I myself would never pirate a piece of media. It’s illegal, and breaking the law is completely against my moral code. But for those who often do, I would like to offer some words of comfort. I firmly believe that in today’s day and age we should not feel guilty for piracy.

I believe the vicious criminals out there who frequent piracy sites simply aren’t stealing. It is more like taking back from those who steal from them.

At first glance, subscriptions to media outlets like Netflix, HBO Max and Hulu may seem like a good deal. Pay a couple of dollars a month, and you can have access to thousands of movies and TV shows. But as the monthly fees pile up and begin to feel never-ending, you may begin to realize that you are essentially forever paying for something you will never own.

Subscriptions are scams in disguise. Let’s say you wanted to watch the show “The Walking Dead,” and the only way to watch it is on Netflix, so you buy a subscription. But, unbeknownst to you, Netflix has the right to raise the cost of its subscription service at anytime. You pay for it begrudgingly, because you love “The Walking Dead,” only to realize that your favorite show has been taken off the platform.

If buying isn’t owning, then pirating isn’t stealing. You could loyally pay for a streaming service for years, only for the original price and the media that you love to disappear from the platform like nothing. That sounds like highway robbery to me. Big media companies’ obsession with making their pockets fatter has turned into flat-out stealing.

As if subscriptions aren’t pesky enough, advertisements have flooded every single facet of the streaming industry. I could be totally invested in a highly emotional scene, consuming the art the way the artist intended, only to be interrupted six times by an insurance commercial yelling at me to bundle my home and auto. So not only am I paying to never own, I am paying to view advertisements I never asked for.

The quality of media itself has gone downhill. Yes, Netflix may have thousands of movies and TV shows, but so many of them are simply lazy garbage put out for the sole reason of making a quick buck. The shows that are actually good either get cancelled after one season, or are renewed 5 years later when the actors look completely different, and the viewers have forgotten about the show.

Maybe piracy wouldn’t be so common if streaming platforms actually provided a decent service. As an upstanding citizen who pays for every single thing she has ever watched, I grit my teeth to defy the urge to type a piracy website in the search bar every time I watch something. If streaming services don’t want us to break the law, they shouldn’t make it so irresistible to do so.

Now, I don’t think piracy should be completely guilt-free. There are many people, writers, directors and actors who worked hard to create what you watch and who deserve to be compensated for that work. But until that work is distributed in a righteous manner and evil middle-man streaming services are cut out from the transaction, I will remain on team piracy.

It is a sick game these streaming services are playing, and I think media pirates are simply refusing to participate. As an outsider looking in, who is completely innocent of piracy, I understand the act of it. I see it as a rebellion and a refusal to be taken advantage of.