I have 2TB of music and 7TB of videos but I rarely pirate a game.
Almost never, sometimes I’m extremely interested in something but want to try it out first. Games are such time sinks that if I can’t shell out $20, then I have bigger problems and probably shouldn’t be playing it.
That said, I get a lot of content isn’t available in some countries and piracy is the only way some people can experience something, so, different strokes.
Sorry Ubisoft, I’m not buying some of your almost decade-old game that still has Denuvo.
If you don’t put your old games that made the bulk of their money a long time ago on GOG, I won’t buy it.
Pirating is copyright infringement. Best option is to play different games
Lemmy will remember that
Sovcit gamer edition
Companies spend far more on anti piracy for single-player games than they would make if all those stolen copies were legit sales. It’s a power thing
Oh there’s a whole Wikipedia page on the subject
People spend way more money on locks and security than anyone ever steals. It makes no sense at all.
more money on locks and security than anyone ever steals.
Many more things would go “walkies” if that money hadn’t been spent, the argument is therefore moot.
Both of them, in fact.
People always say this, but has there ever been a good proof? Bear in mind, individuals are often not truthful when stating “I wouldn’t have bought it anyway”.
The closest I’ve seen was a sports game; since they release each year with updates, sales numbers are often steady and reliable. The year they added an antipiracy measure no one could breach, their sales jumped by a significant factor, supposedly because they had pirates now pressured into buying it. With a bit more time, I could find the article link.
fifa? don’t people joke about every game being the same?
They do - which I happily mock the same as other people. But it still means it’s a sample situation where just about every other variable remained the same. Nothing else could easily explain the jump in sales.
Here’s an article that ars just posted yesterday in fact about that.
Tldr some group states that piracy affects company’s bottom lines by up to 20%. They also state that since game sales figures are almost never published, they had to derive a replacement by using reviews and active player count. To me that just kinda invalidates the whole thing because who the hell knows what the actual relationship is between those variables, and especially when it’s making such a gargantuan claim that pirates are taking such large chunks of cash from developers pockets. If companies want to show they really are being hampered by piracy to such a degree, they should post their actual books and stop hiding key information.
why did i think pic 2 would say “adobe ceos”?
I can see the other argument though I don’t agree with it.
Paying is obtaining a license to use a product. You own the license for as long as that payment is valid. If the validity of the license expires for some reason, you no longer have rights to use the product, whether you physically have it or not.
The difference is in licensing. Having a license to use a product that someone else created.
This is becoming a much more prevalent theme especially in computing. With physical goods, for the most part, ownership/possession of the item implies that you own the required rights to operate, use, or otherwise possess that item. Usually a license doesn’t physically exist, it’s more of a concept that is inexorably tied to the thing. With software however, the idea of license keys exists. If you have a license key for software, you can use the software regardless of where you got it from. Since the software can be copied, moved, duplicated, etc. The source of the actual bits the compose the software that runs doesn’t matter. As long as you have a valid license key, you “own” a valid license to use the software which you paid for.
With online platforms, including, but not limited to, steam, epic Games store, Ubisoft connect, whatever… They manage your licenses, and coordinate downloads for you, etc. The one thing I’m aware of with steam that’s a benefit here is that you can get your product keys from the program and store them separately if you wish.
The problem is that not all platforms support the same format of product keys, especially for games. There’s no universal licensing standard. This makes it tricky to have a product key that works where you want it to.
There’s layers to this, and bluntly, unless there’s wording in the license agreement that it can be revoked, terminated, invalidated, or otherwise made non-functional at the discretion of the developer that issued it, they actually can’t revoke your ownership of a game, or at least the license for that game.
Application piracy (specifically for games), is when you play something without a license to do so.
They’ve stacked the entire system against you. Using wording in their license agreements that allows them to invalidate your license whenever they want to, and gives you no means to appeal that decision. Setting you up for litigation for piracy by using a software that you paid for when that license is revoked.
It’s an insane thing to happen in my mind and there should be legislation put in place that obligates companies to offer a permanent, and irrevocable, license to software (looking at you Adobe), and also makes it much harder for companies to revoke that license. In addition, there should be a standardized licensing system, owned and operated independently from the license issuers, which manages and oversees the distribution, authentication and authorization of those licenses for them and you, something like humble bundle’s system or something, where you can get license keys compatible with various platforms which can supply the software that constitutes the game you have a license for.
It should go beyond gaming.
Until such a time that the legal part of this is figured out, we’ll be left with an unfair playing field, legally speaking, and piracy will be a way to have the software without a license (which is arguably illegal).
