The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • @[email protected]
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    32911 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      18211 months ago

      One of the great modern scams, was to convince society that unauthorized copying of data is somehow equivalent to taking away a physical object.

      • @[email protected]
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        7211 months ago

        Jesus didn’t ask for permission to copy bread and fish. It’s a clear moral precedent that if you can copy you should.

        What would the Jesus do?

        Checkmate Atheists!

      • @[email protected]
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        -5111 months ago

        Literally no one thinks that. But you know that already, don’t you?

        It’s theft of intellectual property…

          • @[email protected]
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            811 months ago

            Once again with the strawman.

            Intellectual property is not a thought that you own. It’s an idea or digital creation. Something that actually takes time to make, often a whole lot of time. Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.

            I love how you guys play these mental gymnastics to justify this shit to yourselves.

            • @[email protected]
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              1011 months ago

              You seem to not understand what the word own means and the difference between material and not material goods.

                • @[email protected]
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                  911 months ago

                  I have a thing and than someone takes it away, so I can’t use it anymore. If somebody copies that thing - it’s not really theft.

                  My point is more - concepts from physical world don’t nessessary apply to digital world.

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              I love how you guys play these mental gymnastics to justify this shit to yourselves.

              I love how you bootlickers always deny that anyone could possibly have a principled objection to modern intellectual property laws. I don’t need to “justify” at all. I rarely even pirate anything, but I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong when I do.

              • @[email protected]
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                -411 months ago

                I love how you bootlickers always deny that anyone could possibly have a principled objection to modern intellectual property laws.

                Wow look that’s 3 strawman in a row, you guys are exceptional at fabricating fictional arguments to tear down.

                • @[email protected]
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                  611 months ago

                  If you’re going to use that word you should at least know what it means so you don’t sound stupid.

            • @[email protected]
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              011 months ago

              “Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.”

              Just telling on yourself 😂

            • @[email protected]
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              -111 months ago

              Intellectual property is not a thought that you own. It’s an idea

              Ah, it’s an idea, not a thought. Gotcha. Glad you cleared that up.

              Something that actually takes time to make, often a whole lot of time.

              Who the fuck cares? Dinner also takes a great deal of time to make.

              Something you never would have dedicated as much time to if you couldn’t be compensated for it.

              That’s not true. People have been telling stories and creating art since humanity climbed down from the trees. Compensation might encourage more people to do it, but there was never a time that people weren’t creating, regardless of compensation. In addition, copyright, patents and trademarks are only one way of trying to get compensation. The Sistine chapel ceiling was painted not by an artist who was protected by copyright, but by an artist who had rich patrons who paid him to work.

              Maybe “Meg 2: The Trench” wouldn’t have been made unless Warner Brothers knew it would be protected by copyright until 2143. But… maybe it’s not actually necessary to give that level of protection to the expression of ideas for people to be motivated to make them. In addition, maybe the harms of copyright aren’t balanced by the fact that people in 2143 will finally be able to have “Meg 2: The Trench” in the public domain.

              • @[email protected]
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                111 months ago

                Why should an artist not be paid but a gardener or someone who build your house is supposed to be paid?

                After all, humans build stuff and make stuff with plants without compensation all the time.

                You just sound like a Boomer who thinks work is only work when the product isn’t entertaining or art.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 months ago

                Who the fuck cares?

                People who are not human fucking garbage care. If your position is that you simply don’t care about stealing from someone else what they spent years of time and money to create, you’re just a trash person and this conversation is moot.

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          Intellectual property is a scam, the term was invented to convince dumb people that a government-granted monopoly on the expression of an idea is the same thing as “property”.

          You can’t “steal” intellectual property, you can only infringe on someone’s monopoly rights.

          • @[email protected]
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            211 months ago

            This feels like an easy statement to make when it applies to Disney putting out new Avatar movies. Then, suddenly, you realize how extensively it causes problems when you’re a photographer trying to get magazines to pay for copies of the once-in-a-lifetime photo you took, instead of re-printing it without your permission.

            “InfORMaTioN wANts tO Be FrEe, yO.”

