this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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We don't mind paying. If it is actually owning and convenient.
A lot of games for example you can buy on GoG, and archive the installation file. That is probably the closest you can come when it's about owning closed source software. Pirating games that are buyable on GoG is simply stealing money from the creators for no other reason than being greedy and cheap.
Well, GoG does have a lot of games but only few of the latest games that we want to try out. Or could i buy, say, Diablo 4 on GoG? Dave the Diver? Enshrouded? Sons of the Forest? Borderlands? Not even Sims?
If you can't buy it DRM free and don't want to buy it with DRM then you're not entitled to being able to play it.
Given how DRM has tanked the performance of many games or has rendered them unplayable at some point after release and in some notable cases even after release for a while... I was never entitled to being able to play a game with DRM anyway.
Yes, not even the games i bought. The Need for Speed copy i got which uses SafeDisc which has been unsupported since Vista? Nope! The copy of Colin McRae Rally 2005 which uses StarForce DRM which can mess with my drive as a whole? Nope! SimCity 2013 which i didn't buy but read the news that the EA servers couldn't handle the influx of gamers? Nope! Gran Turismo 7 which i also didn't buy but read the news of where Sony couldn't handle the influx of gamers almost as if they didn't learn a single goddamn thing from SimCity 2013? Nooooooooooope!
DRMs would be less contentious if they didn't somehow mess with the experience of the honest paying users. The worst thing that could happen back in the 80's and 90's was perhaps LensLok which didn't work too well with some CRT screens but also was rarely used. In other cases you had to have the game manual or the funny looking Dial-A-Pirate disc from Monkey Island which could be at worst mildly annoying.
However in the pursuit of profit companies started to really fuck shit up for paying users. Back in early 2000's it was StarForce "just" making your drive not work anymore or, say, your SPORE key "just" not installing anymore after the third install. But nowadays you need a spare NASA computer for a game that without Denuvo could be working fine on a regular old gaming pc. And there's not even a guarantee that you can keep ANYTHING in perpetuity that you bought digitally, which is what OP initially complained about. If users don't get custom servers up quickly, all users can do with their copy of The Crew is to screenshot the Steam page, print it and wipe their ass with it. Same with all those Warner shows on Playstation Video and some shows and ebooks from Amazon IIRC. And remember how i mentioned that SafeDisc stopped working? Without No-CD cracks i couldn't even play those games even though i have bought them. We don't have that problem nowadays thanks to discs not necessarily having any game files anymore. Just an installer for the digital storefront and the code, that's it. Except Garfield - Lasagna Kart for the Nintendo Switch... IT DOESN'T HAVE A FUCKING CARTRIDGE AT ALL! JUST AN EMPTY GAME COVER! AND NOT EVEN AN ESHOP-CODE! YOU HAVE TO REDEEM A CODE ON MICROIDS.NET TO GET AN ESHOP-CODE! IF OR RATHER WHEN THAT SITE GOES DOWN AND YOU WANT TO BUY A COPY IN A STORE, PERHAPS WITH A GARFIELD CASE FOR THE SWITCH LIKE I DID, YOU'LL HAVE ONLY A CASE FOR A SWITCH AND ENOUGH SLOTS TO NOT PUT IN THE GAME YOU SPENT MONEY FOR!
If i buy a game legally and in turn am not entitled to keep a physical copy, create a digital backup copy or even to having that copy work (not necessarily working fine, compatibility issues are bound to happen)... I don't feel like game companies are entitled to my money. Piracy is less convenient than buying a game but the value proposition of actually keeping a game... i have a hard time to truly denounce it. Especially when i think about switching to Linux and know that many digital storefronts make trouble on Linux in one way or another.
I have been thinking about a possible solution a few years ago: Selling full game copies via NFTs. A token that contains all the game files. The token would be created on demand when a user wants to buy the game. The DRM would only have to check whether the token was present in the wallet and that's Too bad that NFTs are computationally quite expensive and whatever blockchain i would store the copy on, they want their miners to be paid. That's by the way the reason NFTs only hold links to whatever you buy. Also if digital store owners actually wanted to allow users to resell games, sites such as G2A wouldn't probably be seen as dubious. Finally my solution wouldn't stop the arms race between crack groups and game companies. It would lessen the incentive a bit, but at an insanely high ecological and monetary price point.
When there’s incentive to view the transaction as “inconvenient”, I think a lot of people see it so.
I can’t really imagine the piracy crowd are the ones to accept $70 pricing, either - or ever say the phrase “Dang. You drive a hard bargain.”
