History Main / DigitalPiracyIsEvil

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'', you can try and convince demons to join your party if they like you enough. They randomly ask what your hi-tech helmet does, and one of the possible answers is that it plays [[UsefulNotes/ReadOnlyMemory ROMs]] easily. If you choose this answer, the demon proceeds to call you "worse than a demon" before instantly attacking you.

When you start a commercially released [[Platform/{{VCR}} VHS tape]], Platform/{{DVD}}, or [[Platform/BluRay Blu-ray Disc]], they usually open with verbose, [[UsefulNotes/UserOperationProhibitFlag unskippable]] screens from the FBI or Interpol warning the viewer massive fines and time in jail can happen as a result of piracy. Many [=DVDs=] also include a [[PublicServiceAnnouncement PSA]] in the beginning about how piracy is wrong. In the most extreme cases, this segment can't be skipped... sometimes the disc can't even be stopped while it's playing. Ironically, the person who's logically most likely to see it is someone who legally paid to own a copy, because those who end up distributing these downloads like to edit them out. In Europe this can lead to three almost identical warnings in German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), two in Dutch (The Netherlands and Belgium) at least three in French (France and Belgium and Switzerland again), two in Italian (Italy and, you guessed it, Switzerland), two in English (the UK and Ireland), a number of very similar Slavic languages as well as a number of similar warnings in the Nordic countries.

See also NewMediaAreEvil, EvenEvilHasStandards, FelonyMisdemeanor, CopyProtection. See UsefulNotes/DigitalDistribution for a form of media which can be tarred with the same brush. For the common catalyst on both sides of the argument, see UsefulNotes/{{D|igitalRightsManagement}}RM. Similar arguments are occasionally made against FanFic by authors, complete with the analogy to stealing cars. Also, see InternetCounterattack for one example of what happens when the pirates throw tantrums, as well as FlameWar for what happens when pirates and anti-pirates collide online.

When you start a commercially released [[UsefulNotes/{{VCR}} VHS tape]], UsefulNotes/{{DVD}}, or [[UsefulNotes/BluRay Blu-ray Disc]], they usually open with verbose, [[UsefulNotes/UserOperationProhibitFlag unskippable]] screens from the FBI or Interpol warning the viewer massive fines and time in jail can happen as a result of piracy. Many [=DVDs=] also include a [[PublicServiceAnnouncement PSA]] in the beginning about how piracy is wrong. In the most extreme cases, this segment can't be skipped... sometimes the disc can't even be stopped while it's playing. Ironically, the person who's logically most likely to see it is someone who legally paid to own a copy, because those who end up distributing these downloads like to edit them out. In Europe this can lead to three almost identical warnings in German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), two in Dutch (The Netherlands and Belgium) at least three in French (France and Belgium and Switzerland again), two in Italian (Italy and, you guessed it, Switzerland), two in English (the UK and Ireland), a number of very similar Slavic languages as well as a number of similar warnings in the Nordic countries.

* In ''ComicBook/PS238'', Zodon makes passing reference to Herschel possessing illegal [[UsefulNotes/MP3 MP3]]s, dubbing him a "Relativist" after he's forced to move cables used for sharing said [=MP3s=] as punishment for inside-trading of stocks.

* The ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmZm8vNHBSU "Piracy: It's A Crime"]]'' ad first gives you several "you wouldn't steal <item>" examples, and then says, "but downloading pirated films is stealing". It then feels the need to point out that stealing is against the law. The ad is also translated into other languages, such as this French ad: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sODZLSHJm6Q "Le piratage, c'est du vol."]]

* Gaming Wildlife, a production of Channel Awesome, has released videos about video game piracy and emulation, which in general come off as paid corporate-sponsored propaganda videos. The videos make such wild claims as "people who pirate games are naturally bad at games" and generally try to guilt, shame and insult anyone who doesn't pay money.