I don’t like this system. I didn’t ask for it. I think it should change. But legally, piracy is still illegal. The system is consumer hostile, and unfair. That fact, in and of itself, should merit something to be done about it. So far, nothing has even been proposed by governments. I’m hoping the EU makes the first move on this, and everyone follows suit. I can see them doing it too.
I think the point of the saying is that they don’t recognize the licensing a consumer product as a valid exchange of money for goods or services.
Or we just go back to the old way; where a company sells a product and consumers just own it. Why does a static piece of software/video require a license? Updates used to be optional, but then company’s started selling broken stuff and writing out exclusions until we had no other options.
I’m not opposed to the idea, but license keys for software have existed for a very long time.
License keys also don’t always represent an application or software, they extend the rights of use beyond the initial purchase.
As a simple example, you can get license keys for Windows that do not change what version of Windows is installed or how it operates. I work in IT, and when setting up remote access systems, we need to buy remote desktop license keys to allow users to connect. You’re not getting anything you couldn’t otherwise, but you’re allowed to have more people connected at a time while the system is running.
There’s similar examples across the board, this is just one that’s pretty fresh in my mind right now. One of my clients is hitting the limit of their RD licensing.
For less complex software, like games, there used to be a physical component, usually an installer disk or something that would need to be validated when the game launches (though disk burning made this ineffective). With digital resources it’s nearly impossible to validate someone has a licence without some kind of license key system in place.
I’ll say again, I see their argument here. I don’t necessarily agree with any of it.
IMO, it’s a challenging subject, and one that we the people, via our elected representatives, should be pushing for legal representation on, by implementing laws that govern how all this works and limiting how much companies like Ubisoft can fuck us over because it’s Tuesday, and that made them mad.
The old way was that you owned a disc or cartridge (or cassette tape) with an instance of the program on it. That’s going to need a new definition that everyone can agree on.
Yeah a disc or cartridge with a license attached to it. So if you sold the disc you also sold the license. With digital distribution if you sell the files and transfer it to someone you technically made a copy. Which is not allowed since you don’t own the copyright.
Why does Steam does the same thing but nobody cares? Steam also takes 30% of the price just because. Ubisoft has 100x more employees but always gets hate.
Steam is a reseller, it’s not the license holder
Sure, but Steam sells the licenses and holds them for you in your account, so it does not quite answer the question. To me they still have all the same issues other platforms that deal in licensing have. Steam just has better PR and is not overtly a dick the way others have been.
And to get ahead of a new law they passed in California, they’re already putting it on the screen before check out that you’re buying a license to the game, not the game itself. Of course, I think just like Prop65, it will be too broad. Prop65 is the law that says that anything with even a trace amount of carcinogens has to have a warning that announces the presence of carcinogens.
lol as if ubisoft games are worth pirating. I pay for my internet connection and I’d rather use it on something that isn’t slop
They have a few indie titles that are fun.
I really liked Grow Home and Grow Upthere’s a small rebel group inside ubi who escaped the rituals where the rest sold their souls to Satan. they made things like rayman and the prince metroidvania… I don’t think of them though when i think ubi tbh.
Stream is the one now forced to label change if you’ve missed recent events
ubisoft should get used to players no longer owning their games
Not to be that guy who defends Ubisoft (God knows I haven’t bought one of their games in ages), but that quote from the CEO is taken way out of context.
He was directly asked what would need to happen for game streaming to take off, and he responded with “players would need to get used to no longer owning their games”, which is pretty much true as far as answers to that question go.
Oops, replied to the wrong comment chain here. Continue your wrath, it is righteous.
I mean, I agree, but what does that have to do with the relationship between buying + owning and piracy + stealing? Ubisoft being shitty is a great reason to pirate, but it does not change the definition of piracy.
Try to pirate the Crew. Or Steep. You can’t, since they rely on a central server.
The Crew server side is being reverse engineered so you can eventually play it in the future.
How many games like this will receive such a server emulator. Piracy won’t stop games from being killed. Policy will.
https://knockout.chat/thread/49305
Test Drive Unlimited 2 in particular is one I use on occasion. https://www.tduworld.com/
The old wii, wii u, ds and 3ds servers have been reverse engineered so I can even do pokemon trades on DS today
I actually tried steep a while ago (maybe 6 months?) and refunded it because I couldn’t play offline. I was looking to scratch that SSX Tricky itch and it definitely did not do it for me. Ended up just emulating Tricky, but damn I want a remake or sequel.
Ssx 3 via emulator is pretty good. Different though but I like the open world idea.
deleted by creator
When did you buy it?
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“No your honour, I liberated it”
I fully agree with the general message, but this particular anecdote doesn’t really make sense to me and can easily be waved off by anyone who disagrees with it.
If buying isn’t owning, that means it’s renting or borrowing.
