Morality of Piracy - Yet another quality FuckedUp thread

[AMHOLIO]

How come nobody robs trains anymore that was the best kind of stealing back in the olden days.

Horses are easier to jump from than cars. If you jump from a horse, the horse keeps running. If you jump from a car, the car keeps running but doesn't know when to stop.

Passenger trains like subways always get minor robberies if that helps.

Not only cringe but it hurt the scene in ways that are objectively wrong. Fitgirl and Skidrow purposely fucked each other uploads with malware to track the people who downloaded them torrents. Is really scummy and it shows they have no respect for the scene.

I'm surprised they thought there was honor amongst ALL thieves in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I like it when the scene respects each other, but when you're all engaging in something illegal, not everyone is going to play by your rules. Its easier to ironically be like indie developers and ignore shit like that so everyone can be happy.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

hardcore socialist and communist who think all games will be free under gay space anarchowhatever

You still had to pay for legal copies of games in East Germany and the Soviet Union. The USSR had looser copyright laws, that's it. The state owned the rights in many cases. China is a modern example of how wrong they are.

If they went for the East Germany route, games with pew pew would be criminalized. Someone got arrested for making a pro-East Germany game back then because it had violence.

 

[Truman the Jewman]

You still had to pay for legal copies of games in East Germany and the Soviet Union

Modern "Marxist": Everyone will be provided with everything! To each according to their own! Eat the rich!

Soviet Communists: Thank you for coding software, tovarisch. We will now own software, and you will earn loaf of bread for today. Royalties are Western decadence; you are just as important as potato farmer.

 

[Just Dont]

I'm surprised they thought there was honor amongst ALL thieves in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I like it when the scene respects each other, but when you're all engaging in something illegal, not everyone is going to play by your rules. Its easier to ironically be like indie developers and ignore shit like that so everyone can be happy.

There is real history about Piracy, and in the 90' and 00' there was honor, respect and friendship between coders and cracking groups.

The scene always tried to improve based on respect and freedom of information.

I believe the internet shouldn't be legalized in any way. If there is intellectual property on the internet then it belongs to everyone.

Nowadays we have two controlling groups and both of them are fucking assholes who want to monetize their uploads and gatekeep other coders and crackers.

 

[AMHOLIO]

There is real history about Piracy, and in the 90' and 00' there was honor, respect and friendship between coders and cracking groups.

The scene always tried to improve based on respect and freedom of information.

I believe the internet shouldn't be legalized in any way. If there is intellectual property on the internet then it belongs to everyone.

Nowadays we have two controlling groups and both of them are fucking assholes who want to monetize their uploads and gatekeep other coders and crackers.

Its a shame that the growth of the internet means the growth of attention whores and undesireables to a community. Men who want asspats without showing their face but also complete control over their "product" (lol wtf) are more common now due to it. It'd be nice if piracy communities could have stayed as is, but the more people you have = the less one ruleset or philosophy is accepted. It's not always bad, just sucks in this case.

 

[Pitere pit]

Piracy on big tech is totes fine. Microsoft won't lose any money because a starving student download a cracked version, same with big media.
As another user said pages ago, the sudden surge of streaming services are promoting piracy, and it's not wonder why people instead of paying 200 dollahs a month prefere going to watchfilmsnow.su. Just have a nice antivirus and you can consoom all the media you want.

 

[Kornula]

Harvard businss released a study done 20 years ago about digital piracy and found essentially that it helped business not harm it actually. Most people who "pirated" an album or song were far more likely to buy a copy they downloaded after they heard it....

https://hbr.org/2020/10/the-digital-piracy-dilemma

Regarding the endless streaming services popping up, I agree, they are extorting us to pay for yet another exclusive streaming service. The ONLY show I want to watch on Disney + is The Mandalorian. I would have to pay over 20$ a month to watch one show. If I wanted to watch Bojack Horsman, I'd have to shell out 15$ or 20$ more a month for just that one show. etcetera etcetera.

People liked Netflix at first because it offered an affordable alternative to cable. It gave the public what it wanted and needed; content we could choose at any time we chose. But other major studios thought they could start their own... now the streaming sites are growing, but the content is shrinking. I don't know anyone who wants to ..or has time or money to subscribe to every single streaming service today, Disney bought the 20th Century Fox library..and is keeping it for themselves. While I like competition, this is a case where the consumer and the providers are going to lose.

I liked not having to shell out 60$ a month to my cable company mostly for the three shows I wanted to watch that was only offered if I paid for "premium" service. Netflix had those shows for only 10$ a month..and I could watch it when I wanted to. Now, one of those shows is free on youtube.(free is good). one is on Hulu excuselvy. Now we are back to paying more for far less.

And they wonder why people resort to "pirating"?

