Piracy, unlike riding a bike, is something you forget. And usually quite quickly. As a teenager in the 2000s, David, now 37, was among those who illegally downloaded music using software like eMule or Kazaa. However, in early 2025, when he wanted to find a way to download a few songs for free to play on his 2-year-old son's children's speaker, he had to start from scratch. Where to download? How? From whom?

This customer relations manager, who did not want his last name published – as was the case for other interviewees – spent several days scouring the internet. His hard-won solution came from a message posted by another somewhat tech-savvy parent, whom he had found by chance on a forum dedicated to the device in question. The post explained the basics of "ripping," a widely used piracy technique (about 50% of pirated music in France is acquired this way, according to the European Union Intellectual Property Office, EUIPO), which allows users to "grab" audio or songs found on a legal platform.

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