- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.
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Piracy was never stealing, it was only copyright infringement.
Stealing is a crime that goes back to the 10 commandments, it’s old. When you steal something you take it from someone else, depriving them of it.
Copyright infringement is a newish crime where the government has granted a megacorporation a 120 year monopoly on the expression of an idea. If you infringe that copyright, they still have the original, and can keep selling copies of that original to everyone else, but they might miss out on the opportunity to make a sale to you. Obviously, that’s very different from stealing something.
The irony is, you pirating today has been shown to influence you buying it later on in a sale. And there’s a good argument to be made about your word of mouth praise helping their sales.
Biggest personal examples are Minecraft and FL Studio. I asked my parents to buy Minecraft for me after a week of pirating it, and I bought an FL Studio license when I could afford to, nearly a decade after I first used it. I don’t use it much, but it felt right.
yup, pirated jedi: fallen order. liked the game very much, but jedi: survivor wasn’t cracked yet. so i bought a key for 30€.
the problem is: it runs like shit, because it’s a bad PS5 port and denuvo probably also has an effect on that.
i will never buy from EA again.
It likely was the fault of denuvo, which ironically piracy would strip improving the experience.
Yup. I’m about to suggest about half a dozen people to watch a movie on Netflix I pirated last night. Leave the World Behind. I highly reccomend you see this to understand my last statement here. I have “suggested” to a few dozen people to watch Hulu for Firefly.
They don’t get my money because I don’t give a flying fuck to support the extortion of the people this tyrrany that’s been running since Crowley and even longer. Looks free but there was never an end to slavery. It just stopped giving a shit about your color. To counter, goes over everyone’s head one way or another. Doesn’t matter. All life will die on this planet in less than a decade.
Holy moly that comment took a turn.
Yeah, but did you get it at the “counter?”
No, I don’t get it.
The counter is that the slavery of everyone doesn’t mean they’re “not racist” by applying slavery “to white people too.” They’ve been enslaving white people since way before we came to the US. I am, by family, English & Irish. So just because I’m blond, blue and white don’t mean I’m not ready to WAR against slavery by the corporations or any bullshit hedgemony. Democratic party is as guilty as the republicans and their claim to fight is just sucker lies. They don’t fight shit for real and Biden is just Trumps most active cock sucking bitch.
I don’t mean this in any disrespectful way at all, but I’m completely missing the context of what you’re trying to tell me and genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.
Jesse, WTF are you talking about?
Sucks being uneducated, especially when folks don’t care to help because you’re a condescending dick about it. Not to mention religiously expletive.
RIP
Ditto.
As every musician knows, exposure is always better than payment! This is why you shouldn’t offer payment to musicians at your wedding, since they’re getting great exposure already. /s
That’s two very different cases. Using exposure to extort services out people is different than copying something to see if you’d enjoy it.
It’s really not that different. The main difference is the audience size. For an independent musician selling merchandise, it would be equally insulting to them to tell them that they will be repaid in exposure if they give you one for free.
Making a copy of something “to see if you’d enjoy it” or because it’s somehow great for their exposure is mental gymnastics to justify piracy. Let’s just call it intellectual property theft and stop beating around the bush.
Copying isn’t theft. You’re about 40 years late to this conversation and you’re starting from the taste of boots? You’re equating an instantly reproducible, finished product with a service; your analogy sucks.
The entire goal of my comment was to avoid mincing words. As somebody who has first hand experienced copyleft violation, it sure doesn’t feel different on the receiving end. I feel this very personal experience is equivocal to copyright infringement. I’m not licking any boots—thanks for that accusation.
It’s easy to excuse illicit behavior from your armchair by gaslighting with the choice of words, because after all, violating copyright is just sticking it to the man, right? In truth, I feel that my software was stolen for profit and just for me as the little man, there’s no other word that comes to my mind than “theft.”
You should write an open letter to hobbyists. It worked for Gates. If your software was “stolen for profit” and that didn’t result in more people trying it and buying, I have bad news: it didn’t seem like it was worth the money to the people who tried it. JRC does many studies on piracy and the data shows that total sales are not displaced by piracy volume, again and again. You can make the argument that this is only true for games and music (typically the subject of these studies) but this hardline attitude of it being the same as stealing sucks.
An associate of mine defines stealing as, “taking (either by cloning or removing) something (either digital or physical) of which is not of your original possession”
If anyone has a rebuttal, please help.
