Wants to Violate and Pirate Shows of a Slow Service

18-2-2023 | IslamWeb

Question:

Regarding the issue of piracy, recently I have subsribed to a service offering some shows legally, however the service itself is slower than pirate sites, uses more internet, and is not optimal, would it be permitted for me to pirate the same shows that this service provides as long as I'm paying for the service itself.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

You do not have the right to copy those programs and infringe on the producer's copyrights on the excuse that the party that provides them to you is slow and that you pay the service price to that party or otherwise. This does not justify copying those programs, even if it was for personal use.

The view that we adopt here in Islamweb is the absolute prohibition of violating the programs and their copyrights, and this is the view of most jurisprudential councils.

Allah knows best.