Is the argument here that something must be owned to be stolen? I don’t think ownership is contested, just who is the owner. Or is the argument that pirating also isn’t owning… Or… What? Just tit for tat and it looks like the thoughts should be related somehow? I’m all for sailing the high seas and for right to repair / software ownership, but the two concepts are independent as far as I can see.
Idk, if I’m going to try to reproduce this mental gymnastics I should really stretch first: I don’t want to pull something and end up a sovcit.
They just don’t want to consider that it’s possible to steal from the people who made the game even if paying for it doesn’t guarantee you’ll own it forever.
No you’re not if it’s infringing on someone’s copyright and you would agree with me if you ever created something you were trying to sell to make a living.
The idea is that people buy a cd but record companies and some trolls want to make you believe you dont own whatever is on it just a license which is mental gymnastics. You are right.
Are you saying buying a song and buying the rights to a song are the same? That would be a pretty smooth brain statement.
If you are saying that your personal and non-commercial use just a license in that it is in any way revokable after purchase, then yes I agree with you.
You have to buy it (the rights for music or movie) to do as you please in an unlimited fashion, not buy a COPY of it. Otherwise it’s personal use only.
The difference being that you not buying the moon rock doesn’t affect a person that worked to produce that rock whereas pirating a copy of a game because you decide you don’t want to pay money for it because you fear you might not be able to play it permanently, that’s work theft, you’re profiting off the work of a person/team by enjoying the product they made to sell without compensating them.
I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate it if your boss came up with a similar way to justify not paying you for the work you do and he told you “Oh no, in not stealing anything!”
They’re clearly working on the principal of “might makes right” considering that every single digital media company has had instances of “selling” customers media, and then deciding to make it impossible for the customer to use said media, and they never give refunds.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Since they are legally people, and they have all the power, then clearly it’s ok for the rest of us to be thieves, just like them
A lot of games for example you can buy on GoG, and archive the installation file. That is probably the closest you can come when it’s about owning closed source software. Pirating games that are buyable on GoG is simply stealing money from the creators for no other reason than being greedy and cheap.
Well, GoG does have a lot of games but only few of the latest games that we want to try out. Or could i buy, say, Diablo 4 on GoG? Dave the Diver? Enshrouded? Sons of the Forest? Borderlands? Not even Sims?
Given how DRM has tanked the performance of many games or has rendered them unplayable at some point after release and in some notable cases even after release for a while… I was never entitled to being able to play a game with DRM anyway.
Yes, not even the games i bought. The Need for Speed copy i got which uses SafeDisc which has been unsupported since Vista? Nope! The copy of Colin McRae Rally 2005 which uses StarForce DRM which can mess with my drive as a whole? Nope! SimCity 2013 which i didn’t buy but read the news that the EA servers couldn’t handle the influx of gamers? Nope! Gran Turismo 7 which i also didn’t buy but read the news of where Sony couldn’t handle the influx of gamers almost as if they didn’t learn a single goddamn thing from SimCity 2013? Nooooooooooope!
DRMs would be less contentious if they didn’t somehow mess with the experience of the honest paying users. The worst thing that could happen back in the 80’s and 90’s was perhaps LensLok which didn’t work too well with some CRT screens but also was rarely used. In other cases you had to have the game manual or the funny looking Dial-A-Pirate disc from Monkey Island which could be at worst mildly annoying.
However in the pursuit of profit companies started to really fuck shit up for paying users. Back in early 2000’s it was StarForce “just” making your drive not work anymore or, say, your SPORE key “just” not installing anymore after the third install. But nowadays you need a spare NASA computer for a game that without Denuvo could be working fine on a regular old gaming pc. And there’s not even a guarantee that you can keep ANYTHING in perpetuity that you bought digitally, which is what OP initially complained about. If users don’t get custom servers up quickly, all users can do with their copy of The Crew is to screenshot the Steam page, print it and wipe their ass with it. Same with all those Warner shows on Playstation Video and some shows and ebooks from Amazon IIRC. And remember how i mentioned that SafeDisc stopped working? Without No-CD cracks i couldn’t even play those games even though i have bought them. We don’t have that problem nowadays thanks to discs not necessarily having any game files anymore. Just an installer for the digital storefront and the code, that’s it. Except Garfield - Lasagna Kart for the Nintendo Switch… IT DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING CARTRIDGE AT ALL! JUST AN EMPTY GAME COVER! AND NOT EVEN AN ESHOP-CODE! YOU HAVE TO REDEEM A CODE ON MICROIDS.NET TO GET AN ESHOP-CODE! IF OR RATHER WHEN THAT SITE GOES DOWN AND YOU WANT TO BUY A COPY IN A STORE, PERHAPS WITH A GARFIELD CASE FOR THE SWITCH LIKE I DID, YOU’LL HAVE ONLY A CASE FOR A SWITCH AND ENOUGH SLOTS TO NOT PUT IN THE GAME YOU SPENT MONEY FOR!