Edit: What’s with the downvotes? I’m on your side.
It’s not really a rebuttal, but by that assessment, a person may not view a webpage, as the browser copies files from a distant server for viewing.
It’s not so much a rebuttal, but ask if they think stealing has any relation to depriving another person of something. Imo, they have a correct, though extremely narrow, definition of stealing that doesn’t leave any nuance for comparing different kinds of stealing. Piracy, or as they would say ‘stealing digital media’ is not a kind of stealing that deprives another person of that thing, so clearly it’s somewhat different than stealing money or physical property.
If they aren’t willing to entertain that there are different kinds of stealing then they’re ignorant of reality and it might not be worth your time to try to change their mind.
It’s because that’s not a common definition and it’s not even a good one. No normal person would call cloning stealing. Also, this completely misses lending, gifting, downloading a webpage or even renting. All of those would be stealing under this definition.
Hi, welcome to the Technology community here on Lemmy! Discourse is not tolerated here, so please just tack on your endorsement of piracy and leave your civility at the door.
I never endorsed it. Sure, it may be justified, but that doesn’t make it legal.
Whoa whoa, we don’t take kindly to people telling us that. Only a boot-licking, brain-dead, corporate shill wouldn’t outright endorse piracy. Take your nuance somewhere else, pal!
Who cares what your associate uses as a definition, stealing / theft has long established definitions. You can just point and laugh and say that your associate doesn’t actually understand the words he/she is using.
You could say that you define agreeing as “thinking someone is completely wrong”, and that you agree with your associate.
The war of semantics is about as intelligent as the tweet that went viral where someone criticized trains requiring tickets. “Why are you charging me to get on? You’re going that way anyway.”
Good topic, good point, terrible writing. I couldn’t finish the article with the author’s ego and personal bias butting into his great story.
I honestly don’t see the same conceit you do, and I expected it before reading. I just read the author as a jaded evangelist.
Oh! Doctor Korkorow? Yeah I feel ya, I couldn’t ever really get through his writing either, but I know of him, about him, his opinions, values, dedicated work et c, I have nothing but respect and gratitude for for the dude.
Cory fights for the User!
I don’t see an article. And don’t you dare contradict me. You’ll be missing the point entirely.
I usually just assume that Im probably gonna agree with the thing so dont see the need to put more time into it. If it was something that I felt different about then maybe i might have, but as that is probably not the case there’s no need dragging it out for no reason.
Plus, they seem to be on top of the thing, so im gonna make sure to stay out of their way and leave them alone and let them do their jobs.
There’s little left to do at this point, and its not really my place to tell them how to do their jobs. Thatd be presumptious, as I might just as well know next to nothing about it compared to them. Why making it even more complicated than it already is? Its their job after all, not ours, and we have to respect that. Lol what would even the job be, that is not exactly information i would carry around so. Besides, i already have one other job anyway, so…
In the end, the important thing is that they are on top of it, and i bet i would feel more or less the same way even if the whole thing was another thing altogether, as long as i feel the same way as they do about it, and that theyre doing something about it instead of giving it time to grow, maybe into something even worse!
But regardless- something is being done, right now, by someone, right there. you dont see that sort of thing around much these days. Also doesn’t hurt that they could possibly have more insight into the details of the case than maybe anyone else.
I dont know how you guys feel about it, sometimes I’m not 100% sure myself, but i cant imagine i am going to feel any regret having maybe the best guys possible feeling more or less dead on the same way i do about it. Its practically guaranteed, think about it- if it werent for them, I could have never heard anything about it in the first place…
And as if that wasn’t all, here comes the icing on the cake- the same guys who first blew the lid off the whole thing to begin with can likely identify the deeper issues as well, and therefore should know how to change it for the better instead of some shmuck making it worse out lack of insight and proper research… Winnn!
At this point for all we know, literally any alternative could be a better option. In the end, regardless of every little detail of everything about this, they seem to be here to really do something- anything about it, and I think we might consider ourselves lucky that something is being done here at all.
You say an unholy bunch of nothing at all.
If this rhetoric was used in a conservative opinion piece instead of a pro piracy opinion piece, I’m pretty sure it would be banned for calling for violence towards specific individuals.
Guillotine preview image and quotes like:
Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.
Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery.
What a trash article and site. How is this permitted.
I’m pretty sure it would be banned for calling for violence towards specific individuals.
