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Re:Pirating the Pirates by settsu on Monday September 28, 2026 @04:58PM (#49884239)
As others have said, it's certainly justifiable for anything with rewatchability. You can find 1080p Bluray players at thrift stores for under $20 (it took some patience for me to find a relatively newer one that was more compact and didn't have a slow interface), and Blurays are usually under $5.

I've come across sealed Blurays or even the occasional former Blockbuster rental so it's actually kind of fun in a record-crate-diving sort of way, if you're into that. But of course you can always just buy new, which you'll probably have to do in some cases: the odds are against me finding Koyaanisqatsi at the thrift, let alone the Criterion Collection Qatsi Trilogy, but I'm okay with that.

Re:Pirating the Pirates by hobo123 on Wednesday September 30, 2026 @01:24AM (#49904701)
The problem with physical media is that often they are scratched, sometimes even unwatchable because of it.

The kids tried renting some kids series from the local library, but none of the DVDs were readable.

Re:Pirating the Pirates by account42 on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:50AM (#49964185)
I don't know about libraries, but from my experiences buying second hand DVD's and Blu-Rays, unreadable discs are very rare. Pressed discs can take a lot of abuse and still read fine.