If i buy a game legally and in turn am not entitled to keep a physical copy, create a digital backup copy or even to having that copy work (not necessarily working fine, compatibility issues are bound to happen)… I don’t feel like game companies are entitled to my money. Piracy is less convenient than buying a game but the value proposition of actually keeping a game… i have a hard time to truly denounce it. Especially when i think about switching to Linux and know that many digital storefronts make trouble on Linux in one way or another.
I have been thinking about a possible solution a few years ago: Selling full game copies via NFTs. A token that contains all the game files. The token would be created on demand when a user wants to buy the game. The DRM would only have to check whether the token was present in the wallet and that’s Too bad that NFTs are computationally quite expensive and whatever blockchain i would store the copy on, they want their miners to be paid. That’s by the way the reason NFTs only hold links to whatever you buy. Also if digital store owners actually wanted to allow users to resell games, sites such as G2A wouldn’t probably be seen as dubious. Finally my solution wouldn’t stop the arms race between crack groups and game companies. It would lessen the incentive a bit, but at an insanely high ecological and monetary price point.
Now… Wait.
Is the argument here that something must be owned to be stolen? I don’t think ownership is contested, just who is the owner. Or is the argument that pirating also isn’t owning… Or… What? Just tit for tat and it looks like the thoughts should be related somehow? I’m all for sailing the high seas and for right to repair / software ownership, but the two concepts are independent as far as I can see.
Idk, if I’m going to try to reproduce this mental gymnastics I should really stretch first: I don’t want to pull something and end up a sovcit.
They just don’t want to consider that it’s possible to steal from the people who made the game even if paying for it doesn’t guarantee you’ll own it forever.
The copyright troll known as “publisher” just will pocket all money you think you paid to people who made the game.
Option one: pay for game, some money goes to publisher, some goes to creators
Option two: pirate game, no money goes to anyone
Which one helps the creators?
Option three: Donate to creator or buy something directly from them to help offset the cost of pirating.
Pirates: Nah I’m good fam. I just want free shit because I’m too poor and don’t get paid enough.
A donation or purchasing something else doesn’t legally or morally entitle you to owning an unrelated product made by the creator though…
it’s immoral to prevent people from sharing tools or stories or songs or skills. i’m entitled to enjoy whatever someone wants to share with me.
No you’re not if it’s infringing on someone’s copyright and you would agree with me if you ever created something you were trying to sell to make a living.
copyright is an immoral government-enforced monopoly.
The idea is that people buy a cd but record companies and some trolls want to make you believe you dont own whatever is on it just a license which is mental gymnastics. You are right.
Are you saying buying a song and buying the rights to a song are the same? That would be a pretty smooth brain statement.
If you are saying that your personal and non-commercial use just a license in that it is in any way revokable after purchase, then yes I agree with you.
You can keep your derogatory language to yourself.
I‘m saying if you buy a song, movie, art piece It is yours to do with as you please, forever.
Thats what buying means.
You have to buy it (the rights for music or movie) to do as you please in an unlimited fashion, not buy a COPY of it. Otherwise it’s personal use only.
Sorry if that’s too subtle to grasp.
As I said, thats the legal definition. Slavery used to be legal, abortion is illegal in many places.
I dont care about your definition of right and wrong. If I buy something, it is mine.
Blocked for repeated derogatory language.
It’s because people do not want to pay creatives because you can’t physically touch stuff creatives produce.
I take a rock from the moon, nobody owns the rock nor the moon. I don’t think I’m stealing it then. I’m just taking it.
So yes, something needs to be owned in order to be able to actually steal it.
The difference being that you not buying the moon rock doesn’t affect a person that worked to produce that rock whereas pirating a copy of a game because you decide you don’t want to pay money for it because you fear you might not be able to play it permanently, that’s work theft, you’re profiting off the work of a person/team by enjoying the product they made to sell without compensating them.
I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate it if your boss came up with a similar way to justify not paying you for the work you do and he told you “Oh no, in not stealing anything!”
They already have. Wage theft is by far the largest form of theft in the US, and they certainly try to claim that it is legal.
So it makes it ok to do it too?
They’re clearly working on the principal of “might makes right” considering that every single digital media company has had instances of “selling” customers media, and then deciding to make it impossible for the customer to use said media, and they never give refunds.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Since they are legally people, and they have all the power, then clearly it’s ok for the rest of us to be thieves, just like them
How about the creators?
