I would also firewall the shit of the little buggers computer. Also no account witg admin/sudo rights.

KillingTimeItself ,

i would teach my kids that piracy is the natural market force to push corpos and companies into ethically (or at least more ethically) distributing content.

I would also teach my kids that if one were to pirate media, they should also find a way to support whoever it came from directly, assuming it's a band or small artist, rather than something like a TV show, where it'll make no difference.

Maerman ,

I'll only say no to this question because I don't want to have kids. But I taught my mom how to pirate, and I'm proud of that. I believe that piracy is not a morally neutral act. It is morally good. Pro-piracy is an ethically good stance to take in this age.

JasSmith ,

I’m a capitalist but even I think visual media needs a come to Jesus. If they had adopted the Spotify model everyone would be a lot happier. I would be paying for content still. Instead they broke up into a dozen different services with walled content. This is so stupid. I have no qualms keeping my own collection when this is the paid offering.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

Isn't that an argument of monopoly by Netflix would be better?

JasSmith ,

No. See Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Tidal. They all contain something like 99% content overlap. You can subscribe to any of them and access almost all music. The difference is price, performance, UX, and features.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

I'm not sure that's true of TV series. I'm not arguing for monopoly by the way. Exclusives are anticompetitive and that's bad!

neon_commie ,

Do you own a factory or something? Believing capitalism is the best economic system does not make you a capitalist.

EatATaco ,

I haven't taught my kids. . .yet.

However, they know that if they can't find something they want to watch, they just have to ask me and I'll get it from them. . .and that (sarcastically) "daddy is just borrowing it from the internet" so I think know what's going on.

AnarchistArtificer ,

Ah, you must have access to the same internet library that my Dad used whenever I'd give him my iPod and a list of music, and he'd return it to me full of music. I don't remember when I realised that he was pirating stuff, probably about the time that I started pirating stuff.

Faceman2K23 ,
@Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Sonarr/Radarr etc make it very easy and safe for media, but apps and games would be more of a serious sit down and talk kind of situation as more can go wrong there.

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