Then read the EULA and don't purchase if it mentions the platform can revoke the access to your account.
Bad news! You're stuck playing console games that have physical copies!
One of the many aspects of the problem is that this is an infringement on consumer rights. Not currently illegal, but only because the consumer protection aspects of the US have been ground down to nearly nothing.
I think the gist of this meme is that restrictive DRM and piracy are both in a similar ballpark of morally wrong, but only one is illegal because the rich own the courts.
Is it an infringement on your rights when you go to a theater and they charge you to see a movie which you won't own after it's finished?
No, because you're not purchasing a copy of the movie. You're purchasing a one time viewing. And that's a very clearly laid out term of the sale.
So just like it's clearly laid out in the EULA for the service you're using to pay for games that what you're buying is a limited license?
Alright, glad we agree
Hahahahahahaha
EULAs are so unclear they're often legally unenforceable
Good news! Play Xonotic!
Agreed if you have enough financial stability to do so.
Digital Piracy is always right when you are poor when a sale to acces a copy isn’t possible no one loses anything from acquiring it for free and if anyone deserves free game and movie entertainment to distract them from perpetual hardship its the poor.
That doesn't make any sense. Ok yes let's help disadvantaged people of course, but still.
Someone has to make the content and someone has to pay for it: devs gotta eat and the fair cost may be less than game retail, but it's always greater than zero. If the cost isn't fair, dont buy, or at least dont pretend you're entitled to it. If the original costs X, and there are Y "free copies" of it, everyone owes X / (Y + 1), or some angel investor owes the whole total for all of us.
How about museums and parks? Any new person walking through doesn't incur any (or minimal cost) to experience, and hell, some museums are free or have voluntary donations! That model is possible because of taxes and donations/fundraising/auctions to provide a public service. If Gabe Newell is going to finance a game, sure, you and any impoverished friend can have a free copy. For the game ecosystem now, you and every friend getting a free copy means 1 of 2 things:
To get the next game, all of us paying for it get to be charged a larger share of fair price than if you also paid (even if things are totally fairly priced), OR
We don't get a next game because revenue was too low.
As an individual it totally doesn't matter, but if everybody came to this way of thinking then nobody is gonna pay but basically everyone will still want the content.
For the record i do pay creators that make the stuff i enjoy because i am not impoverished and i recognize that within this economy i am the group that should support their livelihoods.
The way i see it when it comes to the poor only 2 options exist.
poor person cant afford to purchase the game so valve gets 0 dollars and the poor feel worse because they see everyone enjoying this thing they are financially excluded from
the poor person obtains a free copy, valve gets the same 0 dollars but now the poor person can be included within the games community, potentially aiding its popularity. Absolutely nothing is lost.
Currently everyone who want to pirate can do so, and yet creators still exists, evidently enough people are paying to maintain it.
I understand your argument in context of a functional fair economy but i am an anti-capitalist
I know you may disagree with this and i respect the focus in wanting to make the current system work but ultimately my ideal is that the means to live should be separate from our productivity. If food, healthcare, housing, family and entertainment are all guaranteed. Then a creator does not need money to share their work. They can create because they want to create because they enjoy to create. And the face that people would copy and enjoy their work is the highest form of flattery as it means people really like what you do/make. The enjoyment of those people becomes the creators contributing to society.
You may think that people wouldn’t do some work anymore but that is where i would wholeheartedly disagree. Many people would do volunteer work if they didn’t need a job, i would still do the very same thing for free that i am getting paid for now but arguably id be even more motivated because id feel like i am helping the community rather then having it be a business transaction for personal gain.
I respect that perspective, and hey some games even say "yeah pirate it and share it with your friends who might buy". The place I still would have issue is that the society you're discussing does t exist NOW in the US so it's a little unfair to live by how things would be if the world were perfect.
I am not sure what you mean. I am not vouching for people that buy games now to stop and become pirates. I also sincerely hope no one has forgone a daily hot meal or sold a kidney just to obtain a game which can be pirated.
Piracy does exists right now in the us and many people do so; i have yet to see it being the main factor of a studio going bankrupt.
Its an indication that most people are willing to do the right thing which is a different thing depending on their socio-economic circles.
To simplify, it would be nice if everyone got a universal provision for food, housing, and money, but they don't. Your argument is that "if we had these basic things, there's no reason not to have X game for free."
BUT, we don't yet have those things. That makes it not fair to just take it.
Thats really isn’t my argument though.
I am absolutely not saying people should pirate simply because of some ideal, before that ideal exists.