If you pirate it, they get no money and therefore cannot rent it out to you. You cannot just steal a movie from the movie rental store or a car from a car rental place. That’s stealing.
Sure, it’s infinitely reproducible but that’s not what this meme says. That’s an unrelated argument for piracy. It draws a direct connection between the 2 relationships of buying + owning and pirating + stealing. However, one has nothing to do with the other.
When someone owns something, they are allowed to rent it out. It’s always been that way and that’s valid.
The real argument should be “if there was no intention to buy in the first place, then piracy isn’t stealing” or something like that.
Let me rephrase. I agree that piracy isn’t stealing, but the fact that buying isn’t owning does NOT prove that at all, nor does it have anything to do with it. It’s a reason people pirate, sure, but it in no way proves that piracy isn’t stealing.
Am I completely missing the point or is this analogy completely nonsensical?
On a side note, I condone piracy and nobody should ever give money to large media corporations. But if we use stupid arguments like this it makes us easier to dismiss.
That phrase means “if you will make an enemy out of me and won’t let me buy the kind of ownership I want, I’ll take it and ignore paying you”.
But notice that the full explanation is longer? That phrase captures perfectly well the antagonizing perspective, and nobody goes around making sure they pay fairly the people that treat them as enemies. It also fails to capture any other bit of the logic, but it’s ok, the logic is simple and automatic once the antagonism is explicitated.
I can see that, that’s a good point. However, it’s so easy to misconstrue that phrase into an objective statement of “the relationship between buying and owning directly creates the relationship between piracy and stealing” and the average person, lawmaker, etc can easily get confused when the “ones who own all the content” try to disprove that statement even though it’s not the statement we’re trying to make.
What is literally said in the meme is incorrect, even if it means something completely different. We need to say what we mean, not make a catchy analogy that’s technically incorrect and easily used against us.
Yeah, I can agree with that. And somebody will eventually find some way to use that mismatch against people.
But the correct language doesn’t have an impact, and we don’t decide what gets popular anyway. I don’t like that phrase either (I think it’s too conservative), but it’s here to stay.
From all of these replies, I’m getting the feeling that people generally don’t understand that the phrase is objectively incorrect, whether or not they agree with its sentiment (which they all do, at least around here). So I am questioning the overall effectiveness of sharing it. But like you said, I think it’s here to stay specifically because everyone seems to agree with the sentiment behind it so much, without considering it objectively.
We’re getting to a bigger picture here which I can’t even speculate on, but at least I learned something about this particular narrative. I just hope this meme doesn’t do too much harm when people get into debates with others that disagree.
Also, by the way, technically you can quote any predicate as a consequence of a false one.
I don’t know if the people that made this phrase knew that, but it’s technically correct :)
You are getting bogged down in the details. The phrase is a slogan for the sentiment behind it. Sometimes it is more effective to capture the vibe behind something with an eight word phrase instead of writing an essay properly explaining it. We’re discussing a meme not a legal document.
Your argument sounds like someone saying that you should never use “All cops are bastards” because it is an absolute statement and it is statistically likely that there could be at least one cop somewhere in the world that isn’t a bastard and hasn’t yet been drummed out or given up and quit. Sure, a more accurate phrase is: “The overwhelming majority of police officers are bastards and even the very few among them that are actively making an effort to be beneficial to society are still propping up and participating in an oppressive and highly problematic system” but you can’t exactly print that on a coffee mug, can you?
That’s because it’s the same argument. Both sayings are stupid, not because of the message behind them but because of their uselessness in actual conversation with anyone who might disagree. It’s just circlejerking at that point, only shareable and discussable with people who already agree or know what it really is supposed to mean.
Do you know what someone who disagrees hears when I say ACAB? They hear me calling millions of people I’ve never met a mean name. It doesn’t matter what I want it to mean. Even if I explain to them what it is supposed to mean (the conversation probably wouldn’t even get that far), the fact stands that I called millions of people I’ve never met a mean name. And that’s all anyone needs to dismiss my argument.
The whole point of these phrases is to spread the message to people who either don’t care or disagree. And they are NOT effective at that very specific thing. These phrases are fine at letting people who already agree pat each other on the back though. These phrases push away the target audience.
I don’t disagree with anything you said but I wanted to point out that you are on lemmy.world, which is about 80% circle jerk, thats why its so common to see it here. The local posts in my instance are a lot less reactionary, once I turn on all is when I start seeing mob mentality type stuff.
“You disrespect me when you use the word BUY when you mean RENT, I’ll show you the same disrespect by denying you any monetary gain that you normally get from ghosting your customers”
Sometimes I wish I could have the skills to hack these websites - change every “Buy” to “Rent”, add a " Why am I seeing this?" and then explain that the transaction is for “Digital key revocable at any time by (insert scummy corporate here)”.