* Marvel Zombies 3 has a particularly [[SpaceWhaleAesop out there lesson]] by showing a cyberpunk world where people consume media through cybernetic implants. An evil Jocasta of that world sets off a ZombieApocalypse by installing malware in a pirated copy of a highly popular show that makes people it infects mindless cannibals.

* In the pirated version of ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', Batman's glider cape will stop working after a set point, making the game {{unwinnable}}. This yielded an epic moment where one pirate asked on Rocksteady's forums how to fix the "bug" and was told [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "It's not a bug in the game's code, it's a bug in your ''moral'' code."]]. This ultimately backfired when the buggy behavior starting cropping up in legitimate copies.

* In ''ComicBook/PS238'', Zodon makes passing reference to Herschel possessing illegal [=MP3s=], dubbing him a "Relativist" after he's forced to move cables used for sharing said [=MP3s=] as punishment for inside-trading of stocks.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyDadTheRockStar'' had an episode where some music pirates recruited Buzz to steal a copy of Rock's latest song. Willy and his friends replaced it with a song Rock's fans didn't like.

** In "[[Recap/FuturamaS1E9HellIsOtherRobots Hell is Other Robots]]", one of the sins Bender is being punished for in Robot Hell is selling bootleg cassettes ([[{{Zeerust}} in the year 3000]]). Cheating others and forging [=IOUs=] (both forms of stealing) is level two of Hell whereas piracy (another form of stealing) is level five. And, to add salt to the wound, he's punished by the artists he bootlegged in the first place: the Music/BeastieBoys.

** During the Platform/GameBoyAdvance era, a line of Game Boy Advance Video cartridges were made for the titular handheld. These were white cartridges that contained full movies (including ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'', ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'', and ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale'') and television show episodes, compressed to fit the GBA's hardware limitations. These cartridges were incompatible with the Platform/NintendoGamecube's Platform/GameBoyPlayer accessory, as they would simply boot to a "Not Compatible with Game Boy Player" screen and lock up, preventing anyone from recording footage from the cartridges using a VCR for the purpose of selling bootleg VHS tapes. Even if one does manage to get the cartridges working on the GBA Player via hacking, the larger screen does not do any favors for the low video quality.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNp_0S_MN0s The second ad]] contains side by side comparisons of pirated and Disney videos, had background music called "Disney is Magic, Disney is Joy", and featured such lines as "Mum, it's no good, the picture's all fuzzy!" and "I can't hear it!"

* ''VideoGame/{{Neptunia}}'' has UsefulNotes/NintendoDS flashcarts (and Custom Firmware) as the BigBad. Yes, this trope is applied literally InUniverse, and even justified: the patron goddess of each console grows weaker if they lose market share, and nobody benefits from pirate sales.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} game ''Lionheart'' had an "Info" screen questioning whether a game for "a pirate tormented machine" that took "four young and idealistic, but nevertheless PAID people" 16 months of effort to make would be able to pay off its development costs, and warning people who copied the game, "I hope you won't run around complaining that there are no good action titles for your machine anymore. Not we decide to quit developing those for the Amiga. You do. You did." Unfortunately, the prediction that ''Lionheart'' might be "the last action game by Thalion" proved correct, as Thalion folded the next year; fortunately, programmer Erwin Kloibhofer and graphic designer Henk Nieborg went on to develop similar games for other systems at Creator/{{Psygnosis}}.

* The UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} BeatEmUp ''VideoGame/FrankoTheCrazyRevenge'' was developed in early-1990s Poland, where software piracy was not yet illegal. However, developers World Software found a way to get back at pirates regardless: at the end of the second level, you must beat up the real-life owner of a pirate software store in Szczecin, where the developers lived!