I have been saying that within the current system all people with enough means to live comfortably ought to pay a fair share to creators, as am i.
I am not sure why this mis communication persists i thought to have clarified it at least 3 times now that that is not what i meant.
Have a good (probably next) day now.
Big tangent here, but
Okay so now everyone is a creator, who manages them? Who deals with distribution, with bugfixes, with all the tiny minutiae in Yung modern world?
My job is that I maintain the electrical power that goes to the servers that host the software that people use to create. No one has a "passion" for power and cooling system maintenance, but it's an absolute necessity even in a fully automated world. Someone has to make sure the robots are working. Who has a passion for creating a controls monitoring system that is 2% faster and 8% more efficient than the previous iteration? Who will decide to create, in their spare time, one tenth of one percent of one percent of one project that eventually becomes the next iphone? Who will volunteers their time to make sure tickets are routed properly between these departments? Who lies awake at night wishing they were independently wealthy so they could have the time and energy to tell people that their poor performance is hurting a project and the project doesn't want them anymore?
You envision a world where there are billions of artists and no one who knows how to replace the insulation in your attic, or would do it if they could.
I don't think everyone has a passion for art either.
Honestly your picked the wrong person to lay out this particular example :), no offence.
I have a very big passion for creating small % efficiency every iteration. In fact i refuse to do any task any other way. If i am not improving the flow of a task every time i do it then my talents are being wasted. As long as i can do such improvements even the most repetitive menial tasks are fun. Ive nevee had a task go stale besides when a bosses specifically barred me from looking for potential improvements.
Ive spend much free time to specifically tweak the airflow and temps of my desktop. I absolutely wouldn’t mind to use those skills elsewhere.
Some people get annoyed knowing something is broken/not perfect and get a kick out of solving that no matter what its about.
Some of the stuff you mentioned like routing tickets and much of the work i do know can soon be automated by ai and robots.
I very much agree robots need human oversight/caretakers but it again confused me that there be no people willing to this. Most fellow nerds love robots, some already build and improve them as a hobby, seems only natural that the opportunity to use that skill for a greater good can be even more rewarding.
I am sorry to hear you dont seem to feel this kind of excitement with your job now. I am not sure how you became burned out or where nudged in a career path doesn’t interest you.
I am not assuming your actual personal ability to do a great job but i admit that the fact many people aren’t excited about their job is something that worries me towards work quality. If i wasn’t I would not trust myself to get optimal results.
My hope is that once your livelihood is guaranteed without work income you no longer feel pressure to do what you don’t love so you can go out, discover what you do love and find there is almost certainly something you can do that you are passioned about that can be used helping society rather then just yourself.
I know a few fellow jobless autists with untapped potential as they were failed by the school system that would love a chance to work in your industry.
That's so incredibly naive. I'm not even mad at you, I just feel sorry for you. You seem like a bright and hopeful person but if you keep looking for this version of society you will constantly be disappointed.
I'll just say, there are a lot of people who like their jobs. I'm actually one of them. Almost none of those people enjoy their jobs enough that they would choose to work rather than not work, for no additional gain. Maybe you're one of that tiny sliver of people. But if so, there's not enough of you to keep society functioning, much less progressing.
Don't worry i know my ideals naive. And i admit that that and the desire to do what is correct (subjective), regardless of personal gain is related to my and common in autism and other neurodivergent.
Believe it or not if wed have some long in person conversations you'll find i have many more nuanced related opinions and ideas on how to do things differently that are very hard to explain in text. What i want isn’t feasible without many many overhauls on all levels of society, starting with the values we foster in our children.
A gross summary of many of it is that if you aim for perfection you maintain focused on getting as close to it as you can. This state of knowing i/we are doing the best we can is my zen area where i can truly Focus. Things will never be perfect, to me that is perfect as there will always be some problem to solve and something that feels worth doing.
There is enough open source and free and dirt cheap content available already that you can't play in a lifetime. While I agree that stuff that's too expensive for the majority of people shouldn't even exist, I don't see why creative content should be free for the taking in a society that doesn't support that way of life yet. Unless you also agree that people should be allowed to take everything else for free as well.
To quote the meme “if you see people steal food, diapers or medicine, no you did not”
I wouldn’t call it free for the taking because i still believe that under the current system all people with the means to pay, should pay. And thats also what i mostly observe in real life.
I am also against people taking and legally buying more then what they/relatives really need. There is way to much wasted around us, even properties.
Because you can only afford tofu doesn't make it ok to steal a steak.
If we could produce infinite free steaks, then yes, it is ok.