 

[Doinker Marmalade]

Oh, you got my comments moved to this dumbass thread, thanks a lot you fucking spergs who can't keep on big thonking when we're trying to talk about troons getting mad.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Is not strange for fuck sake! The guys who did Hotline Miami (I think it is Revolver Digital) purposely gave away the game in TPB because at the moment they were a very small company with no publisher and they needed to get the word out.

Nowadays Revolver Digital is probably the most important publisher of Indie games in the world.

Can you understand that Piracy doesn't hurt devs? Go play with trains dude.

Shut up, Meg.

Men who want asspats without showing their face but also complete control over their "product" (lol wtf) are more common now due to it.

WTF does that even mean? "Men who want asspats without showing their face", WTF does that mean that makes no fucking sense.

And of course an IP owner will be territorial & want control over their product, why are you acting like that's unprecedented? Have you never heard of Disney? What rock do you live under?

Oh wait, you're talking about pirates being protective of their leaks? My bad, but LMAO that's even funnier. Who knew there'd be drama at the Thief's Guild?

Harvard businss released a study done 20 years ago about digital piracy and found essentially that it helped business not harm it actually. Most people who "pirated" an album or song were far more likely to buy a copy they downloaded after they heard it....

https://hbr.org/2020/10/the-digital-piracy-dilemma

At least makes sense and isn't some weird Twilight Zone argument.

Regarding the endless streaming services popping up, I agree, they are extorting us to pay for yet another exclusive streaming service. The ONLY show I want to watch on Disney + is The Mandalorian. I would have to pay over 20$ a month to watch one show. If I wanted to watch Bojack Horsman, I'd have to shell out 15$ or 20$ more a month for just that one show. etcetera etcetera.

People liked Netflix at first because it offered an affordable alternative to cable. It gave the public what it wanted and needed; content we could choose at any time we chose. But other major studios thought they could start their own... now the streaming sites are growing, but the content is shrinking. I don't know anyone who wants to ..or has time or money to subscribe to every single streaming service today, Disney bought the 20th Century Fox library..and is keeping it for themselves. While I like competition, this is a case where the consumer and the providers are going to lose.

I liked not having to shell out 60$ a month to my cable company mostly for the three shows I wanted to watch that was only offered if I paid for "premium" service. Netflix had those shows for only 10$ a month..and I could watch it when I wanted to. Now, one of those shows is free on youtube.(free is good). one is on Hulu excuselvy. Now we are back to paying more for far less.

The obvious solution is to just get Blurays of the shows you want and rip them to a PC so you can have your own library & skip the streaming service shit. Then you'll always have a backup, too. It'd be nice to just be able to pay less just for the one show you want over the library package they offer you, maybe have like a tiered setting where you pick out the select shows you want at a fixed price.

And they wonder why people resort to "pirating"?

Why did you put that in quotes? Why do so many people insist they're not doing the thing they're doing?

There is nothing wrong with piracy, anyone who says otherwise is a parhelic wagecuck

So people who dislike piracy have sun halos? LMAO I guess it's worth it to be a wagecuck after all if you get a literal halo from the sun.

 

[Just Dont]

Shut up, Meg.

WTF does that even mean? "Men who want asspats without showing their face", WTF does that mean that makes no fucking sense.

And of course an IP owner will be territorial & want control over their product, why are you acting like that's unprecedented? Have you never heard of Disney? What rock do you live under?

Oh wait, you're talking about pirates being protective of their leaks? My bad, but LMAO that's even funnier. Who knew there'd be drama at the Thief's Guild?

At least makes sense and isn't some weird Twilight Zone argument.

The obvious solution is to just get Blurays of the shows you want and rip them to a PC so you can have your own library & skip the streaming service shit. Then you'll always have a backup, too. It'd be nice to just be able to pay less just for the one show you want over the library package they offer you, maybe have like a tiered setting where you pick out the select shows you want at a fixed price.

Why did you put that in quotes? Why do so many people insist they're not doing the thing they're doing?

So people who dislike piracy have sun halos? LMAO I guess it's worth it to be a wagecuck after all if you get a literal halo from the sun

Null told me to stop my community infighting, so I won't reply to you no more.

 

[David Brown]

Intellectual property is not ontologically real. Nobody can own an idea. The idea of ownership is nonsense if there is nothing to be taken away or stolen and no way to prevent a copy of it being made except by contrived means such as DRM which are frequently overcome. Software developers charge people for software and if people are able and willing to pay for it, they pay. If they are able to pay for it but not willing to, they may make an unauthorized copy. If they are unwilling to pay for it and unable to make an authorized copy of the software, they simply don't use it. Arguments about piracy tend to break down into squabbling over whether someone "deserves" compensation for their intellectual work, and if unauthorized, noncompensatory usage of their software or music or video or whatever actually can be considered as a deprivation of their supposedly deserved compensation. There has never been a satisfactory proof that someone deserves to be compensated for their ideas, even if they put a lot of work into it. What, are we using the labor theory of value? What's the basis for their deserved compensation?

