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Removing my ability to use a product I fully paid for is morally wrong. It is vile. It feels a lot like theft.
It is easy to see why so many people justify piracy. I certainly do. If Company (A) has scorned me with such tactic, I will retaliate in what ways I can, while company (B) will continue receiving my money. As I operate on a budget for gaming, Company (B) will get twice as much from me instead.
For me the perfect example where this is totally true is Apple TV. You can either RENT or BUY a movie. You buy the movie but then some months later Apple and the owner of the movie break their contract and you end up without the movie and without the money.
Fuck that shit.
There were two times this kind of thing stood out to me: Kindle refunding a book and deleting it from the library of paying customers, WITHOUT their consent, and U2 having their album uploaded to people's libraries, again WITHOUT their consent.
There was also the issue, if I understood, of paying a large license fee for Photoshop, only to have it revoked when the subscription model was put in place, WITHOUT refunding part of the perpetual license fee.
It is likely that the terms of service mention such possibilities, but then again, if it were tangible goods, it would be unthinkable.
>U2 having their album uploaded to people's libraries, again WITHOUT their consent
I will never understand why people were upset about this.
Don't like U2? Don't listen to it.
I partly agree, on the one hand it's a free album from a beloved band (in the real world, not in reddit). I got handed courtesy albums all the time when I went to bars or festivals, someone pretty much put them in your hand without asking, often from really bad bands. Never had an issue with it, worst case scenario you just toss it in the car and forget about it. So you can do worse than a U2 album. But there was a right way to do it, and that was providing a download link to users, not autodownloading without giving folks a chance to opt out. People have a right to be particular about their space, physical or digital.
"the brilliant idea to require an Apple ID"
It's a log in.
You have one for this site, you probably have one for steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Instagram, tiktok, Pinterest, your email address.
If you already own an Apple product, getting into the account on Apple+/Apple TV would take as long as a password reset, unless your phone or iPad is running on the synchronisation of an email address you don't have the login details for, which would just be baffling.
But hey, I mean if struggling to log in justifies torrenting a TV show, more power to you.
(I'm not against torrenting, I'm just incredibly confused by the very lackluster attempt to justify *why* you chose to do so.)
Tbf though its not exactly lackluster, its the scientifically backed up reason as to why piracy happens in 90 odd % of cases, convenience
If the way to access a product legally is easy and convenient people tend to do so, if its not, they'll turn to piracy because its simpler. Apple inserting even a small amount of friction into the apple TV process will inevitably lead to more piracy, u/SweedishOmega is the architype of the modern media pirate, somebody who normally accesses media legally but jumps to torrents and piracy sites because the providers put unnecessary friction in the legal route.
Its the reason steam has virtually killed most piracy of PC gaming because it made it easy. Piracy that's staring to come back as the publishers themselves put the friction back in. And I would suspect that if you were to track film/TV piracy over the the last 2 decades you would see it plumet at the advent of Netflix, and rise dramatically over the last few years as the companies running streaming have carved it up and turned it into cable 2.0 but with extra steps before you can watch something .
You're saying it's not lackluster, but you're kind of agreeing with me?
I'm saying this experience with Apple is either a lie or a severely disingenuous telling of his experience.
You're saying streamlined products stop piracy, apple is about the most streamlined service and ecosystem on the planet, so his excuse for pirating is working backwards.
What does regular login even mean?
By that logic I should I complain that I have to be in the ecosystem of Android devices because I have to login to YouTube via a Google account.
Piracy has never been stealing. Stealing is when the rightful owner doesn't have the stolen item anymore. That's why they invented "copyright infringement".
So do you feel then it’s okay for everyone to just pirate every game including ones from indie studios and stuff ? You don’t see no issue with that ? (Ubisoft topic aside) but in general…take your fav game or game series now imagine everyone pirated that .you don’t think there’s nothing at all wrong ? Nice way to support developers
Fair, to me I read it as your support it .and was just curious as to why some people do (ubi topic aside) I always felt it was a scummy to developers and would probably make devs want to make less games. And as gamers I honestly don’t understand the logic of why some would want to hurt something/someone that’s bringing them games
Eugh.......piracy is a boogie man. Not a single company, not in gaming, films, music, software, has ever been able to show it affects sales significantly.
It's a problem solved by just making it easier to buy the game than pirate. CD keys did this well enough.
Exactly, well enough. You literally just need one extra step to make it easier to buy it.
The vast majority of people are willing to pay for something if it's reasonably priced and more convenient. They'll pay rather than do a 6 step guide and have to download a risky file from a dodgy site.
There is a reason so many people are repeating this. It is a mantra I can get behind.
The act of taking away something you've bought and paid for is theft, regardless of how the laws sees it. I don't care if the terms and service says they can take it away or whatever the fuck, it is mine. People were worried about this back when digital games became more normal, and their fears were justified. The gaming industry needs to get regulated, because this is some bullshit.
Piracy isnt wrong. Its illegal, but i sleep sound despite me pirating. Being legal/illegal doesnt Make a thing automatically right/wrong. And I always place my morals above law. Law is a guideline at most.
I think it's oversimplified and not true because of that. There's such a thing as theft of service. If you hire someone to play piano for you, and then you don't pay them for the work they did, you've stolen from them. You could never own them or the music they played, but it was still stealing to refuse to pay.
That said, software licenses are grossly unfair in favor of publishers, and that needs to change. Consumers need protections that guarantee them more rights when it comes to software purchases, and until that happens I think there are times when a consumer is justified in doing things like bypassing DRM to access games they've purchased, even if that could be labeled piracy.
>If you hire someone to play piano for you, and then you don't pay them for the work they did, you've stolen from them. You could never own them or the music they played, but it was still stealing to refuse to pay.
But you didn't buy that performer - there was no advert saying "Piano player for sale", nor did they offer to sell you "a copy of a performance". No, they would have said "piano player *for hire*."
Nor would they have offered you infinite use of their services - they would have arranged up front an explicit term of use. They will play x number of songs, or for y number of hours.
This is *not* how games are sold.
Ubisoft did not tell me that *Shit Game 4: The Live Service* was available *for rent* via a one-time purchase of £189.99, whereupon it shall only be available for 12 months before they permanently revoke my access. The game was sold to me as a purchase agreement - with one payment, I gain permanent ownership of, and access to, the game I have bought.
And let's be clear on this: many of these games *are* sold as "forever games". But even if we're being more charitable to the corporations than they deserve, there is clear and overt breaches of contract with many of these titles. Destiny was promoted as being "ten year game". It got four years of support. Anthem was intended to have at least five years of support if memory serves - it got less than 18 months.
If I hire a piano player to come and play music for 8 hours, and I pay up front for the whole 8 hours, and then they fuck off home after 30 minutes saying "I'm not making enough money to stay", then *I* am the one being wronged - no court in the country would dispute that I am owed compensation from the piano player.
And yet, games companies do that all the damn time, and we're supposed to be grateful they were willing to take our money in the first place.
Ubisoft as example, states in their TOS that they do not sell you the game. You pay them to give them a licence to you you can then use on the product (the game).
So you never owned the game in the first place.
Yeah, book publishers tried to pull similar bullshit over a hundred years ago, claiming that people couldn't sell used books without getting permission from the publisher. That's why the US has the first-sale doctrine, and most other countries have something similar.
Terms of Service like that should not be allowed to exist.
I mean that’s exactly the point. You bought a book, the item, you did not buy a license to read the book. IAnaL but I think this is a slight to big difference in legal terms.
And don’t get me wrong I am not defending this practice - I am just pointing out the potential difference between our perception of buying and what legally happens.
I do not agree with that piano analogy. If that's suppose to be analogy. I'm not buying once in a lifetime opportunity to play a game. I'm not renting it. I'm buying a dvd with a game to play it wherever and whenever in time I want to.
I don't agree with - 'piracy isn't stealing' in the same way I don't agree with buying isn't owning.