People with no attachment to reality might overreact like that, but the rest of us have reading comprehension on our side.
deserves to be staked out over an anthill
“deserves to be”: this is a phrase commonly used when people are basically venting, but it almost never suggests that someone should actually do the action. Just search for the phrase “deserves to be string up” and you’ll see just how common it is.
As for “over an anthill”, when someone describes an outrageous situation, that’s yet another clue that they’re venting, not proposing an actual action.
Honest people who read the news and opinion pieces should know this, so either you’re new to reading, or you’re dishonest.
Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive
Again, first day reading? Or just dishonest?
No, I’ve just been living in American for the past 30 years or so and have an understanding of what inflammatory and dehumanizing attacks on individuals and groups does to society. And even if it’s permissible based on the rules of this community, it’s still garbage journalism.
Living in American? What does that even mean?
Clutch those pearls a little tighter.
Is it too much to ask for civil, level headed, and nuanced discussion or posts?
Netflix and Amazon prime simply won’t work with VPNs active, which I use for work and privacy towards my ISP.
I won’t compromise my security for their bad services. Living in a non US country, we are also always several years behind on content being offered.
Yeah, nah. The paying customer always pays for the percieved sins of non customers.
Set sail.
With the right VPN they do. Mostly no problems with Proton VPN
Piracy was never stealing. It’s copyright infringement, but that’s not the same as stealing at all. People saying it’s stealing have always been wrong.
YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A PURSE
I look forward to this gem being repeated along with “enshittification” by the dunning krugers at large
the way i see it, on big budget productions anyone who is relying on their paycheck to survive already got paid for their work, and the ones collecting royalties or sales percentages are rich enough that i couldnt care less. smaller independent studios or individual creators are the ones that i will always support, and in cases like itch.io games that are pwyw i will take the free download and figure out how much i will pay based on how much i like the game.
If there is no easy way to own what you buy, then piracy becomes a moral obligation to preserve culture for future generations.
You want something, but you don’t want to pay the cost (either monetarily or because they have made it too hard) and so you take take it. Fuck these assholes companies who try to milk people for every last penny, so I have no moral qualms with piracy, I do it myself.
But, fuck, can we stop trying to paint it as some noble thing? Effectively zero pirates are doing it to perseve culture, instead it’s fulfilling personal desire.
This is chaotic neutral at best, not neutral good.
I think there’s an exception to be made in your argument for abandonware. There are classic arcade games that wouldn,'t exist any more but are widely available due to MAME support.
The Nintendo eShop shutdown is another example of preserving software through piracy.
Normally people pay to see the circus, but you could just sneak in though. It’s not exactly stalling, so what do you call that? The circus is still there, but you didn’t pay for it.
If lots of people start doing that, the circus probably won’t have enough money to keep on performing. Maybe they’ll get rid of the more expensive bits and just keep the cheaper ones in the future.
That’s a bad analogy because there’s finite space for people to watch the circus, meaning that seating for the show they conforms to fire codes, etc. is finite.
It’s also a bad analogy because someone who sneaks into a circus trespassing, not stealing.
I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. As you pointed out, people sneaking in are taking space from people who would be willing pay for the service.
If you could somehow sneak into Netflix and take some of their bandwidth or their ability to provide the service to paying customers, then the analogy would work. In reality though, people pirate Netflix shows and movies by torrenting, and that has no impact on Netflix’s bandwidth.
The way I see it, circus and digital videos are a service. You are supposed to pay for both, but you can easily see both of them for free. Comparing these two with stealing just doesn’t work IMO.
You could also compare it with watching a football match from the other side of the fence. Although, in reality, you wouldn’t get a very good view of the game, whereas torrenting movies gives you a great view. Interestingly, the football example doesn’t involve trespassing, but you still get to enjoy a part of the service. All analogies break at some point.
What would you call it if you buy a piece of art and hang it on your wall, then a couple months later the company that sold you the art comes into your home, takes the art away, and says you don’t own it anymore?
If enough companies do that people are going to stop paying for art.
That company is also going to show you the agreement you signed that says they can do that, which is the current situation with digital goods. People are still buying them.
That company is also going to show you the agreement you signed that says they can do that
Nobody said otherwise. The argument isn’t “this is illegal”, it’s “this is bullshit.”
People are still buying them.
And the argument being put forward is that people shouldn’t be.
If that was a normal purchase, then that’s clearly theft.
