Old-fashioned high seas pirating may have been stealing, but the modern copyright infringement form has never been stealing.
A key aspect of stealing is that you’re depriving the owner of some kind of property. While you have that property, they don’t, and they can’t use it. Copyright infringement doesn’t deprive the owner of anything. The only thing they lose is the government-granted monopoly over the right to distribute that “idea”. If copyright infringement is like an old fashioned crime, it’s like trespassing. The government granted someone the right to control who has access to some land, and a trespasser violates that law.
So what? A company pays devs, story writers, testers, etc etc to build a game over the course of months or years, and then they release copy 1 which pirate cracker 1 promptly buys.
You, every nitwit in this thread, and everyone else then take a “ToTalLy FreE” copy (“it’s not stealing” so who cares?!) because obv developer is not out anything. And then? What?
Who recoops the game cost? How is it determined whether or not to make a sequel if some angel donor covers total cost? It makes no fucking sense.
Sure, Ubisoft sucks, no complaint. But just because it’s digital doesn’t mean this brain rot is universally true. It’s like some perverse form of libertarianism: I don’t want to pay any taxes or tolls or whatever, but I wanna use all your shit. Every pirate here laughs and says “I got mine” but you’re a bunch of moochers who try to convince yourselves you’re in the right instead of thanking those of us actually buying the content.
I’ve sailed the seas in my day, but I never got it in my head it was a totally cool and reasonable victimless action. You can say “I couldn’t have afforded it anyway”, but that argument isnt universal and it doesn’t make everyone entitled to a free lunch.
Your line of reasoning is exactly the same as if a company – for the sake of argument, let’s say Ubisoft for absolutely no particular reason whatsoever – made a shitty product that no one actually wanted to buy, and therefore only sold six copies.
Who “recoups” the cost then? Nobody. That’s called the inherent risk of operating a business.
It’s also why indie developers in this day and age typically wind up considerably more successful for both themselves and their employees, because they don’t need to outlay the enormous bloated expenditures of the AAA studios and publishers, nor go to such extreme lengths to desperately rake in enough revenue to break even.
If they make a shitty title, the company is forced to eat it. After multiples of those, they go out of business because they can’t pay devs.
The counter argument is what? That game sucks so I deserve a copy? There is no reason to freeload off of either one. Sure sail the seas if you have to, but claiming you’re in the right to do so no matter what is pants on head stupid.
Or, what if a government granted a monopoly on sidewalks within the city to SideWalking Inc. SideWalking spent all kinds of money setting up turnstiles all over the busiest sidewalks equipped with NFC readers, then ran an ad campaign telling people where to buy their sidewalk authorization cards, etc. And then they realized that people were just hopping over the turnstiles! Who recoups the cost to put up all the turnstiles and install all the NFC readers?
Old-fashioned high seas pirating may have been stealing, but the modern copyright infringement form has never been stealing.
A key aspect of stealing is that you’re depriving the owner of some kind of property. While you have that property, they don’t, and they can’t use it. Copyright infringement doesn’t deprive the owner of anything. The only thing they lose is the government-granted monopoly over the right to distribute that “idea”. If copyright infringement is like an old fashioned crime, it’s like trespassing. The government granted someone the right to control who has access to some land, and a trespasser violates that law.
I wish piracy was stealing, I want to constantly download Ubisofts games until they go bankrupt
I suppose that is true if you download the from their site.
Now wait a damn minute.
So what? A company pays devs, story writers, testers, etc etc to build a game over the course of months or years, and then they release copy 1 which pirate cracker 1 promptly buys.
You, every nitwit in this thread, and everyone else then take a “ToTalLy FreE” copy (“it’s not stealing” so who cares?!) because obv developer is not out anything. And then? What?
Who recoops the game cost? How is it determined whether or not to make a sequel if some angel donor covers total cost? It makes no fucking sense.
Sure, Ubisoft sucks, no complaint. But just because it’s digital doesn’t mean this brain rot is universally true. It’s like some perverse form of libertarianism: I don’t want to pay any taxes or tolls or whatever, but I wanna use all your shit. Every pirate here laughs and says “I got mine” but you’re a bunch of moochers who try to convince yourselves you’re in the right instead of thanking those of us actually buying the content.
I’ve sailed the seas in my day, but I never got it in my head it was a totally cool and reasonable victimless action. You can say “I couldn’t have afforded it anyway”, but that argument isnt universal and it doesn’t make everyone entitled to a free lunch.
Your line of reasoning is exactly the same as if a company – for the sake of argument, let’s say Ubisoft for absolutely no particular reason whatsoever – made a shitty product that no one actually wanted to buy, and therefore only sold six copies.
Who “recoups” the cost then? Nobody. That’s called the inherent risk of operating a business.
It’s also why indie developers in this day and age typically wind up considerably more successful for both themselves and their employees, because they don’t need to outlay the enormous bloated expenditures of the AAA studios and publishers, nor go to such extreme lengths to desperately rake in enough revenue to break even.
If they make a shitty title, the company is forced to eat it. After multiples of those, they go out of business because they can’t pay devs.
The counter argument is what? That game sucks so I deserve a copy? There is no reason to freeload off of either one. Sure sail the seas if you have to, but claiming you’re in the right to do so no matter what is pants on head stupid.
Or, what if a government granted a monopoly on sidewalks within the city to SideWalking Inc. SideWalking spent all kinds of money setting up turnstiles all over the busiest sidewalks equipped with NFC readers, then ran an ad campaign telling people where to buy their sidewalk authorization cards, etc. And then they realized that people were just hopping over the turnstiles! Who recoups the cost to put up all the turnstiles and install all the NFC readers?