* Game programmers can get livid about their creations being distributed illegally by pirates. They can leave angry rants hidden in the code, for instance. One programmer, Richard Aplin, decided instead to mock the pirates' SmallNameBigEgo personalities by writing [[https://tcrf.net/Final_Fight_(Amiga)#Developer_Message a rant hidden in the code]] of the UsefulNotes/{{Amiga}} version of ''VideoGame/FinalFight'', which opens:

** During the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance era, a line of Game Boy Advance Video cartridges were made for the titular handheld. These were white cartridges that contained full movies (including ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'', ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'', and ''WesternAnimation/SharkTale'') and television show episodes, compressed to fit the GBA's hardware limitations. These cartridges were incompatible with the UsefulNotes/NintendoGamecube's UsefulNotes/GameBoyPlayer accessory, as they would simply boot to a "Not Compatible with Game Boy Player" screen and lock up, preventing anyone from recording footage from the cartridges using a VCR for the purpose of selling bootleg VHS tapes. Even if one does manage to get the cartridges working on the GBA Player via hacking, the larger screen does not do any favors for the low video quality.

* One open source dev, chrisps, suddenly had this rationale and proceeded to add an anti-piracy measure to an emulator of all things. The Canary branch of the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 emulator Xenia got a brief update near the end of July 2023 where loading a game's ISO (a common file format for game [=ROMs=]) would cause it to [[SensoryAbuse let out a high-pitched beep]] (funnily enough, only on Windows, so other OS users were spared). All because the emulator's Discord server [[ApathyKilledTheCat got swamped with users asking about piracy]], while also (accidentally) dragging in the ones that did dump their own copies since they also use the same format. The change was reverted, [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech but not before the dev got several choice words from the users and other devs]].

* The cells in the police station in ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest I'' hold a great big ScaryBlackMan. His crime? Video game piracy, naturally.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer: Red Alert 2'' has a rather hilarious and mean one, if the game detects it's been pirated, then, no matter what, a few seconds after starting any map, your units, buildings and everything will EXPLODE. Resulting in an instant loss.

-->Hope this is your registered copy of Wolfenstein 3-D. If not, then we've got a problem. We need you to call Apogee and register. If you don't, well, [[ShameIfSomethingHappened it's funny how hard drives can get--you know--erased and all]]. I'd be a-registerin', if I was you.

-->"For those of you who have paid for SHADOW OF THE SERPENT RIDERS, we hope it made all your nightmares come true.\\

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' parodies this attitude with the questgiving NPC Censorbot, a Hyperion loader obsessed with conservative values and, obviously, censorship in particular. The second quest he gives you sends you to a literal pirate den, where you kill pirates and collect physical copies of their pirated "ECHO sims"; Censorbot feels death is the only appropriate punishment for their crime, and openly wishes all DRM could simply shoot the user in the face.

* In ''Videogame/PokemonFireRedAndLeafGreen'', an anti piracy message that says "By the way, if you like this game, buy it or die" will activate by using a Seagallop Ferry when playing a dumped ROM version of the game. Ironically, this was actually added in by the hackers that dumped the ROM originally, and isn't in the official game code.

* They're putting these warnings [[TheInternetIsForPorn on porn [=DVD=]s]], of all places. Porn producers have an advantage in that some of their material can embarrass even the most brazen pirate. Some companies concentrate their copyright-infringement efforts on their kinkiest products in order to maximize the potential embarrassment of fighting them in court.

-->"Have you ever bought or rented a video tape that wasn't quite right? It may have been a pirate copy. An illegal and inferior copy for which you paid good money. Pirated tapes are recognisable by poorly presented or photocopied jackets, poor sound and/or picture quality, the lack of censor and other labels on the face and spine of the tape, and the absence of warnings, such as this at the beginning of the tape presentation."

-->"Pirate copies are recognisable by poorly presented or photocopied jackets, poor sound and/or picture quality, or the film not being quite as good as you remember. You may find that, somehow, ''WesternAnimation/TheChipmunkAdventure'' just isn't as much fun as it was on that chilly Sunday morning in 1993, no matter how accurately you recreate the pillow fort you watched it from. This lack of fun is probably because it's a pirate copy, not because you're now 31 and the eight original members of the sleepover you've gathered for the repeat viewing don't seem super into it and are actively trying to leave through that door you locked."