If it was art leasing, there’s probably a long contract with details about a situation like this. No matter what the contract says, the local law might still disagree with that, so it can get complicated. The art company might be violating their own contract, although it is unlikely. The company might be within the rights outlined in the contract, but they might still be breaking the law. You need a lawyer to figure it out.
Well it was sure we fuck presented as a normal purchase. Adding legal text to where you sign the cheque saying “you may come to my house and take this away at any time” doesn’t make it less bullshit.
The world is full of bad contracts. It’s truly sad that we decided to accept them without making numerous alterations here and there.
It’s not possible to make changes to a digital contract. The only option is to not make the “purchase” and acquire it elsewhere.
More people should let the service provider know that their contract sucks and that they refuse to pay for the service under the proposed conditions. Most people don’t even read the contract, so I don’t think the situation is going to improve any time soon.
I’m legit unsure whether your argument is purposely bad or you just don’t know that it is.
It’s a thousand times better than this empty garbage. How does this have any upvotes?
What does that even mean?
Ownership is compromised a bundle of rights. If it’s your bundle, you can split them up however you want, sell whatever kind of limited or unlimited licenses that can come up with, and this applies to real, personal, and intellectual property.
If it’s not theft, why does the greed and unfair practices of the industry matter? Why does there need to be any justification or excuse?
Should definitely have a right to repai; with any other property right you generally have a duty to maintain the access to your interest. I recently unlocked a bunch of premium features in my car. HD radio, comfort window roll down (rolls down 2" with a tap") auto tailgate close (had auto open, but not close, had to hit a button on the lid to close), auto side mirror tilt down in reverse, roll down windows from keyless entry, close tailgate from keyless entry.
If I understand the interface at all, it’s pretty openly accessible (if you have the right OBDii port adapter and software, which ironically you need to buy a license for). Code looked fairly straightforward, and by that I mean it looked like other computer code I’ve seen. Wonder what the original price was for those extras were from the dealership, probably over 10k.
If it’s not theft, why does the greed and unfair practices of the industry matter?
Because it tears at the fabric of Humanity. It’s a ‘death by a thousand cuts’.
Humanity constantly needing to be on guard and pushing back against being taken advantage of by people who want to charge them multiple times for the same thing in different ways, especially the ones that used to be free, over and over again.
Fighting that is pushing back against unfairness, which is one of the root beliefs of Humanity.
I think piracy is copyright infringement. But like who cares if some big corpos get infringed upon by some dudes.
I think a compromise on copyright could be a good middle ground in future. In the same way that I’m happy to wait for a game to go on sale before I buy and play it, I’d be happy to wait until a movie or series enters the public domain so I can consume it without paying. Obviously not for hundreds of years, or 56 years. But if Netflix/HBO etc shows and movies became free to watch after 6-7 years, most piracy traffic could be easily captured by legal platforms that are more convenient and accessible to more viewers. I struggle to see how it would not further relegate piracy to a niche activity done by very few, or be bad for the content producers in any significant way
Heads up! Plex media server with the Plex clients on all your devices is such a smooth experience. Highly recommended. And their “Watch together” feature is so nice for people that prefer to stay in bed and spend the winter binge watching next to a warm body.
Heads up! Plex is garbage and enshitefying their own services to make more money.
I’ve seen this quote repeated over and over these past few weeks, while noone brothers to actually explain what it means and why. This article is no different unfortunately.
When you spend money on something, let’s say one of those movies from PlayStation, you don’t actually own that movie, there is no file given to you that is yours. You are just given access to it. And then, out of no where, they can take that away from you.
When you pirate something, you are just creating a copy of the file, you aren’t taking away the original file.
So, the argument here is that morally pirating is okay because no one is losing anything, aside from potential sales for the company I guess. But on the flip side, the company is essentially stealing from you because they took your money, and you aren’t allowed access to what you bought.
The most morally just position in this case would be that if you were one of those customers who paid for and then lost access to said movies, and then you pirated them back, you could say that the company had already made their money on you, and you’re owed those movies.
In my opinion, I don’t think pirating from any million / billion dollar company is bad even if you didn’t “own” it originally.
The fact that no product is missing anywhere means it’s not stealing.
If you rent your car from Mercedes and I make a copy of it, the only change is that I’ve not copied your car, I’ve copied Mercedes’.
I thought this community was for tech related news, not tech related OpEds.