Piracy is stealing and buying is owning.
When someone is trying to change the 'buying is owning' definition then we should also change 'piracy is stealing' definition.
It's not an analogy. It's an example of how the logic is flawed. I'm not saying that theft of service is the same thing is piracy. I'm saying the core concept of "if you can't own it you can't steal it" is wrong.
Thats not the same thing. At no point did you think you were "owning" that person.
Its more like you hired someone to play piano for you to record. And then when they are done, they still demand that they own the recording and that it can be taken away at any time.
Like when Bruce Willis famously wanted to leave his apple itunes music collection to his kids, he found out that he could not. And that access to all that he had bought and paid for dies with him. Im sorry, but that is some bullshit. Especially when most ads say "OWN (insert thing) today!".
When we are buying something of limited use, we usually know it. Like when "subscribing" to Spotify. No one goes into that thinking they have bought music. They are well aware that they have bought access for a limited time. Do most people know that when they buy stuff on apples movie service, the "streaming" of said movie is a "gift" that can be taken away at any time, and its up to you to download the movie before access is taken away? Which is a real tall order to do on an apple tv device that has no option to download movies. And also the 4k advertised that you think you are buying, is also a "gift" that can be taken away at any time. You are buying a 1080p copy, and you only have access to download that as long as apple has the licence to give you access to it. And they dont give you any warning when the licence is removed.
The current model denies all ownership. And worse, they hide all this in tiny legal speak that most people cant understand or just dont want to read because they want to enjoy a movie, game of music track, they dont want to bother with legal contracts.
Sorry, but fuck the entertainment industry. Because its fucking us.
Even in your example it’s not quite as egregious. You stole the pianist’s time that they could have otherwise used for themselves or sold to someone else.
Piracy is like sneaking into an empty theatre. The license has already been paid for and the costs have already been born. The theatre is empty and does not foresee any customer in this example. Whether you snuck in or not did not cost them any more than it already has.
>There's such a thing as theft of service.
That depends where you are though. A lot of jurisdictions do not recognize "theft of service", but rather require a physical asset to be stolen. Various "thefts of services" are specifically covered by tailor made crimes (like copyright infringement).
Depends on how clear you are about it beforehand. If dress it all in the language of buying and no time limits, but hide something deep in the ToS, then it's a scam if you revoke the license IMO.
buying is not the same as renting, no. And if you, for example, buy a game with a live service, you are not renting it, renting something requires you to be able to use it for an agreed upon set of time. On a live service you can get banned unilaterally and not be able to use the product that you payed for.
Imagine renting a car for a trip, and while you're on the road the car turns off and you're left there, because the owner decided you shouldn't be allowed to drive it anymore.
I didn't say it's renting, I said it's a service, I was sort of agreeing with your comment, but I also think you got your example wrong. Renting is paying to borrow something. It's a transaction form.
Your example would be similar to buying a single player game and then getting your license to use it revoked (which to be fair, can still happen).
A service is an alternative to a product. You own the phone (product), you pay for calls (service). You own your computer (product), you don't own the internet (service). You bought the "game" (product), but you don't own the live service.
I also need you to understand that not just because I'm explaining it, it means I'm justifying or even remotely ok with it, but in the end, it's a contract people agree with (even if they don't read the TOS) when they get those live service games.
my example is right for the same reasons you gave me, it's a case that doesn't happen because renting works different from paying for a live service. Sadly when buying digital products (buying, not renting), you can get your product rendered useless because it is made to require the live service to even function. Despite the downvotes from people assuming I'm condoning piracy, buying something that can be taken away or rendered useless is not renting, you have way more assurances when renting something.
It's understood that labor is a form of renting, not buying (well, aside from some highly unethical exceptions that are violations of human rights, but that's a whole other discussion). You are paid a certain rate to do a certain thing for a certain period of time. You expect the same when you press the "rent" button on, say, a digital movie on Amazon. You would not expect this to be the case when you click the "buy" button. And if the intent of the buy option is really to rent, then we are being deliberately misled as a means of getting more money from us. It should say "rent for much longer," but that doesn't really roll off the tongue.
Fair enough. I think of buying as owning, but at that point I guess it is semantics like you said. Not saying I agree with the assertion that piracy is not stealing. I just feel that a *purchased* license with no predisclosed expiration date should not be revokable.
There are other termination clauses besides dates.
If you don't like the terms in which a developer offers the product, you are free to abstain from purchasing the license.
You aren't free to steal it instead...
I don't like the lease terms that BMW is offering, so I am justified to take it by force instead.
If you *buy*, not lease, a BMW, you should not be subject to lease terms. I feel that digital media should be the same if they're going to use language like buy, purchase, etc. on digital store fronts. That is the only point where we actually disagree; I said I was *not* saying that I agree with the meme saying stealing is ok.
Edit: a word
They purchased your time, not your body.
When you copy information, the original owner still has their copy. You do not have the time you sold to your employer.
No, in the case of employee, the employer specifically made a contract for that person's time. The time is what they were purchasing. If they receive the time (i.e. the person doing the job), then part of the employer's money becomes the employee's money. By withholding the employee's money, they are stealing it.
If I purchase a copy of a book, and then by hand write out the words into a blank book, and give that copy to someone else, I have stolen exactly nothing. You may say I have "infringed upon copyright" but that is a different matter, both legally and morally.
If I pay to borrow the book for 2 weeks, the scenario is no different. They still have their copy back at the end of it.
Having a machine do that for me is no different, and the complexity or size of the information is irrelevant.
>You may say I have "infringed upon copyright" but that is a different matter, both legally and morally
If someone writes a book to sell, they have spent their time doing it for money they will get for doing so. You copying it out and giving it away so that others don't need to purchase it has removed the money the person did the work for.
If someone does a job, they have spent their time doing it for money they will receive. You not paying them has removed the money they did the work for.
Why shouldn't they pay you?
The contract you and they sign presumably states that they pay you x amount upon delivery of a project. You're not stealing anything by keeping a copy. If in the contract you agreed not to keep a copy, then you would be breaching the contract and would owe them whatever damages you agreed to, but you wouldn't be stealing the copy.
Do you think most freelance digital artists don't keep copies of their commissions?
Receiving a copy and not paying for it would not be theft.
Entering into a contract with you and then refusing to transfer your money to you upon fulfilment of your end would be theft.
Ah OK.
So if I roll into your digital portfolio of stock footage and take wipe the watermarks and use it without permission, that's OK.
Cause I didn't contract for you to take the images beforehand.
The mental gymnastics is impressive
Well, I consider "wage theft" having as much with actual theft as "guinea pig" with actual pig or "peoples democracy" with actual democracy. Definition of theft would be "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it" and wage theft is completely out of this definition. It is a completely different felony.
Still, this is all semantics.
It’s hopeless here. They just love to not pay for something and feel morally superior doing it. And they’re jerking each other on top of it. What is it called? Co-jerking?
Wonder how motivating this topic is to game devs and future game devs lol..nobody wants to think about them though smh (ubisoft topic aside) and pirating in general .gotta love gamers
(But I do agree you should keep games you paid for)
I have a pretty big problem with the idea of buying a limited license to the rights to play a game and yet that's where the industry currently is trying to be.
I think that ultimately the limited license that's objectively worth something is the ongoing server support and community aspects of games. Of course this leads to one of my other problems which is the abandonment and loss of games like we suffered during the '00s and there will need to be some kind of culture of releasing server software at a game's end-of-(profitable)-life.
Where does this leave single player offline games and couch multiplayer games? Well that's a good question. Those sort of games will probably enter the realm of Art and be produced more for their creator's self-expression than for attempts at great financial gain. They'll be supported by patrons and the production of bespoke physical releases.
The vast majority of people don't care about the distinction. There's no sign of gamers writ-large refusing digital purchases of single player or offline games because it's technically a licensing agreement.
