History Main / DigitalPiracyIsOkay

* Olan Rogers [[https://twitter.com/OlanRogers/status/1761921875855212982 has openly supported]] piracy of ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'', a show he created that was ScrewedByTheNetwork and written off for tax money (leaving to it being pulled from legal distribution).

Beyond evangelism, reasons for this attitude may include boosting coverage and/or market share, sales of complementary goods, nurturing fan-added value, or a dim view of copyright law. The creator might be getting ScrewedByTheNetwork, and might encourage fans to pirate the work out of spite or to avoid giving the network any money.

* On a episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' the ''Music/KidRock'' like musician played by [[ShapedLikeItself Kid Rock]] has his next album leaked by one of his staffers. This placed him at number one on the suspect list, until he proved that the staffer leaked it on his own orders. A leaked album means more tickets sales.

* Valve and Steam's Gabe Newell stated back in 2011 that piracy is always a service problem and not a pricing problem. In other words, restrictive and intrusive DRM and lack of easy video game availability leads to piracy.

Beyond evangelism, reasons for this attitude may include boosting coverage and/or market share, sales of complementary goods, nurturing fan-added value, or a dim view of copyright law.

** They also released a video named [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uulMxLyiBZg "Why It's Morally Okay To Pirate All Of Sony's Games"]], released shortly after Sony announced they were going to shutter the Playstation 3 and Vita's online storefronts later that year[[note]]A decision that was since reversed due to massive outcry[[/note]], arguing that if Sony didn't want to make any money from legacy titles anymore, then you might as well pirate it.

* Being the cheeky Brits that they are, British Telecom's Telecomsoft division through their Firebird label released ''VideoGame/DontBuyThis'' for the UsefulNotes/ZXSpectrum as a rather savage way of mocking independent developers who, despite their best intentions, submitted games deemed by the public to be abysmally subpar. The real kicker here is when they outright ''disowned'' all copyrights to the game, encouraging people to pirate them at will to further humiliate those who were unfortunate enough to have their submissions included in this satirical compilation.
* Jim Davis gave Atari programmer Steve Woita (and by extension ROM sites) permission to distribute the unreleased ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' game for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600, which was to be released in 1984 if not for the UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983, being that then-Atari boss Jack Tramiel wasn't that up to paying the royalties for the comic strip franchise while they were in dire straits. The only condition for this free release being that redistributed copies of the ROM should include a copyright notice from Paws, Inc. and that no reproduction cartridges or commercial re-releases can be made.

** After the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 became infamous for its high rate of piracy and modding, Microsoft responded in an interesting way for its successor, the UsefulNotes/XboxOne. On one hand they invested heavily in beefing up the new console's security, but they also included a semi-hidden 'Dev Mode', which for a one-time payment of $20 allows anyone to develop and install custom software to their consoles, effectively creating a way to legitimise homebrew creations and emulation. To this day the Xbox One's security has not been fully cracked simply because Dev Mode has removed much of the incentive to do so, and its successor in the [[UsefulNotes/XboxSeriesXAndS Xbox Series X|S]] continues to include the Dev Mode feature.

* Mark E. Smith and Music/TheFall encouraged fans to make their own recordings of live shows.

->''"... if you wanna record this song and you wanna put it on a world wide web -- on the internet, so all your friends could listen to it - as long as you buy the album in September -- we don't give a fuck, my friends!"''

** The company deliberately chose not to copy-protect its ''Microsoft Entertainment Pack'' series of casual games to promote the Windows platform itself just as it was gaining traction in the PC market with 3.x and most games were written for MS-DOS. Microsoft wanted to convince consumer that Windows wasn't just for businesses. Given the nostalgia that many people who used Windows computers in the '90s feel, when many of the games came pre-installed on new [=PCs=], shows how successful this strategy is.

* [[http://xkcd.com/488/ This strip]] of ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' explains how even if you do buy online music legally, you could still [[MortonsFork end up as much of a criminal as someone who pirated their music]], thanks to the [=DMCA=]. This information in that strip regarding iTunes having DRM protection on its songs is outdated, as acknowledged by a [[http://xkcd.com/546/ later strip]]. Furthermore, it actually points towards a flaw in the DRM (i.e. inability to move the file to a new system) rather than anything else.

* Most people consider ''Machina/The Machines of God'' to be Music/TheSmashingPumpkins' final album before their reunion in 2005. This is because [[FaceOfTheBand Billy Corgan]] wanted to release its sequel, for free, to anyone who purchased the first one. When the label wouldn't let him, he pressed a mere 25 vinyl copies of ''Machina II'' and distributed them to friends, family and chosen fans, with ''specific orders'' to upload the entire album to the Internet without restriction.

* The creator behind DigitalPiracy allowed people to get full versions of the game while it was still in Alpha, mainly to help protect people from downloading Viruses. And because [[{{Pun}} you're pirating a game about piracy]].