this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
464 points (90.0% liked)

memes

9680 readers
3624 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

How does pirating make a corporation broke? Making a copy doesn't steal money.

Edit: We can't pirate a company into bankruptcy.

[–] dch82@lemmy.zip 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Because they keep whining that they're losing money /s

EDIT: added /s

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have an automated setup that can torrent the same game 100000 times so I can make corporations go broke at the click of a button. Fear me

[–] dch82@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

I have a collection of 10000 classic Nintendo games on an HDD so I can make Nintendo America file chapter 11. Fear me

[–] ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

We can’t pirate a company into bankruptcy because there are still people paying for the movies and games we download. If everyone pirated content, these companies would go bankrupt, and there would no longer be new content to pirate. Online pirates often justify their behavior by telling themselves a story about how they’re 'sticking it to the man,' but in reality, we’re just freeriders enjoying the fruits of others' labor. We’re leeches with no moral ground to stand on.

[–] datendefekt@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

Well, they have to pay licensing fees for the media, pay crazy money for the IT infrastructure, which they have no matter how many downloads.

[–] WhyAUsername_1@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

You didn't pay up to enjoy the product. They lost revenue. But yes, it didn't "broke" the corporation.

[–] Jimbo@yiffit.net 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This assumes I was going to buy it in the first place

[–] ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

You would if piracy wasn't an option. Maybe not all of it, but some of it.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

They lost revenue

They lost HYPOTHETICAL revenue. Assuming that everyone who pirates a product would otherwise buy it is a textbook appeal to probability fallacy

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Unless "piracy" is your alternative to buying a brand new copy at launch, I don't wanna hear it.

If GameStop can make bank re-selling used games without giving back a cent to the developer, how is doing the same for free, without taking up competitive retail space any worse?

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because the copy sold by GameStop was already paid for to the publisher.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

So was the install I made a copy of and gave to a friend. Either way the publisher makes the same amount.

Sure there might be a limited number of used copies, but when you're talking about a mass manufactured product with limited demand like a random used game, then yeah, might as well be unlimited. How many used copies of GTA V or Skyrim out there do you think there are? Answer: far more than there are people looking to buy them, and each one of those copies can be sold an infinite amount of times.

The only games that are so rare that this matters are either so expensive or so hard to come by that everyone is okay with pirating them anyways because there's no reasonable way to obtain them, and they're all usually out of print any who.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

it's okay to pirate rare games because there are so few of them

it's okay to pirate common games because there are so many of them

Look, I'm all for piracy and against copyright, but you can simply admit you like free stuff without finding twisted explanations to justify it.

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Most people have a hard time swallowing the fact that they're nothing but bottom tier leeches.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I say this as someone who buys their games because they don't trust cracked executables.

Granted I have a collection of complete romsets, but I also have three bookshelves of physical games from the Nintendo Switch all the way back to the 2600 (even have a coupla pong consoles.)

Between all that, the hundreds/thousands I've spent on band camp, and the monthly donations to patron creators, free software projects, and the internet archive? Yeah I must be a freeloader lmao. There's a million reasons piracy is ethically correct. Copyright needs to fucking die.

You want bottom tier leeches? Go look to the capitalist owning class that tried to redefine sharing as piracy in the first place.

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I have an orchard full of mirabelle plum trees. I keep some of the production for personal consumption and to hand out to friends and family, and sell the rest.

On average, I make back all the money invested in tools and other farming products halfway through the gathering season.

According to you, it's ok if someone comes and steal my fruit after that then?

Imagine calling someone else a leech when you are literally promoting theft because you have decided that after an arbitrary amount of time (2 months, apparently), it's all paid for.

I buy games because it's the right thing to do. Not because I am afraid.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

This hypothetical is a false equivalence as fruit is a physical good. Digital media can be copied ad nauseum without the owner losing access to their copy.

When someone steals your fruit, its not just that they have fruit and you didn't get money, its that you no longer have any of your fruit.

A better metaphor is if someone bought your fruit, buried the seeds, grew their own plum tree, and started giving away the fruit that they grew.

Also call it being afraid, but I don't have shame in being security conscious. Not that I run games outside of a controlled VM, but anyone who would run a cracked exe that uses a closed source implementation is fucking asking for it. Only software crack I've ever trusted was massgrave for activating windows/office.

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The fruits themselves are an accessory to my argument, the fact you chose to criticize this minute detail, and not the actual argument (you deciding that someone has made enough money and therefore it's ok to enjoy the fruits of their labor for free) is quite telling.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Its not a minute detail lmao, it throws the entire argument. In one instance you're stealing a physical good. In another you're making a one-to-one copy of a piece of information. Information that exists on MY physical storage medium, using MY bits that I physically own.

You specifically chose that metaphor knowing this. Don't try and gaslight me with that shit.

Just because you're wrong doesn't mean you have to argue in bad faith, sweety. <3

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh my god you are denser than a box of rocks.

The fruits are basically infinite as long as the tree stands. In fact, I throw many of the fruits away every year because I can't sell them fast enough. The fruits are accessory to the argument.