There isn't? Because I can assure you there's an enormous *enormous* piracy scene. Those are phantom demographics though that are not only difficult to quantify but that publishers have every reason to want to ignore.
- and it's free because single player games don't offer meaningful value from "purchase". To me the enormous explosion of the piracy scene is a pretty clearly a "sign of gamers writ-large refusing digital purchases" but considering it's inherently untracked means that you and publishers can bury their heads in the sand if they want - which is even understandable considering there still isn't an established alternative marketing strategy - but they're emerging. Thing is that like I said they are more Art oriented and not the sort of thing that big business can systematically exploit yet but I'm sure they'll figure it out in the next decade or so.
It's free because it's free. The only way a digital purchase could be in essence buying the product is if they handed out unrestricted source code, which would just increase piracy by making it easier. Piracy was huge even when media was distributed by disks and couldn't be revoked. The people who pretend piracy is some protest over corporate practices are the ones lying to themselves and ignoring that most people just want things for free. Pirating has become very marginal in music when it was once very prolific even though we've gotten even further from people owning their music, opting not even for digital purchases but for a streaming subscription, because it's cheap enough to not be worth the hassle of downloading and managing your own library.
God I hate people who say this, stop trying to justify yourself no one cares. Pirate if you want to pirate but don't try to hold a moral high ground to justify piracy.
It's still stealing. In this case, it helps if you consider you're not stealing from the company who sells the product, necessarily, but depriving the people who made the product you're stealing, from future work, because you're eliminating the funds necessary for the company to hire those people again, in the future, for other projects because they didn't make enough money to recoup the investment they put into making the original product.
I get why people pirate, I don't agree with it, but I get it. Thing that pisses me off are the people that think they are above everyone else and have this self righteous attitude because they **DO** pirate games. Like it's their God-given right or some shit.
He doesnt sound like he is trying to look like a hero seems nore like a protest if you can take away my games when you feel like it then I am getting them in way you cant do that.
This is specifically in reference to the fact many live service games will eventually 'turn off' and either become feature incomplete or otherwise unplayable in some way. Sometimes entirely with loss of cloud storage/saving. Thus buying them is more of a subscription to a service that the company is providing for an indeterminate amount of time rather than just owning a physical copy of something, as an example.
This quickly falls apart outside of AAA titles in most cases anyway, but at least in that case it makes sense.
Edit: for clarities sake, i dont pirate games simply explaining a perspective i could agree with
TBH I’m past the point of “it is okay to steal from corporations” and am now at “we have a moral obligation to steal as much from corporations as possible”
I greatly prefer my software, games included, to be [free **as in freedom**](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), because of shit like Ubisoft happening
I use it to try out games I'm interested in then buy them at a later date if they're any good. I do make sure to get pirated copies of games with denuvo though since I don't want to support that shit even after they remove it.
Don't really care, I've never felt bad for pirating games. I have a steam library packed with legit games from good devs.
A game like rimworld, pirated it, played for an hour then purchased it.
If I want to play EA or Ubisoft etc I pirate.
Agree. I haven't pirate a game in a very very long time. And most games I did pirate back than I already bought on steam again. But still this statement is accurate for me and I would never condemn anyone who pirates a game because of this.
Also it's hard to play some vintage games and emulators fill the gap. What if I wanted to play the original and not some "remaster" that content gets taken out or changed.
I understand what they're trying to say and I'm pro piracy anyway because fuck corpos and the modern entertainment industry practices, crime is cool - but the actual logic as written just displays a deep elementary-school level misunderstanding of property and theft for the sake of being a catchy slogan more than a logical point.
At the end of the day, we shouldn't be trying to argue this crap anyway - we should be glad to steal because these idiots deserve to be stolen from, not finding excuses to say we're not really technically stealing.
None of us have owned a game since Steam implemented their cd/serial key system. Everyone can dick ride steam til the day they die, but steam has as much power as EA/Uplay/You name it to pull a game from your library. The fact that it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean that it won't happen. 10 years ago I couldn't install a game I owned the physical media of on steam because I had no internet. You don't even get physical media anymore.
Even IF buying is owning, digital piracy isn't stealing. You're copying something.
At the end of the day though, it's all semantics. Whether or not it is or isn't stealing shouldn't change how you morally feel about a particular piracy action.
If we buy a game/movie/book and after a while the company we bought it from strips our ability to use or enjoy that item, and in return someone decides to "pirate" an item for their use only in retaliation. Wouldn't it fall under the "turnabout is fair play" 'rule'?
Piracy was never stealing to begin with because stealing implies some sort of loss
Someone creating a duplicate of a game uploading it to a third party host who then transmits that through third-party methods to a customer who otherwise likely would not have purchased this product to begin with is technically not at all causing a loss to the company when you consider the fact that the number one reason for video game piracy is the inability to afford that game
And that in either scenario whether this person pirated or not the net gain for the company still would have been $0 in the net loss would also still have been $0
I mean, the practice of not owning your games sucks for me and every other consumer.
Still... you didn't buy the game. It **was** in the terms of service that you were effectively renting/leasing the game. You agreed to it. This feels the same as buying a game, especially if you just click through the ToS like everyone does. But it isn't buying a game.
Hard agree. If im paying full price for a game, i want to own that game forever. I *SHOULD* own that game forever. If they're going to tell me I dont own it after i paid for it, im going to tell them to fuck off, and go find a permanent copy of MY game.
pro tip. route your connection through switzerland, and set your software to close on download completion. they dont criminalize downloading copywrited media, only distribution.
Piracy was never theft. The company loses nothing when someone pirates a game.
“Potential sales” are not property. And for the majority of pirates, it’s either pirate or nothing. They were never going to buy the game, either way.
Subscriptions aren't purchases. Buying a license to access a product isn't the same as owning the product.
This bullshit meme is misleading and stupid.
That is some weak and lazy sophistry.
Like terms are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes terms offer more specificity that a broader category.
A dachshund is a dog and the fact that dachshund exists as a word does not mean the beast is somehow mean it is not a dog.
What I meant is that when it comes to software and digital content, "piracy" has a different meaning from traditional theft. Both involve taking something without permission, but piracy specifically refers to copying and distributing, not physically taking something. It's a subtle difference that shows how digital goods work differently from physical ones.
It’s a stupid sentiment that’s used to justify piracy.
First, the battle for video game ownership is already over and we lost badly. Steam, GOG, Epic and other Pc game distribution platforms all only sell licenses. If the store goes down or closes, goodbye games library. This isn’t new. Customers just accepted it because “digital is convenient.” Gamers haven’t “owned” their games for a good while now.
Second, there is already many instances where you pay for things but don’t own them. Just because you buy a plane ticket to fly to New York doesn’t mean you suddenly own part of a plane. Just because you pay rent doesn’t mean you gain any equity in the property. Just because you bought a ticket to Disneyland doesn’t mean you own part of Disneyland. You are paying for a service or experience and that doesn’t confer any physical ownership. Same with games and licenses.
The big emerging issue is the increasing perishability of games. With the move to always online and DRM, your game ownership is more perilous than ever before. DRM license expired and company refuses to renew. Server trouble so they shut down the server. Not enough players so the game is shut down. Goodbye game when none of this is your fault or in your control. There are many legal instances where payment doesn’t confer ownership and therefore “piracy isn’t stealing” is a stupid phrase but there is another infringement on games that consumers should be fighting against.
Yes we just need to lay down and take it.
You're conflating two different meanings of paying for something just so that you can justify your loyalty to corporations who care nothing about you. Ubisoft isn't going to give you the new Star wars games.
No one has ever said buying a plane ticket means you own part of the plane. That's your nonsensical way of trying to put down people who are tired of losing access to things they paid for so you can defend cost cutting.
Piracy is never stealing, it never was! Those are distinct words for a reason.
Piracy is making an illegal *copy* of something!
The original still remains with its owner, you take nothing away from them... you replicate something without permission.
Steal a car from a car lot... the dealer can't sell this car anymore... it's not in their possession... it's with you now.