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              Then, suddenly, you realize how extensively it causes problems when you’re a photographer trying to get magazines to pay for copies of the once-in-a-lifetime photo you took

              That’s a pretty specific example. Probably because in many cases photographers are paid in advance. A wedding photographer doesn’t show up at the wedding, take a lot of pictures, then try to work out a deal with the couple getting married. They negotiate a fee before the wedding, and when the wedding is over they turn over the pictures in exchange for the money. Other photographers work on a salary.

              Besides, even with your convoluted, overly-specific example, even without a copyright, a magazine would probably pay for the photo. Even if they didn’t get to control the copying of the photo, they could still get the scoop and have the picture out before other people. In your world, how would they “reprint” it without your permission? Would they break into your house and sneakily download it from your phone or camera?

              • @[email protected]
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                111 months ago

                This is the kind of situation I’m citing:

                https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/one-mans-endless-hopeless-struggle-to-protect-his-copyrighted-images/

                A lot of photography is not based on planning ahead before being paid (a person requests Photo X, and then pays on delivery). Nature photographers, and in fact many other forms of artists, produce a work before people know/feel they want it, and then sell it based on demonstration - a media outlet notices their work in a gallery or on their website, and then requests use of that work themselves.

                The struggles of the above insect photographer are even with the existing IP laws - they only ask for fair compensation from what they’ve put so much effort into, and VERY MANY media outlets don’t bother; to say nothing of giving a charitable donation.

                • @[email protected]
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                  011 months ago

                  then sell it based on demonstration - a media outlet notices their work in a gallery or on their website

                  So, they choose to rely on copyright, when they could do work for hire instead.

                  they only ask for fair compensation from what they’ve put so much effort into

                  No, they ask for unfair compensation based on copyrights.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Imagine if startrek was written with IP in mind. Instead of all these wunderkinds being all gung ho about implementing their warp field improvements on your reactor you’d get some ferengi shilling the latest and greatest “marketable” blech engine improvements.

            Fiction is much better without reality leeching in.

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              Star Trek was set in a future utopia. One of the key things about the show is that it’s a post-scarcity world where even physical objects can be replicated.

              They definitely wrote the series with IP in mind… in that their view of a future utopia was one where not only did copyright etc. not exist, but nobody cared much about the ownership of physical objects either.

          • @[email protected]
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            -711 months ago

            That is absolutely 100% a completely insane position. The fact that you feel entitled to literally everything someone else creates it’s fucking horrific and you are a sad person.

            • @[email protected]
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              211 months ago

              For someone who bitches all over this thread about people strawmanning their position, this is a pretty fucking great reply.

              Hint: one can be pissed about people throwing around the not-based-in-legal-reality term “intellectual property.” One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft, a strategy which has apparently worked mightily well on you. One can be all of those things, and yet still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

              What you posted was a textbook definition of a straw man.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 months ago

                One can be pissed about people using it as part of a strategy to purposely confuse the public into thinking that copyright infringement is the same as theft

                No, you have it wrong, one is part of a strategy to confuse the public into thinking it’s not, because it justifies doing whatever they want.

                still feel that copyright infringement is wrong and no one should be entitled to “literally everything someone else creates.”

                But they don’t feel that copyright infringement is wrong. How closely did you read the previous statements?

                They literally said “Intellectual property is a scam”. I don’t know how else you could possibly interpret that

                • @[email protected]
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                  211 months ago

                  I don’t know how the original poster meant it, but one possible way to interpret it (which is coincidentally my opinion) is that the concept of intellectual property is a scam, but the underlying actual legal concepts are not. Meaning, the law defines protections for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets, and each of those has their uses and are generally not “scams,” but mixing them all together and packaging them up into this thing called intellectual property (which has no actual legal basis for its existence) is the scam. Does that make sense?

        • @[email protected]
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          611 months ago

          If no one thinks that, why are you saying it right now?

          Actual theft of intellectual property would involve somehow tricking the world into thinking you hold the copyright to something that someone else owns.

          • @[email protected]
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            -411 months ago

            If no one thinks that, why are you saying it right now?

            …huh?

            Actual theft of intellectual property would involve somehow tricking the world into thinking you hold the copyright to something that someone else owns.

            …no? What are you talking about? All it involves is illegally copying someone else’s work.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          The performers time is not infinitely reproducible so your argument is apples to oranges.