In one instance you say that someone makes enough money therefore there's no need to reward them further for their work, in the other you say wait no that's different because bullshit reasons.

Just say you're ok with stifling creative people because you don't believe the deserve to live off of their hard work.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Just say you're ok with stifling creative people because you don't believe the deserve to live off of their hard work.

Just admit you're too dense to see the difference between pirating a piece of media owned by a corporation who's no longer giving money to the artists for said creation, and a smaller artist/group of artists who survive directly off of their work.

But yeah tell me more about how the indie dev who spends hundreds a month on tiny band camp artists doesn't give a shit about creative because I refuse to pay $40 for flacs of a classic rock album when indie artists can do the same thing for $8. Despite the $8 purchase actually going to artists and not record label execs/shareholders.

Furthermore, you growing fruit takes resources and time. I can make thousands of copies of a file in a single keystroke. Again, the more apt metaphor would be me buying fruit, using that to grow my own, and giving that away. Even then its not exact.

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Furthermore, you growing fruit takes resources and time.

Meanwhile, artistic creation just happens.

Lmao you're such a leech. Only a leech believes art takes no effort and no time. This single line in your entire argument demonstrates that you do not value creativity, and therefore you think you aren't required to pay your share.

In other words, you're a leech.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Look if you're just going to take single lines from a multi-paragraph reply out of context to fuel your bad faith arguments, you can go bite one.

The fact that you repeatedly call me a leech is very telling. It says to us that you're interested in finding excuses to put strangers in a box so you can feel better about yourself.

Maybe go out and find something about yourself to actually like, instead of this upstanding citizen bullshit, because its a very thin veneer.

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh, I feel pretty good about myself all of the time. I find life rather enjoyable, as I do not need to write down 45 paragraphs in order to justify some sort of shitty behavior like you need to.

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I don't argue with people to justify my actions, silly goose, I do it to satisfy my neurotic compulsion to tell dipshits why they're wrong. Because unlike you, I know my faults. <3

[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And yet, you've spent countless paragraphs justifying how it's ok for you to be a leech

[–] magic_smoke@links.hackliberty.org -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So long as everyone who wants to play a game can purchase it used, its functionally no different than piracy. Except someone who did no work makes money off of it.

If a game can't be easily legally obtained, if at all, its a pretty common belief that piracy is justified in the name of preservation.

The only exceptions to this are new releases which haven't reached critical mass, and smaller releases which will never reach any sort of mass following.

The former is especially important when you realize that two months post-launch of a new piece of media, the company has made back the artist saleries, and everything after that is just bonus for the useless vultures upstairs.

[–] where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In fact, you're helping them promote their stuff. E.g. everyone is watching that TV show and it's all your friends are talking about. Now you have to do it too.

If instead of pirating you'd be like "I think it's extremely expensive to pay a subscription fee for this low tier content, so instead I've been reading X". Maybe you'd convice someone to join you. But for now you're just reinforcing the media monopoly.

[–] dch82@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago

Don't read X, read Mastodon /s

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So now i should stop doing everything involving a digital subscription that's fun just to stick it to the corpos? I don't know if I'm misunderstanding your argument

[–] where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You want to portrait yourself as an anti-corpo warrior. But all you're doing is making corpo content a mainstream monopoly, and through that they will eventually find a way to make someone pay for it.

You will only make corpos go broke if you actually spend some money on alternative content. Meaning that content will get better, and there will be some follower base to enjoy that content with.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess i can see the appeal of that idea if you're willing to give up the variety of content you would otherwise have access to by sticking with corporations. I think Lemmy is a good example of this idea. I just can't find it within me to give up the massive amounts of content available to me particularly when it comes to gaming and film.

I mean think about it. I won't play GTA6 so as not to contribute to the oligopoly Rockstar games is associated with. I mean i get your point - small changes make big differences right? - but it's not always feasible to abandon all the good stuff that's out there all in an effort to promote individual innovation.

[–] where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I will pay for their single player if reasonable, I'll probably pirate cuz their shitty online tracking made GTA5 not even worth playing legally for free. A pirated version would've worked much better and wouldn't require their fkn launcher social club disaster.

But absolutely surely I'll know I'm not an anti-corpo warrior. Just a tiny rebel insignificant enough to ignore. And I only matter a tiny bit, because I actually would've bought their game if it was on GOG.

And if everyone always bought on GOG only, you'd see a much, much stronger presence on that platform.

Till then their answer to you will be "hey you've been playing this game and your friends did too, well in order to play together it's 10$/months, good luck pirating that".

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

If you aren't stealing them they aren't stealing your content or work with AI. This pirating isn't stealing bullshit is tired. Some backwards ass way to justify stealing someone's right to distribute their work and get paid.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

How are you this naive? You know someone has to pay the developers a salary right? How would corporations pay them if nobody bought the game and instead pirated?

[–] parlaptie@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah you gotta support the corporations financially so the game can be successful and they can go on to lay off all their developers anyway.

Remember Tango Studios?

[–] Isoprenoid@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

They pay out of initial capital investment and leveraging.

[–] dch82@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

~~They're paid a salary as the game development goes on?~~

EDIT: I was confused