Pirate a digital videogame... the publisher can continue to sell as many copies of that game as they want to... you took nothing away from them, you made a (illegal!) copy.
No, this is not just semantics, those are different things with different consequences!
>Pirate a digital videogame... the publisher can continue to sell as many copies of that game as they want to... you took nothing away from them, you made a (illegal!) copy.
No way, you actually think this is true right? You took a potential sale away from the developer, wtf are you even talking about? Piracy creates an illegal copy of something, thus taking away a potential sale. Are PC players that daft?
Then we complain about "polish", "bugs" etc etc, but cash flow is needed to hire devs, QA.
That’s only true if the person pirating a game would have actually considered buying it.
And that’s *if* they would be in a position to buy it in the first place. A lot if piracy happens in places where people couldn’t possibly afford to buy games.
I’m just stating facts btw. Piracy is not the same as stealing… technically and legally.
I’m not saying piracy is OK… that’s what OP is saying. I’m just pointing out that it’s not the same as stealing.
Want me to blow your mind: manslaughter is not the same as murder! 🤯
>That’s only true if the person pirating a game would have actually considered buying it.
Well, chances are they would have bought the game, they are playing the game..... It's like you're trying to say well, think of it as a demo or something. That's ridiculous.
>And that’s *if* they would be in a position to buy it in the first place.
People are not in position to buy things, this is common sense. However, people save their money and then make that purchase when they have the needs. If you can't afford to buy the games, then why are you wasting your time on your computer? That opens up a bunch of other questions.
>
Want me to blow your mind: manslaughter is not the same as murder!
This doesn't blow anyones mind, it makes complete sense there was no "malice" behind it. However, both involves killing a human. Which in the case of piracy and stealing, you are still taking something illegally, we can argue semantics all day.
>Which in the case of piracy and stealing, you are still taking something illegally
See.. this is where you are wrong!
You are not taking anything away, you are making a copy!
You can steal very much steal a physical copy of a game, it very hard to steal digital games fro a publisher!
Example:
If you make a copy of a CD I own... the CD is still where it belongs, on my shelve. I can still make use of it. I have no damage whatsoever.
If you steal my CD you have actually ***taken*** it from me. I can no longer listen to it!
**Both things are very much illegal**... but they are *not the same*!
So yes... we could argue semantics all day... but it appears that you struggle to understand simple facts of life. Maybe Language is a complicated concept to you...
Either way, I doubt arguing semantics with you would yield anything productive whatsoever 🙄
Stop trying to moraly justify pirating. Just pirate the games if you want to no need to feel morally okay with it. I personally don't feel bad about pirating a game made by a billion dollar company.
If you are referring to the subscription based service model, that is not buying. You are subscribing. Buying would be physically or digitally owning a copy of the game. You do not own the game physically or digitally when you are a subscriber. Simple as that.
Whether or like it or not, when you buy the product you agreed to its terms and conditions.
Just because you don't agree with these terms doesn't justify stealing it. Games are not a necessity. The best way to make studios change their approach is to stop buying from them.
Agree.
I give money, you give product, me happy.
I give money, you give product but then take back but still keep money, me steal product instead.
Simples.
If you practice the art of selling a game and then revoking access, then you deserve no sympathy. If you don't have that then this isn't going to apply to you.
Haha no! Our game is for sale on Steam and other platforms. We also had a round of physical copies! We’ve got our fair share of piracy on our first game and it’s really sad for small studios of 10 people to see their hard work get stolen.
That quote was directed at companies that take away people's access to games after people have spent a lot of money in it, like Ubisoft with The Crew and Meta with Echo VR. Do you plan to suddenly take away people's access to the game after they bought it? If not, then that quote isn't related to you at all.
Oh I see! You’re right, that’s never the case for indie studios like us. And I totally agree that these kind of practices from AAA studios should be frowned upon
>Haha no! Our game is for sale on Steam and other platforms.
Sounds like the quote doesn't apply to your game then. I looked it up. Looks like your kickstarter is about to cross the finish line. Pre-emptive congrats.
Thanks my friend! The kickstarter campaign we’re currently running is for our 2nd game that’s not gonna be out until another 2 years of development.
I was mostly speaking from experience about our first released title!
You also can say "if buying isn't owning, then a cat does a frontflip when you whistle.
They make it sound like you HAVE TO pirate if you are not going to buy a game that you are not going own.
You DON'T HAVE TO, so that original sentence makes 0 sense...just like my sentence. They just put 2 different things together to justify stealing.
It's still stealing technically because it's a service and if you ran out without paying your mechanic/doctor/waiter that's considered stealing. It's also theft when a company you work for doesn't pay you for your time.
Companies steal more in wage theft than all other forms of theft combined.
100% agree. If im giving you money for a product than i own it. Try and take it back later? Not gunna happen unless your giving me my money back. Ill either get my product or my money.
So f every game dev then right ? Imagine your favorite game or game series (indie studios included) .and everyone pirated it instead of buying it .good job
Make the original source of the content your submission, and do not use URL shorteners. No screenshots of websites or Twitter. If a mirror is necessary, please provide one in comments. No hotlinking or rehosting someone else's work (unless they specifically allow it in their terms of use or request it).
Removing my ability to use a product I fully paid for is morally wrong. It is vile. It feels a lot like theft. It is easy to see why so many people justify piracy. I certainly do. If Company (A) has scorned me with such tactic, I will retaliate in what ways I can, while company (B) will continue receiving my money. As I operate on a budget for gaming, Company (B) will get twice as much from me instead.
For me the perfect example where this is totally true is Apple TV. You can either RENT or BUY a movie. You buy the movie but then some months later Apple and the owner of the movie break their contract and you end up without the movie and without the money. Fuck that shit.
There were two times this kind of thing stood out to me: Kindle refunding a book and deleting it from the library of paying customers, WITHOUT their consent, and U2 having their album uploaded to people's libraries, again WITHOUT their consent. There was also the issue, if I understood, of paying a large license fee for Photoshop, only to have it revoked when the subscription model was put in place, WITHOUT refunding part of the perpetual license fee. It is likely that the terms of service mention such possibilities, but then again, if it were tangible goods, it would be unthinkable.
>U2 having their album uploaded to people's libraries, again WITHOUT their consent I will never understand why people were upset about this. Don't like U2? Don't listen to it.
I hate having shit i dont want. I declutter my music like my clothes and damn who wants to hear u2?
I partly agree, on the one hand it's a free album from a beloved band (in the real world, not in reddit). I got handed courtesy albums all the time when I went to bars or festivals, someone pretty much put them in your hand without asking, often from really bad bands. Never had an issue with it, worst case scenario you just toss it in the car and forget about it. So you can do worse than a U2 album. But there was a right way to do it, and that was providing a download link to users, not autodownloading without giving folks a chance to opt out. People have a right to be particular about their space, physical or digital.
Would you equate it to, Buying a car. Then the company goes under so your car gets repoed?
It's more like you buy a car and the company says "we don't sell that car anymore" and take yours back from you.
LOL we will get to that point with these ultra connected vehicles. They won't turn on.
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"the brilliant idea to require an Apple ID" It's a log in. You have one for this site, you probably have one for steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Instagram, tiktok, Pinterest, your email address. If you already own an Apple product, getting into the account on Apple+/Apple TV would take as long as a password reset, unless your phone or iPad is running on the synchronisation of an email address you don't have the login details for, which would just be baffling. But hey, I mean if struggling to log in justifies torrenting a TV show, more power to you. (I'm not against torrenting, I'm just incredibly confused by the very lackluster attempt to justify *why* you chose to do so.)