          • @[email protected]
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            511 months ago

            But the time to create a novel, a videogame, or a news story is not infinitely reproducible, either. So when you are pirsting one of those things, you are actively reaping the benefits of someone’s time for free, like going to a concert without a ticket

            • Venia Silente
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              411 months ago

              There’s a difference between the performer’s time to create not being infinitely reproducible, and an user’s time to use the product being or not infinitely reproducible. Whether I’m pirating or buying a TV show, the actors were already compensated for their time and use for the show; my payment for buying actually goes to the corporate fat: licensors, distributors, etc.

              Whereas when pay a ticket into a live concert, I’m actually paying for something to be made.

              • @[email protected]
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                611 months ago

                Whether I’m pirating or buying a TV show, the actors were already compensated for their time

                And where do you think that money comes from…?

                • @[email protected]
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                  711 months ago

                  It just magically appears /s Its disingenuous to try and justify piracy on the basis that the performers have already been paid. I don’t agree with studios either of course, customers are being scammed

                • Venia Silente
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                  011 months ago

                  From the investors who are paying the cheques of course. They are corporations, they can afford to spend some coins on [checks notes] living wages.

              • @[email protected]
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                411 months ago

                This only applies to cases where the artist/actor/whatever gets paid upfront. Most of the times, that does not happen. The creator of something only gets money when somebody buys what they have created (books, videogames, music, etc)

                • @[email protected]
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                  211 months ago

                  Even if they were paid upfront, they were paid off the idea that the company could make bank on their (ready yourself for the word in case it triggers): Intellectual Property.

                  In a future world where people have achieved their wish and the concept no longer exists, companies have no reason to pay creators ahead of time.

                • Venia Silente
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                  111 months ago

                  I can get that they’d not necessarily be paid upfront, but there is no possible legal contract in which they are to be paid only in the future, in causality, according to the performance of a ~~third~ ~ fourth party who is not in the contract. What, are the actors paying their weekly groceries with IOUs?

            • @[email protected]
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              411 months ago

              Yeah, this is the real issue. That said it is a shame and a waste for the results of these efforts to be artificially restricted. I do really hope that one day we can find a way to keep people fed and happy while fully utilizing the incredible technology we have for copying and redistributing data.

              • @[email protected]
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                311 months ago

                I mean, we’ve kinda already found a way, and it’s ads. Now it’s obvious that the ad market as a whole is horrible (it’s manipulative, it has turned into spying, it does not work really well, it’s been controlled by just a handful of companies etc), but at least it’s democratic in that it allows broader access to culture to everyone while still paying the creators.

                Personally, I would not be against ads, if they were not tracking me. As of now, though, the situation seems fucked up and a new model is probably necessary. It’s just that, until now, every other solution is worse for creators.

        • @[email protected]
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          911 months ago

          I don’t see anything wrong with paying for software or music or digital media. I don’t think that not doing so is theft - like I also don’t think that getting into a concert without paying is theft. By the way a concert is also not digital data, at least an irl one.

          • @[email protected]
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            711 months ago

            A library card is your ticket there and libraries are paid via taxes, which is why they’re free at point of use.

            Attending a free concert is not stealing. Breaking into the Eras tour is.

            • snooggums
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              911 months ago

              The library buys once and allows multiple people to read/watch each item without each person needing to individually purchase. Just like one person buying something and sharing it with others.

              The main point is that digitization distribution is not a concert

              • @[email protected]
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                -311 months ago

                Digital distribution is a service. You can steal a service.

                If you fuck a prostitute and then don’t pay them, you are stealing from them.

                • snooggums
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                  411 months ago

                  If the prostitute uses a technique, and then you use the same technique without paying hem for reuse, is that stealing or does their direct involvement matter?

                • @[email protected]
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                  011 months ago

                  It’s okay I won’t use their digital distribution system to pirate their stuff.

                  It’s just like falling to pay a prostitute you never fucked

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            Libraries get money via tax. What people here are arguing for is that others should work for them or free. Because game studios, for example, are overwhelmingly not paid via tax money. They are depending on people buying their software. And many software has ongoing costs.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          I have never had a problem with people taking a tape recorder to a concert, even if it’s against terms of service

          • @[email protected]
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            1811 months ago

            Yes.

            Well, not literally, both because I’m more inclined to “high five” and you can’t do either gesture over the Internet. But figuratively, yes.