* Music/TheEraserheads were featured in the Joey de Leon comedy film ''Run Barbi Run'', with a subplot involving their efforts at cracking down on a crime syndicate who were bootlegging their music. Around that time, illicit duplication of cassette tapes and CDs was rampant in developing countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia, hence why record labels and artists themselves took action to curb on pirating.

* One open source dev, chrisps, suddenly had this rationale and proceeded to add an anti-piracy measure to an emulator of all things. The UsefulNotes/Xbox360 emulator Xenia got a brief update near the end of July 2023 where loading a game's ISO (a common file format for game [=ROMs=]) would cause it to [[SensoryAbuse let out a high-pitched beep]] (funnily enough, only on Windows, so other OS users were spared). All because the emulator's Discord server [[ApathyKilledTheCat got swamped with users asking about piracy]], while also (accidentally) dragging in the ones that did dump their own copies since they also use the same format. The change was reverted, [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech but not before the dev got several choice words from the users]].

** In "I Dated a Robot" those who facilitate illegal downloads will also [[SpaceWhaleAesop unleash killer Lucy Liu-bots to protect their sinister racket]]. In ''this'' case what's being downloaded illegally is personality imprints painfully derived from heads-in-jars being held prisoner for the purpose. ''Slightly'' different from a normal recording. Downloaded from [[spoiler:Kid]]nappster.com!
** In a bit of a more ''old-fashioned'' version of this trope, in "Hell is Other Robots", one of the sins Bender is being punished for in Robot Hell is selling bootleg cassettes ([[{{Zeerust}} in the year 3000]]). Cheating others and forging [=IOUs=] (both forms of stealing) is level two of Hell whereas piracy (another form of stealing) is level five. And, to add salt to the wound, he's punished by the artists he bootlegged in the first place: the Music/BeastieBoys.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWPfcEOr2Yg Spoofed]] with the [[FunWithAcronyms Downloading Often Is Terrible]] extra on the ''Bender's Game'' DVD, which parodies that "You wouldn't do crime X" ad by having [[JerkAss Bender]] reply that he ''has'' done those things.
** Also, "A Clone of My Own" features the opening subtitle, ''"Coming Soon To An Illegal DVD"''.

** In "A Date with the Health Inspector", Jazmine's father Tom condemned his wife for downloading music not for any moral reason, but out of an irrational fear of being caught and sent to prison (and then being anally raped).
** In "...Or Die Trying", after Granddad forced Jazmine to accompany him and the boys while they sneak into the movies, an ad that played before the movie compared digital piracy (and "stealing movies") to murder and featured a movie stuntman who said that it hurts when someone "steals all that work". Jazmine started crying, said "I'm sorry, Mr. Stuntman," and wanted to turn herself in to her father, the assistant district attorney. The actual episode ends with Huey saying they should have just downloaded the movie off the Internet instead of sneaking into the theater.
* The ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS7E9ChristianRockHard Christian Rock Hard]]" has the kids download at most 2 songs from the Internet, but within seconds of the deed being done, the house is then stormed by FBI agents as if they were Waco or something. Afterward, the lead FBI agent takes them around the houses of various musicians who, as a result of illegal downloading, are now forced to buy slightly ''less'' glamorous private jets (ones without a remote control for the surround sound plasma screen TV and DVD entertainment system), not being able to buy a French-Polynesian island, or waiting a few weeks for luxuries rather than buying them now, as if it were a Christmas episode and the villain was being shown all the orphanages that were suffering as a result of his stinginess.

--->''We get ‘em straight after the yanks, so fuck The Pirate Bay.''\\
''If you’re compelled to torrent stuff then make it Series/GameOfThrones''\\
''And do your legal viewing here, coz South Park’s coming home!''

* In ''VideoGame/Hitman2SilentAssassin'', specifically the mission "Tunnel Rat", you will find your target (an Afghan terrorist) in a back room, checking out his stash of contraband. The target will be in his closet admiring his pirated copies of ''Hitman''.