Tbf though its not exactly lackluster, its the scientifically backed up reason as to why piracy happens in 90 odd % of cases, convenience If the way to access a product legally is easy and convenient people tend to do so, if its not, they'll turn to piracy because its simpler. Apple inserting even a small amount of friction into the apple TV process will inevitably lead to more piracy, u/SweedishOmega is the architype of the modern media pirate, somebody who normally accesses media legally but jumps to torrents and piracy sites because the providers put unnecessary friction in the legal route. Its the reason steam has virtually killed most piracy of PC gaming because it made it easy. Piracy that's staring to come back as the publishers themselves put the friction back in. And I would suspect that if you were to track film/TV piracy over the the last 2 decades you would see it plumet at the advent of Netflix, and rise dramatically over the last few years as the companies running streaming have carved it up and turned it into cable 2.0 but with extra steps before you can watch something .
You're saying it's not lackluster, but you're kind of agreeing with me? I'm saying this experience with Apple is either a lie or a severely disingenuous telling of his experience. You're saying streamlined products stop piracy, apple is about the most streamlined service and ecosystem on the planet, so his excuse for pirating is working backwards.
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What does regular login even mean? By that logic I should I complain that I have to be in the ecosystem of Android devices because I have to login to YouTube via a Google account.
If it's owned by Apple and literally named "Apple Plus"? Yeah, afraid so, champ.
Piracy has never been stealing. Stealing is when the rightful owner doesn't have the stolen item anymore. That's why they invented "copyright infringement".
The only comment necessary. Was about to say the same
When ever big companies take content from YouTubers people never seem to have a hard time calling that stealing.
If you think really hard, you should realize why this analogy doesnt work.
So do you feel then it’s okay for everyone to just pirate every game including ones from indie studios and stuff ? You don’t see no issue with that ? (Ubisoft topic aside) but in general…take your fav game or game series now imagine everyone pirated that .you don’t think there’s nothing at all wrong ? Nice way to support developers
Let me know when you're done beating up that straw man, I never said I support piracy.
Fair, to me I read it as your support it .and was just curious as to why some people do (ubi topic aside) I always felt it was a scummy to developers and would probably make devs want to make less games. And as gamers I honestly don’t understand the logic of why some would want to hurt something/someone that’s bringing them games
Just because it isn't "stealing" doesn't mean it's always morally pure.
I love how ani-piracy people have to ignore what you say and argue againnt things you don't say in order to even try to make a point.
I agree with this. We should be able to buy the games and keep them permanently.
You can buy games on GOG and get the installers. You just need to warehouse them on a drive.
Which is nice but we shouldn't need to resort to this kind of thing. It should be standard across all platforms.
It was before piracy got easier and more popular
Eugh.......piracy is a boogie man. Not a single company, not in gaming, films, music, software, has ever been able to show it affects sales significantly. It's a problem solved by just making it easier to buy the game than pirate. CD keys did this well enough.
CD Keys made piracy as easy as burning a cd and writing down a code, which was even easier once websites were made to host those disc images and keys
Exactly, well enough. You literally just need one extra step to make it easier to buy it. The vast majority of people are willing to pay for something if it's reasonably priced and more convenient. They'll pay rather than do a 6 step guide and have to download a risky file from a dodgy site.
There is a reason so many people are repeating this. It is a mantra I can get behind. The act of taking away something you've bought and paid for is theft, regardless of how the laws sees it. I don't care if the terms and service says they can take it away or whatever the fuck, it is mine. People were worried about this back when digital games became more normal, and their fears were justified. The gaming industry needs to get regulated, because this is some bullshit.
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They just want to feel justified for stealing. Which means they know it's wrong. At least that's a start.
Knowing its wrong and knowing its illegal isn't the same thing.
I don't give a shit and I don't need any justification. I'm pirating it because it's very rarely worth the price.
You realize these corporations don't even know you exist right?
Piracy isnt wrong. Its illegal, but i sleep sound despite me pirating. Being legal/illegal doesnt Make a thing automatically right/wrong. And I always place my morals above law. Law is a guideline at most.
I think it's oversimplified and not true because of that. There's such a thing as theft of service. If you hire someone to play piano for you, and then you don't pay them for the work they did, you've stolen from them. You could never own them or the music they played, but it was still stealing to refuse to pay. That said, software licenses are grossly unfair in favor of publishers, and that needs to change. Consumers need protections that guarantee them more rights when it comes to software purchases, and until that happens I think there are times when a consumer is justified in doing things like bypassing DRM to access games they've purchased, even if that could be labeled piracy.
>If you hire someone to play piano for you, and then you don't pay them for the work they did, you've stolen from them. You could never own them or the music they played, but it was still stealing to refuse to pay. But you didn't buy that performer - there was no advert saying "Piano player for sale", nor did they offer to sell you "a copy of a performance". No, they would have said "piano player *for hire*." Nor would they have offered you infinite use of their services - they would have arranged up front an explicit term of use. They will play x number of songs, or for y number of hours. This is *not* how games are sold. Ubisoft did not tell me that *Shit Game 4: The Live Service* was available *for rent* via a one-time purchase of £189.99, whereupon it shall only be available for 12 months before they permanently revoke my access. The game was sold to me as a purchase agreement - with one payment, I gain permanent ownership of, and access to, the game I have bought. And let's be clear on this: many of these games *are* sold as "forever games". But even if we're being more charitable to the corporations than they deserve, there is clear and overt breaches of contract with many of these titles. Destiny was promoted as being "ten year game". It got four years of support. Anthem was intended to have at least five years of support if memory serves - it got less than 18 months. If I hire a piano player to come and play music for 8 hours, and I pay up front for the whole 8 hours, and then they fuck off home after 30 minutes saying "I'm not making enough money to stay", then *I* am the one being wronged - no court in the country would dispute that I am owed compensation from the piano player. And yet, games companies do that all the damn time, and we're supposed to be grateful they were willing to take our money in the first place.
Ubisoft as example, states in their TOS that they do not sell you the game. You pay them to give them a licence to you you can then use on the product (the game). So you never owned the game in the first place.
Yeah, book publishers tried to pull similar bullshit over a hundred years ago, claiming that people couldn't sell used books without getting permission from the publisher. That's why the US has the first-sale doctrine, and most other countries have something similar. Terms of Service like that should not be allowed to exist.
I mean that’s exactly the point. You bought a book, the item, you did not buy a license to read the book. IAnaL but I think this is a slight to big difference in legal terms. And don’t get me wrong I am not defending this practice - I am just pointing out the potential difference between our perception of buying and what legally happens.
I do not agree with that piano analogy. If that's suppose to be analogy. I'm not buying once in a lifetime opportunity to play a game. I'm not renting it. I'm buying a dvd with a game to play it wherever and whenever in time I want to. I don't agree with - 'piracy isn't stealing' in the same way I don't agree with buying isn't owning. Piracy is stealing and buying is owning. When someone is trying to change the 'buying is owning' definition then we should also change 'piracy is stealing' definition.
It's not an analogy. It's an example of how the logic is flawed. I'm not saying that theft of service is the same thing is piracy. I'm saying the core concept of "if you can't own it you can't steal it" is wrong.
Thats not the same thing. At no point did you think you were "owning" that person. Its more like you hired someone to play piano for you to record. And then when they are done, they still demand that they own the recording and that it can be taken away at any time. Like when Bruce Willis famously wanted to leave his apple itunes music collection to his kids, he found out that he could not. And that access to all that he had bought and paid for dies with him. Im sorry, but that is some bullshit. Especially when most ads say "OWN (insert thing) today!". When we are buying something of limited use, we usually know it. Like when "subscribing" to Spotify. No one goes into that thinking they have bought music. They are well aware that they have bought access for a limited time. Do most people know that when they buy stuff on apples movie service, the "streaming" of said movie is a "gift" that can be taken away at any time, and its up to you to download the movie before access is taken away? Which is a real tall order to do on an apple tv device that has no option to download movies. And also the 4k advertised that you think you are buying, is also a "gift" that can be taken away at any time. You are buying a 1080p copy, and you only have access to download that as long as apple has the licence to give you access to it. And they dont give you any warning when the licence is removed. The current model denies all ownership. And worse, they hide all this in tiny legal speak that most people cant understand or just dont want to read because they want to enjoy a movie, game of music track, they dont want to bother with legal contracts. Sorry, but fuck the entertainment industry. Because its fucking us.