            • @[email protected]
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              -1711 months ago

              Why don’t you just gift away your software than? That’s an honest question. You obviously aren’t expecting to be paid for it, do you think in general developers shouldn’t earn money with software or is it just you?

              • @[email protected]
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                2011 months ago

                Why don’t you just gift away your software than?

                Because I don’t make those decisions; my employer does. They ought to give it away, but they don’t.

                (The software I’ve worked on has tended to be either (a) tools for internal company use or (b) stuff used by the government/large companies where the revenue would definitely have come from a support contract even if the code itself were free.)

              • Aniki 🌱🌿
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                1711 months ago

                I am a system engineer who works on a project that is open source, AMA

              • @[email protected]
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                811 months ago

                The writer whose article is the subject of this post releases his books without DRM. He ends his podcast with a quote encouraging piracy. I found him because of an earlier book he released under a share alike licence

                He has found that piracy increases the reach of his message, and increases his sales

              • db0
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                011 months ago

                Software developer who gives away my software for free as Free and Open Source Software. I agree with the grand-grand-parent comment.

      • @[email protected]
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        3911 months ago

        If I made software that people cared enough about to crack and pirate, I’d be happy that it’s popular enough for that to happen.

        I am a software developer but I’ve only worked on SaAS and open source projects.

        • @[email protected]
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          2511 months ago

          I work on software which is pirated. It is even sold by crackers, who make money off my work. This does not make me proud.

          What does make me proud is when a paying customer says they love a specific feature, or that our software saves them a lot of manual work.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Pride unfortunately doesn’t pay the bills. It’s terrific that you contribute to open source, but not all commercial software can be open sourced.

          • @[email protected]
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            311 months ago

            Popularity opens other ways to make money. Open source is profitable for GNU. Cory Doctorow does fine.

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect every commercial product to find profitability through exposure. I can attest to this first hand as I had published an open source Android game that was republished without ads. This led me to ultimately make the repository private, because I could not find a way to remain profitable while offering the source code and bearing the costs of labor and various cloud services.

              On the flip side I guess I can take credit for the millions of installs from the other app… except they didn’t publicly acknowledge me.

              • @[email protected]
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                211 months ago

                Was it under a “copyleft” licence (like GPL) that forces the other one to also be open source? Did you use a licence that requires you are acknowledged?

                If you did the first, you at least pulled someone else into open source work

                • @[email protected]
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                  011 months ago

                  Yes, GPL.

                  At the time I had seen that it had been forked into numerous private repositories, I believe roughly 100 or so. Perhaps I could have made a claim to have the other app taken down through Google Play, but I had no faith that this would be resolved, and even if it would be, it would be an ongoing problem.

                  As for whether they would have made open source contributions or not is in the end a moot point for me, because the only change that I observed was that they changed the colors and typeface and extracted the in-game menu into a separate welcome screen. I would not have merged this back into my repository.

                  While I myself violated the copyleft of my project by taking it closed source, I felt that it was my only resort. I’ve continued to develop the game over the past few years and by modernizing it and adding additional content, I’ve been able to significantly outpace my competitor.

                  For me, this ordeal had been a bit of an eye opener. I came out of university fully supportive of open source and when I discovered how this affected a real world project, I genuinely approached this situation understanding that it was just a risk I needed to accept. However, in the three years that it was available on GitHub, I received only two small PRs, and combined with the license violations, I felt that there was really no advantage to keeping it open source.

                  While this is just my anecdote, it has changed my perspective on how open source can realistically work more broadly. I honestly can’t envision any kind of business that needs to offset large production costs able to publish that content viably as open source.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Most people who work on open source projects have a lucrative job and work on Open Source on the side. I also volunteer, but I still need a job that actually pays me as well.

            Reading some of the comments here it feels like speaking to little children who believe money magically appears on their account.

        • @[email protected]
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          -3811 months ago

          I’d be happy that it’s popular enough for that to happen.

          of course you would. you would actually give them your house and wife, because you’re so proud now. right?

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            Ah yes, because downloading Shark_Tale.mp4 is exactly the same as someone taking your house away from you and obtaining your wife and owning her as personal property.

            Get some fucking perspective. I usually try to be polite online but this is just straight up moronic and you need to be told so bluntly.

