For decades, I avoided piracy. When friends would ask why I bought movies when I could just download them, I'd talk about wanting to support content producers and wanting to pay my fair share for something I got enjoyment out of. I'm a software engineer, and as much as I value open source, I also appreciate the value of intangible intellectual property. I wasn't an anti-piracy warrior; I just felt that I should pay for the media I wanted to consume.
I've given up. I'm just not doing it anymore. I own hundreds of movies on VHS (hah), DVD, and Bluray. I own hundreds of movies on digital platforms, like iTunes, Prime, and Google Play (or whatever they call it now, if they haven't simply deleted my library). At one point I was paying for at least five monthly-subscription streaming services. I've spent many thousands of dollars on movies.
I've gotten screwed by them all. DVDs and Blurays with DRM that prevented me from copying them (first at all, then just legally). Fried a Bluray drive trying to flash the firmware simply so I could backup and format-shift movies that I paid for. iTunes movies that I couldn't play on my TV. iTunes movies that wouldn't stream at full resolution on some platforms. Limitations on how many devices I could authorize to watch movies that I paid for. iTunes still limits you to five authorized devices. I've got two TVs, four computers, two tablets, and a phone.
Streaming sites that I pay for introducing ads. Movies and shows constantly disappearing from streaming platforms to increasingly isolated silos that double their prices and halve their content offerings. Netflix locking my account because I'm traveling and accessing it from a different place every night. Netflix not working because I'm out of the country. Prices keep going up, content and usability keeps going down.
Despite all this nonsense, I still held the line and wanted to legally purchase all my media. So I built a $3000 media PC, bought a bunch of Bluray movies, bought a Bluray drive to rip them, and got ready to "really own" movies I wanted to watch, pleased that I was no longer going to be the sap who spent $20 on a barely-usable iTunes movie that I didn't actually own, but still feeling like I was doing the right thing.
Well, I couldn't rip most of the movies, because of DRM, which hurts pirates not at all, but strips honest people of their right to backup and format-shift. So I researched Bluray drives, found one that was supposed to work, flashed the firmware to use [some ripping software I can't remember], and it fried the drive.
That's it. I've had enough. Fuck every content producer on the planet. I've got a media PC with 32TB of storage and I'm going to fill that up with everything I can steal and then buy more HDs.
They had their chance. I hope they all go bankrupt. Assholes.