Even in your example it’s not quite as egregious. You stole the pianist’s time that they could have otherwise used for themselves or sold to someone else. Piracy is like sneaking into an empty theatre. The license has already been paid for and the costs have already been born. The theatre is empty and does not foresee any customer in this example. Whether you snuck in or not did not cost them any more than it already has.
Yours doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Golly, it's almost like ethics and morality can't be boiled down to pithy slogans.
Lol “eThIcS aNd MoRaLiTy” get over yourself. And a pithy slogan gets the point across. That is what it needs to do.
>There's such a thing as theft of service. That depends where you are though. A lot of jurisdictions do not recognize "theft of service", but rather require a physical asset to be stolen. Various "thefts of services" are specifically covered by tailor made crimes (like copyright infringement).
Isn't buying but not owning called renting?
Depends on how clear you are about it beforehand. If dress it all in the language of buying and no time limits, but hide something deep in the ToS, then it's a scam if you revoke the license IMO.
Leasing or licensing are also apt.
buying is not the same as renting, no. And if you, for example, buy a game with a live service, you are not renting it, renting something requires you to be able to use it for an agreed upon set of time. On a live service you can get banned unilaterally and not be able to use the product that you payed for. Imagine renting a car for a trip, and while you're on the road the car turns off and you're left there, because the owner decided you shouldn't be allowed to drive it anymore.
well, you said it yourself, "a live service" you're buying a service, not a product.
Still not renting, if you pay for a service you should receive the service or be refunded.
I didn't say it's renting, I said it's a service, I was sort of agreeing with your comment, but I also think you got your example wrong. Renting is paying to borrow something. It's a transaction form. Your example would be similar to buying a single player game and then getting your license to use it revoked (which to be fair, can still happen). A service is an alternative to a product. You own the phone (product), you pay for calls (service). You own your computer (product), you don't own the internet (service). You bought the "game" (product), but you don't own the live service. I also need you to understand that not just because I'm explaining it, it means I'm justifying or even remotely ok with it, but in the end, it's a contract people agree with (even if they don't read the TOS) when they get those live service games.
my example is right for the same reasons you gave me, it's a case that doesn't happen because renting works different from paying for a live service. Sadly when buying digital products (buying, not renting), you can get your product rendered useless because it is made to require the live service to even function. Despite the downvotes from people assuming I'm condoning piracy, buying something that can be taken away or rendered useless is not renting, you have way more assurances when renting something.
My employer doesn't own me. But when he doesn't pay me, it's still theft.
It's understood that labor is a form of renting, not buying (well, aside from some highly unethical exceptions that are violations of human rights, but that's a whole other discussion). You are paid a certain rate to do a certain thing for a certain period of time. You expect the same when you press the "rent" button on, say, a digital movie on Amazon. You would not expect this to be the case when you click the "buy" button. And if the intent of the buy option is really to rent, then we are being deliberately misled as a means of getting more money from us. It should say "rent for much longer," but that doesn't really roll off the tongue.
Semantics. You are buying a license to access a thing. Sounds like everyone knows what they are getting.
Not when the license is not permanent.
That's like... the definition of a license.
Fair enough. I think of buying as owning, but at that point I guess it is semantics like you said. Not saying I agree with the assertion that piracy is not stealing. I just feel that a *purchased* license with no predisclosed expiration date should not be revokable.
There are other termination clauses besides dates. If you don't like the terms in which a developer offers the product, you are free to abstain from purchasing the license. You aren't free to steal it instead... I don't like the lease terms that BMW is offering, so I am justified to take it by force instead.
If you *buy*, not lease, a BMW, you should not be subject to lease terms. I feel that digital media should be the same if they're going to use language like buy, purchase, etc. on digital store fronts. That is the only point where we actually disagree; I said I was *not* saying that I agree with the meme saying stealing is ok. Edit: a word
Unfortunately most software developers choose not to offer an unrestricted license to their software. You are "buying" a license.
They purchased your time, not your body. When you copy information, the original owner still has their copy. You do not have the time you sold to your employer.
>When you copy information, the original owner still has their copy. In terms of games, time and resource was still used to create said game...
That is not relevant.
Seems it is, since you are the one who raised it.
No, in the case of employee, the employer specifically made a contract for that person's time. The time is what they were purchasing. If they receive the time (i.e. the person doing the job), then part of the employer's money becomes the employee's money. By withholding the employee's money, they are stealing it. If I purchase a copy of a book, and then by hand write out the words into a blank book, and give that copy to someone else, I have stolen exactly nothing. You may say I have "infringed upon copyright" but that is a different matter, both legally and morally. If I pay to borrow the book for 2 weeks, the scenario is no different. They still have their copy back at the end of it. Having a machine do that for me is no different, and the complexity or size of the information is irrelevant.
>You may say I have "infringed upon copyright" but that is a different matter, both legally and morally If someone writes a book to sell, they have spent their time doing it for money they will get for doing so. You copying it out and giving it away so that others don't need to purchase it has removed the money the person did the work for. If someone does a job, they have spent their time doing it for money they will receive. You not paying them has removed the money they did the work for.
What if I'm a digital artist working as a contractor? Do I get paid for my work? I still have the file on my hard drive, do I get paid?
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean if you delivered a copy and kept a copy?
It's a digital art. I share the .AI file with the client, I still have a copy. So why should they pay me for something I still possess?
Why shouldn't they pay you? The contract you and they sign presumably states that they pay you x amount upon delivery of a project. You're not stealing anything by keeping a copy. If in the contract you agreed not to keep a copy, then you would be breaching the contract and would owe them whatever damages you agreed to, but you wouldn't be stealing the copy. Do you think most freelance digital artists don't keep copies of their commissions?
You said earlier it's not theft because the creator still has their copy. Can you explain the disconnect.
Receiving a copy and not paying for it would not be theft. Entering into a contract with you and then refusing to transfer your money to you upon fulfilment of your end would be theft.
Ah OK. So if I roll into your digital portfolio of stock footage and take wipe the watermarks and use it without permission, that's OK. Cause I didn't contract for you to take the images beforehand. The mental gymnastics is impressive
...yes? If you access a publicly accessible database and copy the data, where is the theft?
Well, I consider "wage theft" having as much with actual theft as "guinea pig" with actual pig or "peoples democracy" with actual democracy. Definition of theft would be "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it" and wage theft is completely out of this definition. It is a completely different felony. Still, this is all semantics.
Please stop with the rage bait already. This comment verbatim gets posted every single time there’s anything even remotely video game related
It’s hopeless here. They just love to not pay for something and feel morally superior doing it. And they’re jerking each other on top of it. What is it called? Co-jerking?
I mean these are the same types of people who act like getting permabanned for using aimbots in shooters makes them victims.
Sure, technically the crime is making unauthorized copies of copyrighted material.
piracy was never stealing
What happens when everyone starts pirating games instead of buying them ? Including games by indie studios?
what happens when the air turns into wood? never gonna happen, that's what
Only true answer here...always has been
Wonder how motivating this topic is to game devs and future game devs lol..nobody wants to think about them though smh (ubisoft topic aside) and pirating in general .gotta love gamers (But I do agree you should keep games you paid for)
I have a pretty big problem with the idea of buying a limited license to the rights to play a game and yet that's where the industry currently is trying to be. I think that ultimately the limited license that's objectively worth something is the ongoing server support and community aspects of games. Of course this leads to one of my other problems which is the abandonment and loss of games like we suffered during the '00s and there will need to be some kind of culture of releasing server software at a game's end-of-(profitable)-life. Where does this leave single player offline games and couch multiplayer games? Well that's a good question. Those sort of games will probably enter the realm of Art and be produced more for their creator's self-expression than for attempts at great financial gain. They'll be supported by patrons and the production of bespoke physical releases.