      • @[email protected]
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        3311 months ago

        You need to disconnect the badness with the term stealing because you’re just wrong. Yeah it’s ip infringement. Yes it’s illegal. Yes people are impacted. And still… Not stealing.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        I have been for over 20 years actually! What do I get for winning the bet?

        Edit:

        One of our games we actually ended up supporting a form of piracy. A huge amount of our user base ended up using cheat tools to play our game which meant that they could get things that they would normally have to purchase with premium currency. Instead of banning them, we were careful to not break their cheat tools and I even had to debug why their cheat tool stopped working after a release.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          How did your employer pay your salaries? Or did your money perhaps came from those people who actually do pay for in-game currency in your games?

        • @[email protected]
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          -611 months ago

          Yes I am. And the two companies I worked for both were small, offered their products for cheap and still had people pirating the modules or circumvent licensing terms. It’s a legit problem that a lot of people don’t see why they should pay for software simply because it’s sometimes easy to steal it.

          • @[email protected]
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            1511 months ago

            circumvent licensing terms

            So to be clear: was it possible to purchase and own the software? Or did users have to pay a subscription for a license? Because personally I’m getting sick of every piece of software thinking it’s appropriate to require a subscription.

  • @[email protected]
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    19611 months ago

    If there is no easy way to own what you buy, then piracy becomes a moral obligation to preserve culture for future generations.

    • @[email protected]
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      2111 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        3111 months ago

        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.

      • @[email protected]
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        1711 months ago

        Internet archive, and a chunk of r/datahoarders, is built for that purpose. Just as people have saved old paintings (aka media) it’s also good for us to save significant pieces of our current culture. Old VHS tapes and CDs are already disappearing. Sometimes finding something is just a little bit more difficult and it’s only going to get worse.

      • @[email protected]
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        411 months ago

        I pirated plenty when I was young and poor, I’m pretty sure that helped form a desire for that sort of stuff which I pay for now.

        I bet if I had abstained when I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t have spent the money on all the content I buy now

        I believe the bulk of pirates are people who wouldn’t have bought the content if they had to pay for it

      • @ReallyActuallyFrankenstein
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        411 months ago

        It doesn’t need to have been a noble goal to be a noble result.

        For something to be actually and reliable preserved and win against random decay, data loss, disaster, and whatever else will statistically destroy copies, a thing will need to be stored by at least thousands of people. But there is no way to know how many, only that you increase the likelihood of perseveration by storing a copy.

        I agree, most people are downloading a thing because they want it. But by keeping that thing, they are also preserving it.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 months ago

        People who are doing porting work to make Windows-entwined Ubisoft games available on Linux are helping to preserve media for the future. People booting up Limewire are doing nothing.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        I have a Spotify subscription that I still pay, but built a library full of FLACs on the side specifically because I got fed up with “right holders” taking songs in and out of my playlists and having the right to deny me access forever.

        It literally would be cheaper and easier for me to just use Spotify.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 months ago

      If you pay to own a movie then yes, you should be allowed to make copies of it and keep it forever, even if the seller goes bankrupt in future. You are paying to own the movie.

      If you subscribe to Netflix you are not paying to own the content, you are paying for access to their content. Therefore you cannot legally download a movie from Netflix and keep a copy forever.

      However, if Netflix don’t make it possible to buy their unique content for permanent ownership, then piracy is the inevitable result and they should address that.

      But let’s be honest here, none of you are intending to buy anything.

      • @[email protected]
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        411 months ago

        I spend way more money on streaming services than I ever spent buying DVDs or CDs.

        To say that “I don’t intend to buy anything” is a BS accusation. You have no clue about another persons motives.

  • @[email protected]
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    16811 months ago

    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.

  • DeadNinja
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    14511 months ago

    I don’t exactly recall when or where I heard/read this quote, but man it is dope

    • “it should not be a concern when people pirate your content, it should be when people don’t even want to pirate your content”
  • @[email protected]
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    8911 months ago

    People are always on here arguing about whether pirating is stealing or not. I do think it’s stealing I just can’t bring myself to give a fuck about these large corporations. They have been stealing from the people for years.

  • AlteredStateBlob
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    8111 months ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    7111 months ago
    • When you take 5 eur from my pocket - you are stealing.
    • When you take 5 eur from my pocket, make a copy and put my original 5 eur back to my pocket - this is not stealing.
    • @[email protected]
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      8911 months ago

      Further to that, paying for a product then the seller taking that product away from you without refunding your payment is stealing.