 

[Kornula]

I have walls of DVD/s and Blu Ray's. However, there are some shows/movies that I want to watch that are either exclusively on Streaming (The Mandilorian for one) or rare, out of print or generally hard to come by. The rare ones have either been on VHS once.. or in one case.. never even released in a theater. (Nothing Lasts Forever - 1984) You bet I'm going to download that shit... cause there is literally no other way to get it.

Plus, it has been brought up before..and I will chime in again that Copyright laws need to change (fuck you Sonny Bono) Sure, it's nice to have a well made box set of the entire Billie Holiday set. Yes, the materials cost money. But Billie and everyone who worked on recording that stuff is long dead. I love giving money to people who actually did the work. Yes.. people designed a new box set.. but.... 200$ for who? The excutives who approved the design set don't deserve a dime. Just because they hold the rights to a dead artist does not mean they should milk money.

Regarding the things I do "pirate" is mostly music from long dead musicians. So I cannot steal from a dead person. Plus, someone else here mentioned they have downloaded albums they bought multiple copies of over the decades ..which is what I have done. There is one instance I wanted the soundtrack to a movie that never had the official soundtrack issued; Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam) 20 years ago, I took it upon myself to rip the music from the DVD and make my own un official soundtrack. When someone did finally release it officially,I bought a copy.

Regardless, we should have a choice right...but the media monsters are desperate to hold their reins on how we consume entertainment. Maybe if Hollywood stopped churning out crap - and shaming us for not liking it, we might have a little more respect...and if the price of a movie ticket wasn't 15$

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Thanks to big streaming services capable of yanking media for any reason, piracy is the new Library of Alexandria.

 

[AbyssStarer]

Bro, I can't afford it anyway, so I'll just dine & dash at the fancy restaurant because I deserve to experience their food whether they like it or not, it's their fault for not making it more available to me!
Come up with a better argument than this, please. You are not entitled to experience media because you missed out on it and can't afford it. There's a lot out there that you can afford that you just don't want to.

People who redistribute media they don't own the rights to don't deserve sympathy, if they believe copyright is so wrong then they can try and do something about it. The laws only got so fucked up because people sat back and let it happen.

 

[Large]

People who redistribute media they don't own the rights to don't deserve sympathy, if they believe copyright is so wrong then they can try and do something about it. The laws only got so fucked up because people sat back and let it happen.

Ordinary people cannot oppose lobbyists without violence, and noone is going to resort to violence just to prevent a restriction that is trivial to bypass from becoming law.

 

[David Brown]

The laws only got so fucked up because people sat back and let it happen.

This is not an argument. It's a vague impression about the world that many share but you couldn't show it conclusively. In fact, I'm absolutely sure that you have never proven this to be the case even to yourself, but you were satisfied with the feeling that the idea gave you which was enough for you. Which people are you specifically referring to anyway?

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

The official song of this thread:

 

[Blue Screen of Death]

I try to give back when I can, there's been many times where I've pirated something while broke to only buy it legit once I come across money.

But, at the end of the day I don't try to create a moral case for piracy because I don't lose sleep over it. If I don't care enough to actually purchase something, it's not like they're going to get the sale anyways.

Honestly, I think the alternatives are more harmful (streaming music, abusing Steam's refund system to try games) because the creator is just being cucked right in front of them.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

There's already a thread on this so I'll just quote my answer from it. But basically, it's immoral and no amount justification will ever change that.

I assume you're talking about games currently sold by the publisher (or ones reasonably assumed will be available in the foreseeable future).

Pirating a copy of an old, obscure foreign arcade game with convoluted rights issues from pre-Internet times that hasn't been and won't be rereleased is not immoral. It's not like you're pirating Super Mario Odyssey (2017, current console, readily available) or even Super Mario Bros. (available everywhere and still sold by Nintendo). I think anyone reasonable would agree that is acceptable at minimum, zero tolerance doesn't make any logical or even moral sense.

Personally, I think it's only theft if a person downloads a currently available game they can and would otherwise would buy. Even then, theft is not exactly an accurate term.

To the publisher it's no different if you pirate a game than if you buy a used copy of their game from the secondhand market, rent it from a business, or even borrow it from a friend. If your issue is the demanded compensation not being supplied then these are also a problem if you're trying to remain intellectually consistent.

Assuming you have a problem with buying used too, then you think a hardware purist who wants to play Sonic 2 on original hardware instead of a modern version is immoral by buying it from eBay instead of Sega?

It's definitely a subject with a lot more nuance than both sides give it.

 

[David Brown]

But if I were to try and sell it online, I'd get about 1/4th of the price I originally bought it for.

I'm glad you mentioned this. The secondhand market also works to undermine the idea that unauthorized copying is harmful to the "content creators". There is absolutely no difference to the content creator between someone making an unauthorized copy of their work and someone buying a secondhand copy of a DVD. It has the exact same impact on sales (i.e. none). In fact, one could argue that even having two people watch one copy of a movie should be considered as piracy.