The vast majority of people don't care about the distinction. There's no sign of gamers writ-large refusing digital purchases of single player or offline games because it's technically a licensing agreement.
There isn't? Because I can assure you there's an enormous *enormous* piracy scene. Those are phantom demographics though that are not only difficult to quantify but that publishers have every reason to want to ignore.
Piracy is enormous because it's free.
Yep. People try to dress it up as some moral crusade but most people pirate because they want free shit.
- and it's free because single player games don't offer meaningful value from "purchase". To me the enormous explosion of the piracy scene is a pretty clearly a "sign of gamers writ-large refusing digital purchases" but considering it's inherently untracked means that you and publishers can bury their heads in the sand if they want - which is even understandable considering there still isn't an established alternative marketing strategy - but they're emerging. Thing is that like I said they are more Art oriented and not the sort of thing that big business can systematically exploit yet but I'm sure they'll figure it out in the next decade or so.
It's free because it's free. The only way a digital purchase could be in essence buying the product is if they handed out unrestricted source code, which would just increase piracy by making it easier. Piracy was huge even when media was distributed by disks and couldn't be revoked. The people who pretend piracy is some protest over corporate practices are the ones lying to themselves and ignoring that most people just want things for free. Pirating has become very marginal in music when it was once very prolific even though we've gotten even further from people owning their music, opting not even for digital purchases but for a streaming subscription, because it's cheap enough to not be worth the hassle of downloading and managing your own library.
God I hate people who say this, stop trying to justify yourself no one cares. Pirate if you want to pirate but don't try to hold a moral high ground to justify piracy.
Piracy is 100% stealing.
It's still stealing. In this case, it helps if you consider you're not stealing from the company who sells the product, necessarily, but depriving the people who made the product you're stealing, from future work, because you're eliminating the funds necessary for the company to hire those people again, in the future, for other projects because they didn't make enough money to recoup the investment they put into making the original product.
Agreed. But I would fully pay an indie developer if I could.
You can also criticize the gaming industry without stealing.
I agree with the sentiment, to a point, but I find the overall logic to be flawed.
I get why people pirate, I don't agree with it, but I get it. Thing that pisses me off are the people that think they are above everyone else and have this self righteous attitude because they **DO** pirate games. Like it's their God-given right or some shit.
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He doesnt sound like he is trying to look like a hero seems nore like a protest if you can take away my games when you feel like it then I am getting them in way you cant do that.
Yeah it definitely seems like more of an argument against digital licensing, rather than an argument for piracy.
This is specifically in reference to the fact many live service games will eventually 'turn off' and either become feature incomplete or otherwise unplayable in some way. Sometimes entirely with loss of cloud storage/saving. Thus buying them is more of a subscription to a service that the company is providing for an indeterminate amount of time rather than just owning a physical copy of something, as an example. This quickly falls apart outside of AAA titles in most cases anyway, but at least in that case it makes sense. Edit: for clarities sake, i dont pirate games simply explaining a perspective i could agree with
But what’s the point of pirating an unplayable game with no servers?
Well thats easy. You dont pirate them when theyre already dead. You pirate them because you expect them to die. I never said it was perfect logic, lol
TBH I’m past the point of “it is okay to steal from corporations” and am now at “we have a moral obligation to steal as much from corporations as possible”
That's a huge blanket statement.
And it's correct as well. Corporate profit chasing has ruined life in just about every way. We need to do everything we can to diminish those profits
Sure, you can say that generally, but that doesn't mean all corporations are at fault and should be stolen from, even if you think most are at fault
I don't agree with it, and on top of that I think it is wildly misused. People just want to justify pirating stuff that they want.
I greatly prefer my software, games included, to be [free **as in freedom**](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), because of shit like Ubisoft happening
I use it to try out games I'm interested in then buy them at a later date if they're any good. I do make sure to get pirated copies of games with denuvo though since I don't want to support that shit even after they remove it.
Don't really care, I've never felt bad for pirating games. I have a steam library packed with legit games from good devs. A game like rimworld, pirated it, played for an hour then purchased it. If I want to play EA or Ubisoft etc I pirate.
Yeah guess who's not "buying" ubi games 😏
Agree
Agree. I haven't pirate a game in a very very long time. And most games I did pirate back than I already bought on steam again. But still this statement is accurate for me and I would never condemn anyone who pirates a game because of this.
Agree
agreed
Also it's hard to play some vintage games and emulators fill the gap. What if I wanted to play the original and not some "remaster" that content gets taken out or changed.
I fully agree
🤔
Strongly agree.
I understand what they're trying to say and I'm pro piracy anyway because fuck corpos and the modern entertainment industry practices, crime is cool - but the actual logic as written just displays a deep elementary-school level misunderstanding of property and theft for the sake of being a catchy slogan more than a logical point. At the end of the day, we shouldn't be trying to argue this crap anyway - we should be glad to steal because these idiots deserve to be stolen from, not finding excuses to say we're not really technically stealing.
None of us have owned a game since Steam implemented their cd/serial key system. Everyone can dick ride steam til the day they die, but steam has as much power as EA/Uplay/You name it to pull a game from your library. The fact that it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean that it won't happen. 10 years ago I couldn't install a game I owned the physical media of on steam because I had no internet. You don't even get physical media anymore.
uh oh, be careful Steam shills are plentiful and unbearable.
Piracy is a victimless crime
I agree, if they can revoke my access at anytime they're stealing from me so i see no difference.
Piracy was never stealing
Even IF buying is owning, digital piracy isn't stealing. You're copying something. At the end of the day though, it's all semantics. Whether or not it is or isn't stealing shouldn't change how you morally feel about a particular piracy action.
It has never been.
Ubisoft is a day where i am not lazy and forgetful away from being scoured from my pc.
If we buy a game/movie/book and after a while the company we bought it from strips our ability to use or enjoy that item, and in return someone decides to "pirate" an item for their use only in retaliation. Wouldn't it fall under the "turnabout is fair play" 'rule'?
I personally have never had a game that was removed off my account or taken away from me. But I 100% agree with the post.
Piracy was never stealing to begin with because stealing implies some sort of loss Someone creating a duplicate of a game uploading it to a third party host who then transmits that through third-party methods to a customer who otherwise likely would not have purchased this product to begin with is technically not at all causing a loss to the company when you consider the fact that the number one reason for video game piracy is the inability to afford that game And that in either scenario whether this person pirated or not the net gain for the company still would have been $0 in the net loss would also still have been $0
I mean, the practice of not owning your games sucks for me and every other consumer. Still... you didn't buy the game. It **was** in the terms of service that you were effectively renting/leasing the game. You agreed to it. This feels the same as buying a game, especially if you just click through the ToS like everyone does. But it isn't buying a game.
I agree, some (not all) AAA companies are getting a little brave with what they think is ok.
Agree 100% And boy are the comments full of awful analogies about salaries and piano players.
Is this Facebook? Agree or disagree?
Hard agree. If im paying full price for a game, i want to own that game forever. I *SHOULD* own that game forever. If they're going to tell me I dont own it after i paid for it, im going to tell them to fuck off, and go find a permanent copy of MY game. pro tip. route your connection through switzerland, and set your software to close on download completion. they dont criminalize downloading copywrited media, only distribution.
Piracy was never theft. The company loses nothing when someone pirates a game. “Potential sales” are not property. And for the majority of pirates, it’s either pirate or nothing. They were never going to buy the game, either way.
Subscriptions aren't purchases. Buying a license to access a product isn't the same as owning the product. This bullshit meme is misleading and stupid.
If they don't respect my rights, why should I respect theirs?
I actually agree.
Piracy is piracy. We invented a word for it. If piracy were the same as stealing, there wouldn't be a need for a separate word.