    • @[email protected]
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      2211 months ago

      That’s not a fair example, because 5 Euros has an intrinsic value. The theft here is of intellectual property. Here’s an analogy:

      • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, you are stealing.
      • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, make an exact replication of it and return the original, you are stealing intellectual property.
      • Marxism-Fennekinism
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        Stealing involves depriving the original owner of access or possession of the item. Duplication is not stealing because the item being duplicated is not taken away.

        Even if you consider it stealing, then what defense do you have for the people who paid the price that would supposedly allow them to have it permanently and suddenly it still gets taken away? That’s not stealing? Even if we accepted that piracy by people who didn’t pay is theft, why should people who already paid for the media not be able to access it from somewhere else if their original access is denied?

      • amzd
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        1111 months ago

        The action is still harmless. Information should be free.

        • @[email protected]
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          1311 months ago

          Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine—too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away.

          https://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html

        • @[email protected]
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          511 months ago

          How is creating a popular a novel any different than creating a popular object? Hundreds of hours of labor go into both and the creators are entitled to the full value of said labor.

          Say you have an amazing story about the vacation you took last year, and told all your friends about it. You would justifiably be pissed if you later found out one of your friends was telling that story as if they had done it. It’s the same for someone who writes a book or any other form of media.

          • @[email protected]
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            611 months ago

            We aren’t talking about plagiarism, the friend would be telling the story about you still.

            Spoken word narratives are such an integral part of culture, imagine if your grandpa told you to never repeat any of the stories of his childhood because “he owns the copywrite”. Insane. That’s what you are suggesting.

            Ideas are not objects. Having good ideas shared incurs no loss to anybody, except imagined “lost potential value”.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 months ago

                So if I share that book with 50 friends over the course of the year that’s not taking income, but if it copy it 50 times and share it in a day it is? I could also sell it to my friends or even rent it out to them, that’s all money in My pocket and legal, until I copy it instead.

            • @[email protected]
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              -111 months ago

              There is a difference here between lending or resale of a physical product. Can you sell a second hand book? Typically, yes. Can you do mental gymnastics to draw a parallel to reselling a digital version? Evidently, also yes.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        That second dot should be when you make an identical copy of the book without taking it from the shelf. When I get an unlicensed copy of a book, the original is never out of place, not for a moment

        Piracy was huge in Australia back when films were released at staggered times across the world. If it was a winter release in America, it would release six months later in the Australian winter. Try avoiding spoilers online for six months.

        Piracy is less now because things are released everywhere at once and we aren’t harmed by a late release

        Now when companies pull shit like deleting content you think you bought, they encourage people to go around them. Play Station can’t be trusted? Well there are piracy channels that cost only a VPN subscription (and only while you’re collecting media, not after, while watching and storing it) and people will be pushed to those

      • Venia Silente
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        111 months ago

        Nani?

        If what you care about is the abstract idea that the idea of something can be owned, whether the book is in the library or in my pocket doesn’t change the fact that the idea of the book is by the author. I can move the book wherever - across even national borders if I want to - and that “intrinsic value” doesn’t change.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 months ago

        Only if you subsequently distribute it does that “theft” break the law.

        Also money doesn’t actually have intrinsic value. It’s just fancy paper. Things like food and shelter and clothing, and the tools and materials with which to make them, that’s what intrinsic value is.

    • GreenM
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      811 months ago

      Some people would call it counterfeiting but we won’t do that , right ?

    • @[email protected]
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      211 months ago

      The “taking a physical object” analogy doesn’t even give us anything useful.

      Most stores of perishable goods don’t want to hold onto their stock; they want to give it away, ideally in a way that makes them money. In many countries, they will even give away the last excess to homeless people that would not reasonably be able to afford it.

      If there’s one orange seller in a town that’s put effort into a supply train to bring oranges there, but someone has shared a magic spell that lets them xerox oranges off the shelf, then that orange seller never gets paid, and has no livelihood; it doesn’t help him that he still has all of the oranges he brought to market, he’s not going to eat them all himself.

      I expect the morally deprived will answer “Not my problem.” Yet, it’s going to be an issue for them when they try to run their own business.