So in that scenario we can produce infinite steaks, right?
Now, people start stealing those steaks because we can produce an infinite amount of them, infinite supply = cost should be zero.
Now, tell me... What's the incentive for the steak producer to continue producing those steaks if people aren't paying for them?
See where I'm going with that?
In the end of doesn't matter if an infinite quantity can be produced "for free", there's people behind the product that pay the price and no matter how you want to justify it, if you don't respect the way the creator wants to give access to their product to people, you have no moral ground to stand on.
I'm not saying people don't do it, I'm saying that trying to justify it to make you feel better about it is pure hypocrisy and just wrong.
That's objectively untrue due to the case study of what's actually happening in real life though. You CAN steal as many steaks as you want, and people ARE paying, at least for the good ones. Enough to fund giant companies that produce more steaks.
Sometimes the creator is wrong. Monopolies are wrong. Slave labor is wrong. Massive environmental externalities are wrong. In many cases, these things are not illegal, but they should be. Same goes for restrictions on purchases of digital media. It's wrong, and we shouldn't respect it. That's the moral high ground.
"Slave labor is wrong" says the guy who doesn't want to pay for the labor of the people providing him with content.
If you don't agree with the way it's distributed then skip it entirely, that's the only way you've got the moral high ground.
Are they providing me with content though? When that media inevitably becomes unusable due to their policies, do I get a refund? Historically, no.
Which is, by the way, not legal, so producers have neither the moral nor the legal high ground if you think about it. They do have better lawyers though.
Are they providing me with content though?I don't know what you're pirating if it's not content created by other people
And hence, you discover the point of the meme. Full circle. I love it.
I don't think you understand what I meant...
People create what you're pirating, the games, music, movies that you're illegally downloading have been created by people who need to make a living.
But are they providing that to me in exchange for payment. Arguably, no. That's the point of the meme.
They are offering it and if you disagree with the way it's being offered to you, you're not entitled to procure it through other means.
I disagree.
So if you start making chairs using wood you find in a forest close to where you live and selling them on Marketplace, I can come over, enter your garage and just take them without giving you a cent and you won't do a thing because I can tell you "I disagree with your price and your decision to sell them through a Meta platform, but I still want the chairs and I know you can make more of them and you don't pay for the material anyway." and you'll look at me with a smile and tell me "You're right buddy, you're entitled to them if you feel like they should be yours!"
You've got the maturity of a child that acts like the whole world revolves around them and that thinks they're entitled to everything they want no matter the impact on others.
The worst part being that it just shows your lack of conviction, you're unable make the sacrifices that come with what you preach, you would rather have your cake and eat it too and then pretend that it's morally correct so you don't have to feel guilty about having no self control.
No, but you're free to come over and use your fancy chair copying machine to make a copy and keep that for yourself while still leaving me the original. If you like the chair, I'd appreciate a donation, most people think $x is a fair amount.
That's how digital copies work. You can have your cake and eat it too. You can make infinite cake for essentially free.
I am good friends with someone who works with detained criminals and thats not how most thievery happens. Besides alcohol (but addiction is a different story) baby food is the item most often stolen. Packages of sliced cheese are also common.
The criminal poor don’t go to the store to steal specific items they go to buy food like normal and with every item they are counting if they will have enough on their account. When they get to their budget limit they try to swap some stuff to make It work. If that really doesn’t work they sometimes decide to take a more expansive items from their cart and smuggle it out without paying.
Of course this wont be the exact scenario for all store-theft but its what i hear is most common at least where i live.
What I'm saying is that there's plenty of cheap games you can play, even tons of free ones (one a week on epic) if you don't have enough money. It doesn't make it morally right to pirate games.
I know people do it, I do it too, trying to pass it as being somehow morally right is what I can't accept. I'm at fault, I accept it and don't try to make myself believe that it's ok, it's not.
I see where you are coming from.
Doing something wrong and realizing it is wrong is a really important skill to have as its part of the guilt mechanisms which is important in a healthy society.
I am going to settle on i agree on what you say here specifically but i disagree that there isn’t more to discuss within the same topic about what is and isn’t morally right. Which admittedly is something that would requires a much bigger body of people to weigh in on.
Wishing you well!
I primarily use it to see if things are actually worth me paying for them, I've lost count of the games I've tried out, found they were great and bought outright. Watching things is more of a service issue though, I'll pay a subscription for something if it's actually decent, Netflix went and screwed that up for me. If I could actually trust any of the streaming services to not do something stupid again then maybe I would.