But in both cases you have the option to pay - yet choose not to. If money wasn’t an issue, there wouldn’t really be any reason to pirate anything. That’s why I see piracy as a financial decision, and thus I don’t think piracy advocates have any ground to stand on when they criticize AI companies for doing the exact same thing. It’s not identical, but it’s equivalent.

One could even argue that individual piracy is selfish because it only benefits the one person doing it. AI companies at least are providing a product that hundreds of millions of people get value out of - and the vast majority of them get it for free.

I didn’t think I’d need to explain the difference between saving money and earning money but here we are.

When you earn money, you get a check you can spend on more stuff. When you save money, you don’t get a check - that would be earning, not saving. Instead, you’re spending less, which means you have that money left to buy something else. Those savings are effectively what you “earn.”

When you download a $40 movie for free, you’re left with $40 more to spend on something else. It doesn’t matter whether I hand you $40 to buy the movie or you pirate it - in both cases, you end up with the exact same amount of money afterward.

Company is run by individuals.

I have no idea why you need to start insulting me now.

What you get from pirating is not having to pay. Purchasing a movie still gives you the same entertainment and cultural capital.

Nobody is obligated to hand out for free something they put time, effort, and capital into creating and running. If someone can justify to themselves that it’s okay to download it for free, then criticizing AI companies for doing the exact same thing is hypocritical on their part.

Making money and saving money achieve exactly the same thing: you end up with more to spend.

Does this work both ways? If Cuba can do it, then AI companies can do it too? Or are we just gonna keep running with the double standards?

I frankly never quite understood why so many piracy advocates lose their minds when AI companies do the exact same thing they do. I don’t buy the “but it’s for profit” argument either - downloading movies, games, or apps does the exact same thing. There’s no practical difference between saving money and earning money.