  • Blue
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    6711 months ago

    Pirated valheim, played 20 hours, bought the game.

    Pirated baldurs gate 3 on early access, bought the game with only act 1, that’s how good it is.

    Pirated Valhalla, played 5 hours, uninstalled that trash forever.

    Started pirating streaming services when they told me that I can’t watch shit anymore because streaming service b and c took the shows, and now I have to pay two different streaming services if I want to keep watching.

  • @[email protected]
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    4411 months ago

    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’.

    • @[email protected]
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      By this logic no services should be paid. Are you really just hung up on the word “stealing”? It is wrong to go against an agreement or to take the work of others and not pay for it simply because it’s easy to do that when the work isn’t tangible.

      Are people really that fucked up today?

      • @[email protected]
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        1011 months ago

        I’m not talking about payment, I’m talking about if it’s stealing or not. It might be copyright infringement depending on local law, but it’s not stealing. Selling a copy might be counterfeiting.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        I never made an agreement but to copy things without paying. That agreement was made on my behalf, and if you look into the history of it, it’s really fucking shady. Copyright in the US originally lasted 20 years (IIRC), and I would be ok with that, but big copyright holders successfully bribed lawmakers to extend the term until now it’s effectively infinite.

        So tell me, was it immoral to ignore copyrights after 20 years when that was the law? Did changing the law change what’s moral?

  • @[email protected]
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    4111 months ago

    I think piracy is copyright infringement. But like who cares if some big corpos get infringed upon by some dudes.

  • @[email protected]
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    3311 months ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      5311 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          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.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          411 months ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            The world is full of bad contracts. It’s truly sad that we decided to accept them without making numerous alterations here and there.

            • @[email protected]
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              211 months ago

              It’s not possible to make changes to a digital contract. The only option is to not make the “purchase” and acquire it elsewhere.

              • @[email protected]
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                111 months ago

                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.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 months ago

          People are also “buying” products that are being taken away from them by the license holders of the purchased work. The article explains this with several examples in different markets.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 months ago

            Still people share digital goods indiscriminately, even those which are possible to buy and own.

        • @[email protected]
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          1211 months ago

          Of course they do, there will always be people who pirate. Most people dont mind paying for stuff and services if it respects them.

          There is Baldurs Gate 3 for example, you can buy it on GOG without DRM, and I highly doubt it made a dent in their sales.

          • @[email protected]
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            Because the majority of people do not pirate because they truly believe they are doing something morally good. That’s laughable.

            If it really was about going against the licensing schemes these people would all buy on GoG. Instead they rather pirate the games and use Steam for the rest.

            The majority of people pirates stuff because they feel entitled to it and are greedy and because it works and is easy to do. They do not respect those who put the work into the music or the movies or the games.

            What makes me so angry about it is the hypocrisy. Since these are often the same people who are virtue signalling about how capitalism is bad since employers are too greedy to pay good wages.

            The irony is quite strong in this.

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              Yeah i agree, that most people do not pirate because of morality, but because pirating is more convenient meanwhile being way cheaper, you said it yourself. I do not watch a whole lot of movies or shows, but for example if i could buy Arcane, I would, but instead I can only watch it if I buy a Netflix subscription. I dont like this arbitrary limitation to be honest, you could buy movies back in the day.

              For games, it is the case, because steam is actually a good service. People got what they wanted from Baldurs Gate 3 plus it is on a service which gives you tons of features. For example netflix on the other hand just limits how you consume content instead of enabling you other features.

              One more thing, when Netflix was the only streaming service, people actually paid for it. Now that it is worse, pricier and there are more competing streaming services, it is way more convenient to pirate.

        • @[email protected]
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          211 months ago

          People are also shoplifting from stores. That’s irrelevant to what is being discussed here

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      If you pay for the circus and they take away the circus so you can’t see it, and then replace it for Circus2, did you own a ticket for the circus?

    • @[email protected]
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      611 months ago

      I’m legit unsure whether your argument is purposely bad or you just don’t know that it is.

        • @[email protected]
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          Because the issue at hand is more like if you bought tickets to the circus, but when you went to go see it you were told the circus isn’t there anymore and you don’t get a refund.