It’s funny because so far all the pro pirating arguments ignore the creators, the work they do and the fact that they have to make a living too.
Nah bro, piracy because we don’t wanna pay.
We don’t mind paying. If it is actually owning and convenient.
A lot of games for example you can buy on GoG, and archive the installation file. That is probably the closest you can come when it’s about owning closed source software. Pirating games that are buyable on GoG is simply stealing money from the creators for no other reason than being greedy and cheap.
Well, GoG does have a lot of games but only few of the latest games that we want to try out. Or could i buy, say, Diablo 4 on GoG? Dave the Diver? Enshrouded? Sons of the Forest? Borderlands? Not even Sims?
If you can’t buy it DRM free and don’t want to buy it with DRM then you’re not entitled to being able to play it.
Given how DRM has tanked the performance of many games or has rendered them unplayable at some point after release and in some notable cases even after release for a while… I was never entitled to being able to play a game with DRM anyway.
Yes, not even the games i bought. The Need for Speed copy i got which uses SafeDisc which has been unsupported since Vista? Nope! The copy of Colin McRae Rally 2005 which uses StarForce DRM which can mess with my drive as a whole? Nope! SimCity 2013 which i didn’t buy but read the news that the EA servers couldn’t handle the influx of gamers? Nope! Gran Turismo 7 which i also didn’t buy but read the news of where Sony couldn’t handle the influx of gamers almost as if they didn’t learn a single goddamn thing from SimCity 2013? Nooooooooooope!
DRMs would be less contentious if they didn’t somehow mess with the experience of the honest paying users. The worst thing that could happen back in the 80’s and 90’s was perhaps LensLok which didn’t work too well with some CRT screens but also was rarely used. In other cases you had to have the game manual or the funny looking Dial-A-Pirate disc from Monkey Island which could be at worst mildly annoying.
However in the pursuit of profit companies started to really fuck shit up for paying users. Back in early 2000’s it was StarForce “just” making your drive not work anymore or, say, your SPORE key “just” not installing anymore after the third install. But nowadays you need a spare NASA computer for a game that without Denuvo could be working fine on a regular old gaming pc. And there’s not even a guarantee that you can keep ANYTHING in perpetuity that you bought digitally, which is what OP initially complained about. If users don’t get custom servers up quickly, all users can do with their copy of The Crew is to screenshot the Steam page, print it and wipe their ass with it. Same with all those Warner shows on Playstation Video and some shows and ebooks from Amazon IIRC. And remember how i mentioned that SafeDisc stopped working? Without No-CD cracks i couldn’t even play those games even though i have bought them. We don’t have that problem nowadays thanks to discs not necessarily having any game files anymore. Just an installer for the digital storefront and the code, that’s it. Except Garfield - Lasagna Kart for the Nintendo Switch… IT DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING CARTRIDGE AT ALL! JUST AN EMPTY GAME COVER! AND NOT EVEN AN ESHOP-CODE! YOU HAVE TO REDEEM A CODE ON MICROIDS.NET TO GET AN ESHOP-CODE! IF OR RATHER WHEN THAT SITE GOES DOWN AND YOU WANT TO BUY A COPY IN A STORE, PERHAPS WITH A GARFIELD CASE FOR THE SWITCH LIKE I DID, YOU’LL HAVE ONLY A CASE FOR A SWITCH AND ENOUGH SLOTS TO NOT PUT IN THE GAME YOU SPENT MONEY FOR!
If i buy a game legally and in turn am not entitled to keep a physical copy, create a digital backup copy or even to having that copy work (not necessarily working fine, compatibility issues are bound to happen)… I don’t feel like game companies are entitled to my money. Piracy is less convenient than buying a game but the value proposition of actually keeping a game… i have a hard time to truly denounce it. Especially when i think about switching to Linux and know that many digital storefronts make trouble on Linux in one way or another.
I have been thinking about a possible solution a few years ago: Selling full game copies via NFTs. A token that contains all the game files. The token would be created on demand when a user wants to buy the game. The DRM would only have to check whether the token was present in the wallet and that’s Too bad that NFTs are computationally quite expensive and whatever blockchain i would store the copy on, they want their miners to be paid. That’s by the way the reason NFTs only hold links to whatever you buy. Also if digital store owners actually wanted to allow users to resell games, sites such as G2A wouldn’t probably be seen as dubious. Finally my solution wouldn’t stop the arms race between crack groups and game companies. It would lessen the incentive a bit, but at an insanely high ecological and monetary price point.