🎙️ A Gamer’s Standpoint

“If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft.”

That phrase has been making its way around gaming forums, Reddit threads, and even YouTube commentary videos. It’s catchy. It’s provocative. It’s designed to make people pause and maybe even nod their heads in agreement. But every time I see it, I stop and think, is that really the hill we want to die on as a community?

Because if we take it seriously, if we accept that buying something we don’t fully control justifies taking it without paying, we’ve lost more than ownership. We’ve lost our compass.

🎮 Where This Saying Comes From

Let me start by saying this: I understand the frustration behind it. I really do.

We live in an age where ownership has changed. When I was younger, I owned my games. I mean physically owned them, discs, cartridges, boxes, manuals, even the maps or bonus posters folded inside. Once I bought a game, it was mine. I didn’t need anyone’s permission to play it, keep it, lend it, or revisit it twenty years later.

Today, that sense of permanence is gone. We buy licenses. We subscribe to services. We download digital copies that can vanish if a platform changes its policies or loses a license. Games are patched into something unrecognizable, or pulled from stores altogether. Servers shut down. DRM requires constant internet access even for single-player content.

So when people say, “If I don’t really own what I bought, then why not pirate it?”, I get where they’re coming from. But I also think we’re asking the wrong question.

🧭 My Stand: Piracy Is Still Wrong

Let me be clear. I believe piracy, in any form, is unethical. Even when companies do things I disagree with. Even when content is overpriced, geo-locked, or limited. Even when the system feels broken.

Because for me, this isn’t just about software or content access, it’s about principle.

Someone made that game. Someone wrote those lines of code, drew the characters, composed the music, designed the world. That work deserves compensation. Period.

When we pirate a game, no matter how justified we feel, we’re choosing to take something that doesn’t belong to us. We’re saying, “My frustration matters more than your effort.” That’s not rebellion. That’s entitlement dressed in protest language.

And in the end, piracy doesn’t fix the system. It bypasses it. And it pushes the cost of that broken system onto others, usually small developers who can’t absorb the hit.

🔍 The False Logic of the Slogan

“If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft.”

It sounds clever, but let’s break it down.

Just because a company sells you a restricted version of a product doesn’t mean you now have moral permission to steal it. The problem is false advertising, consumer rights, and digital policy, not the existence of the product itself.

That’s like saying: “If the house I bought comes with HOA rules, I have the right to squat in someone else’s mansion.”

It’s not the same thing.

Digital licensing may feel like a bait-and-switch, but piracy is still a conscious decision to ignore ownership and bypass creators. And when we blur the line between protest and theft, we lose the ability to advocate from a place of strength.

🧠 What We Can Do Instead

So if the system is flawed, and it often is, what do we do?

We push back ethically.

We support DRM-free platforms.
We advocate for clearer consumer rights.
We hold platforms accountable and demand transparency.
We buy physical copies when we can, and preserve what we legally own.
We speak up, not by stealing, but by organizing, educating, and voting with our wallets.

There are devs out there, especially in the indie space, doing it right. Giving us true ownership. Treating players as partners, not just wallets. Those are the people we uplift. That’s where change begins.

💬 My Personal Truth

For me, gaming has always been about connection. It’s where I learned strategy and patience. It’s how I bond with friends. It’s how I escape, explore, and sometimes heal.

But more than anything, gaming taught me to respect the effort behind creation. Whether it’s a AAA title or a two-person indie project, that content exists because someone put a piece of themselves into it.

So no, I don’t pirate. I won’t. Not even when a game is delisted or a publisher makes choices I don’t agree with. Not even when I’m frustrated. Because my values don’t vanish just because something is hard to get.

And if that makes me old-school, so be it.

🔄 Integrity Is the Real Ownership

Maybe we don’t own games like we used to. Maybe the digital age has complicated what it means to buy something. But one thing hasn’t changed:

We own our choices.

We own how we treat others’ work.
We own the example we set for our communities.
We own whether we hold the line, or cross it.

So no, I don’t believe piracy is ever justified. I believe in creators. I believe in fair exchange. And I believe that if we want to build a better system, it has to start with us, choosing to do what’s right even when it’s inconvenient.

Because integrity is the one thing no one can take from you.

🧩 Final Thoughts on Buying, Owning, and the Ethics of Piracy

We can demand better from digital platforms. We can fight for true ownership, better access, and honest systems. But we don’t need to lose our sense of right and wrong in the process.

Being a gamer doesn’t mean taking what you want because you’re angry. It means respecting the craft, the effort, and the people behind the screen.

And that’s a game I’ll always be proud to play.