          That I would definately call stealing, and if I wanted to see the circus the next time it was in town I would absolutely sneak in.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            It’s like you bought a circus membership to watch the circus at a particular venue as many times as you want. You watched the circus a few dozen times, then one day the circus announces they won’t be going to that venue anymore and you can’t watch it anymore.

            • @[email protected]
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              111 months ago

              This is where the analogy breaks down, because the circus requires people and an area to operate in. Digital movies and TV shows should just require my device to watch it on.

              To strain the metaphor further: The Circus leaving the venue isn’t leaving town, they’re just moving across the street. But your tickets are only valid for the old venue. Do you expect people to purchase new tickets or just sneak in?

              There’s also the people who purchased a lifetime membership to the circus and then were told the next day “The circus will no longer be going to that venue anymore after the end of the month.”

              The expectation is that I purchased this media and can watch it as much as I want, whenever I want, for the rest of my life. When companies say “Lol, no. Fine print” reasonable people aren’t going to shrug their shoulders and say “You got me, I guess I’ll purchase more things.” They’ll say “screw that, I can get it for free and keep it forever, what service are you providing that’s better?”

          • @[email protected]
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            -411 months ago

            A more honest analogy for the situation was that there are very few incidents of circuses doing that and now people demand it’s morally justified to get free entrance to every circus, concert, fair, museum, …

            • @[email protected]
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              411 months ago

              It’s not just a few circusses. Every major circus company seems to consistently pull this trick.

              • @[email protected]
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                -111 months ago

                But people aren’t just sharing media that is affected. They pirate everything, even when there are ways to buy and own it.

                • @[email protected]
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                  111 months ago

                  But people aren’t just sharing media that is affected. They pirate everything, even when there are ways to buy and own it.

                  “Some people speed on roads, so all roads are bad.”

                  This conversation is about media you can’t buy and own.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 months ago

        It’s a thousand times better than this empty garbage. How does this have any upvotes?

    • @[email protected]
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      211 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months ago

        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.

  • @[email protected]
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    1611 months ago

    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.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        Just started my switch last weekend! Jellyfin is amazing so far. Just need to figure out how to export all the Plex metadata and posters to .nfo files.

          • @[email protected]
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            I’ve been searching all over and haven’t found anything yet. The only answer seems to be to directly open up the Plex database in sqllite and navigate the schema myself and figure out how to export the specific tables and fields I want in some usable format. Once I have that, there are tools to generate .nfo files. 

              • @[email protected]
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                211 months ago

                I was curious and tried that on my Samsung TV from 2016, it loads a grey background and does nothing

              • @[email protected]
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                111 months ago

                Maybe, I put it into dev mode to install the app, but it seems that it’s not functional in the current version

                • @[email protected]
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                  111 months ago

                  Oh, I meant browse to the webpage like you would on a computer. Is there not a browser available? I’ve only got dumb tvs, so sorry I can’t be of more help.

                • Aniki 🌱🌿
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                  11 months ago

                  I spent 30 dollars on an orange pi zero 2 and installed android TV on it.

                  Can you afford 30 dollars? The privacy alone is worth the cost. Those samsung TVs are spyware central.

          • @[email protected]
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            111 months ago

            Ok.

            So it has a dedicated music app?
            It has music filtering?
            Good 4k/x265 performance?
            Has a third party (or built in) utility that shows me streaming usage?
            Allows me to limit remote users to streaming from a single IP address at a time?
            Let’s me watch something together with another remote user?
            Has an app for most any device (like Plex or Emby) that does NOT require sideloading?
            Has built in native DVR steaming/recording support?

    • @[email protected]
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      2111 months ago

      And they recently added a feature where they tell your friends on the platform what kind of porn you’ve been watching ✌🏾 I think I’ll stick to Jellyfin.

    • Aniki 🌱🌿
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      1111 months ago

      Heads up! Plex is garbage and enshitefying their own services to make more money.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        It is working well for my purposes, but I suppose I may have recommended something without knowing this part of the story.

        • @[email protected]
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          311 months ago

          Don’t feel bad. Plex is working wonders for me. Yea, there are things that annoy me about it, like the volume issues. But all in all, it passes the “wife test”.

          99.9% of the people here who trip over themselves to shit on Plex and recommend any other service that requires IT knowledge to consistently and easily give access to family members, don’t have to deal with the “wife test”. Substitute “wife” with husband or mom, or grandma.