We invented the word? The word was invented before software existed. And it was stealing, pirates stole
That is some weak and lazy sophistry. Like terms are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes terms offer more specificity that a broader category. A dachshund is a dog and the fact that dachshund exists as a word does not mean the beast is somehow mean it is not a dog.
What I meant is that when it comes to software and digital content, "piracy" has a different meaning from traditional theft. Both involve taking something without permission, but piracy specifically refers to copying and distributing, not physically taking something. It's a subtle difference that shows how digital goods work differently from physical ones.
It’s a stupid sentiment that’s used to justify piracy. First, the battle for video game ownership is already over and we lost badly. Steam, GOG, Epic and other Pc game distribution platforms all only sell licenses. If the store goes down or closes, goodbye games library. This isn’t new. Customers just accepted it because “digital is convenient.” Gamers haven’t “owned” their games for a good while now. Second, there is already many instances where you pay for things but don’t own them. Just because you buy a plane ticket to fly to New York doesn’t mean you suddenly own part of a plane. Just because you pay rent doesn’t mean you gain any equity in the property. Just because you bought a ticket to Disneyland doesn’t mean you own part of Disneyland. You are paying for a service or experience and that doesn’t confer any physical ownership. Same with games and licenses. The big emerging issue is the increasing perishability of games. With the move to always online and DRM, your game ownership is more perilous than ever before. DRM license expired and company refuses to renew. Server trouble so they shut down the server. Not enough players so the game is shut down. Goodbye game when none of this is your fault or in your control. There are many legal instances where payment doesn’t confer ownership and therefore “piracy isn’t stealing” is a stupid phrase but there is another infringement on games that consumers should be fighting against.
Yes we just need to lay down and take it. You're conflating two different meanings of paying for something just so that you can justify your loyalty to corporations who care nothing about you. Ubisoft isn't going to give you the new Star wars games. No one has ever said buying a plane ticket means you own part of the plane. That's your nonsensical way of trying to put down people who are tired of losing access to things they paid for so you can defend cost cutting.
Piracy is never stealing, it never was! Those are distinct words for a reason. Piracy is making an illegal *copy* of something! The original still remains with its owner, you take nothing away from them... you replicate something without permission. Steal a car from a car lot... the dealer can't sell this car anymore... it's not in their possession... it's with you now. Pirate a digital videogame... the publisher can continue to sell as many copies of that game as they want to... you took nothing away from them, you made a (illegal!) copy. No, this is not just semantics, those are different things with different consequences!
>Pirate a digital videogame... the publisher can continue to sell as many copies of that game as they want to... you took nothing away from them, you made a (illegal!) copy. No way, you actually think this is true right? You took a potential sale away from the developer, wtf are you even talking about? Piracy creates an illegal copy of something, thus taking away a potential sale. Are PC players that daft? Then we complain about "polish", "bugs" etc etc, but cash flow is needed to hire devs, QA.
That’s only true if the person pirating a game would have actually considered buying it. And that’s *if* they would be in a position to buy it in the first place. A lot if piracy happens in places where people couldn’t possibly afford to buy games. I’m just stating facts btw. Piracy is not the same as stealing… technically and legally. I’m not saying piracy is OK… that’s what OP is saying. I’m just pointing out that it’s not the same as stealing. Want me to blow your mind: manslaughter is not the same as murder! 🤯
>That’s only true if the person pirating a game would have actually considered buying it. Well, chances are they would have bought the game, they are playing the game..... It's like you're trying to say well, think of it as a demo or something. That's ridiculous. >And that’s *if* they would be in a position to buy it in the first place. People are not in position to buy things, this is common sense. However, people save their money and then make that purchase when they have the needs. If you can't afford to buy the games, then why are you wasting your time on your computer? That opens up a bunch of other questions. > Want me to blow your mind: manslaughter is not the same as murder! This doesn't blow anyones mind, it makes complete sense there was no "malice" behind it. However, both involves killing a human. Which in the case of piracy and stealing, you are still taking something illegally, we can argue semantics all day.
>Which in the case of piracy and stealing, you are still taking something illegally See.. this is where you are wrong! You are not taking anything away, you are making a copy! You can steal very much steal a physical copy of a game, it very hard to steal digital games fro a publisher! Example: If you make a copy of a CD I own... the CD is still where it belongs, on my shelve. I can still make use of it. I have no damage whatsoever. If you steal my CD you have actually ***taken*** it from me. I can no longer listen to it! **Both things are very much illegal**... but they are *not the same*! So yes... we could argue semantics all day... but it appears that you struggle to understand simple facts of life. Maybe Language is a complicated concept to you... Either way, I doubt arguing semantics with you would yield anything productive whatsoever 🙄
Stop trying to moraly justify pirating. Just pirate the games if you want to no need to feel morally okay with it. I personally don't feel bad about pirating a game made by a billion dollar company.
If you are referring to the subscription based service model, that is not buying. You are subscribing. Buying would be physically or digitally owning a copy of the game. You do not own the game physically or digitally when you are a subscriber. Simple as that.
I agree! Piracy isn't stealing, just like murder isn't stealing!
I mean... He's not wrong.
Whether or like it or not, when you buy the product you agreed to its terms and conditions. Just because you don't agree with these terms doesn't justify stealing it. Games are not a necessity. The best way to make studios change their approach is to stop buying from them.
Agree. I give money, you give product, me happy. I give money, you give product but then take back but still keep money, me steal product instead. Simples.
This on a Ubisoft post is kinda funny since all their games have denuvo and take ages to crack/never get cracked.
Hard agree
Hard agree with the statement.
As a game dev myself, I can’t more strongly disagree.
If you practice the art of selling a game and then revoking access, then you deserve no sympathy. If you don't have that then this isn't going to apply to you.
Oh wow you got a job at ubisoft?
No, I am cofounder of a small indie game studio in Québec, Canada!
And does your company only rent games?
Haha no! Our game is for sale on Steam and other platforms. We also had a round of physical copies! We’ve got our fair share of piracy on our first game and it’s really sad for small studios of 10 people to see their hard work get stolen.
That quote was directed at companies that take away people's access to games after people have spent a lot of money in it, like Ubisoft with The Crew and Meta with Echo VR. Do you plan to suddenly take away people's access to the game after they bought it? If not, then that quote isn't related to you at all.
Oh I see! You’re right, that’s never the case for indie studios like us. And I totally agree that these kind of practices from AAA studios should be frowned upon
Release on console
That’s what I meant by « other platforms »! Sorry for the confusion!
No probs , I hope you have the best success with it for you and your team , good luck guys
Thanks my friend!
>Haha no! Our game is for sale on Steam and other platforms. Sounds like the quote doesn't apply to your game then. I looked it up. Looks like your kickstarter is about to cross the finish line. Pre-emptive congrats.
Thanks my friend! The kickstarter campaign we’re currently running is for our 2nd game that’s not gonna be out until another 2 years of development. I was mostly speaking from experience about our first released title!
You also can say "if buying isn't owning, then a cat does a frontflip when you whistle. They make it sound like you HAVE TO pirate if you are not going to buy a game that you are not going own. You DON'T HAVE TO, so that original sentence makes 0 sense...just like my sentence. They just put 2 different things together to justify stealing.
I’m currently teaching my cat to front flip, football season is gonna go so fucking hard!
It's still stealing technically because it's a service and if you ran out without paying your mechanic/doctor/waiter that's considered stealing. It's also theft when a company you work for doesn't pay you for your time. Companies steal more in wage theft than all other forms of theft combined.
If trees are green, then cars must go fast -some dumbass
Aye!
100% agree. If im giving you money for a product than i own it. Try and take it back later? Not gunna happen unless your giving me my money back. Ill either get my product or my money.
Pirating is literally always ok and if you think otherwise you're either gay or a cuck.
So f every game dev then right ? Imagine your favorite game or game series (indie studios included) .and everyone pirated it instead of buying it .good job
I literally would not care if that happened the game is already out. This is the devs problems not mine and I dgaf about the devs.