Then I’ll happily laugh and watch their profits drop , while they try to publish a statement defending their position.
my opinion: it’s not stealing in the Classic sense because if you copy something you don’t take it away from its owner. it might be against the law because intellectual property is a concept.
Right, I agree with that, but “because if you copy something, you don’t take it away from its owner” is a valid reason, and completely unrelated to the fact that buying isn’t owning. Even if buying WAS owning in all situations, your comment would still be true. That’s my point, the analogy in the meme is useless, and arguments like yours should be the main talking point.
What’s the aversion to calling it stealing. It feels like stealing any other thing. You would steal games for the same reasons you might steal a physical good.
Do we just want a separate word that means digital theft?
Because it’s not—by definition—stealing?
Theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property. Also referred to as larceny.
Digital piracy is:
- Copying, not taking.
- Not affecting personal property.
- Not depriving the creator of their property.
Why does everyone keep adding that qualifier to stealing like it makes any sense? So if I steal something from someones vacation home and return it before they visit, its not stealing either right? Thats residential piracy is it?
How about I love a painting so much but I’m an asshole and I think artists don’t deserve to be paid for art, so I sneak in while he’s sleeping, with a replica in tow, and swap out his real painting for the identical fake. Thats not stealing either?
I don’t know what changed over the years really, it was stealing in the 90s and stealing in the 00s, and then some people figured if they just said it wasnt stealing enough it would stick?
You can argue the prices aren’t appropriate but its hard to argue you should get all your games for free just because, oh well nothings lost. I even pirate games but I’m not afraid to call it stealing.
So if I steal something from someones vacation home and return it before they visit, its not stealing either right? Thats residential piracy is it?
It’s still theft. You intended to and successfully managed to deprive someone of their property, albeit temporarily. You would also still end up in front of a court for trespassing and breaking and entering.
How about I love a painting so much but I’m an asshole and I think artists don’t deserve to be paid for art, so I sneak in while he’s sleeping, with a replica in tow, and swap out his real painting for the identical fake.
Still theft, but with copyright infringement on top. You have deprived the artist of his property—his physical copy of the painting.
I don’t know what changed over the years really, it was stealing in the 90s and stealing in the 00s, and then some people figured if they just said it wasnt stealing enough it would stick?
People unquestionably accepting falsehoods is what changed. Have you noticed that when pirates do get caught and taken to civil or criminal court, it’s for copyright infringement, computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud, or something else tangential to theft but not actually theft? It’s because digital piracy is legally not “theft”.
its hard to argue you should get all your games for free just because, oh well nothings lost.
I am not making that argument.
I even pirate games but I’m not afraid to call it stealing.
I don’t, and I still wouldn’t call your digital piracy stealing. In English-speaking countries, at least, the law considers it to be copyright infringement.
In the same vain, I wouldn’t call randomly sucker-punching someone “assault”: it’s battery.
It’s about them missrepresenting the transaction. If you go to the store and rent a movie then it’s an agreement that it’s temporary. If you buy it then they can’t take it back, what they are doing is fraud and complaining that we don’t want to deal with them.
I agree with everything you said, however that has nothing to do with piracy. It’s a shitty thing they’re doing that we should be mad at, but it in no way sets the definition of piracy, which is what they’re going to try to defend against in any argument.
What we should demand is that they properly define buying, owning, and renting so that we own our products. Piracy is piracy no matter what the definition of owning is. Only the reasons change. One reason is that they treat buying as renting, but it does not change the definition of piracy, no matter what we think the definition is.
I agree with you here, piracy isn’t theft for reasons unrelated to buying and owning. The reason lies with the infinite reproducibility of the product. While I may agree with the sentiment behind the post, it’s not technically a sound argument.
Okay, I can copy anyone’s painting, or art, or make a model of their sculpture and make copies. What does the infinite reproducibility have to do with anything?
Why should both the original creator and I be allowed to sell those pieces?
Jumping the gun a little there, aren’t you? Nobody said anything about selling the pirated content. With art that’s considered forgery, and that’s a different crime.
If you steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, the Mona Lisa is then gone. Nobody else gets to have it or see it. That’s theft. If I pirate your software, you won’t even know I’ve done it, and any person with a copy of that software keeps it, including you. That’s piracy. You see the difference?
Okay I’ll take your example. I replace the Mona Lisa with an exact copy and steal the original. Stealing or not?
Apparently the argument is that as long as a copy is left behind, it’s not theft, right?
Well, not exactly; you’re comparing apples and oranges because the original Mona Lisa has value inherent to it being the original, which the copy does not retain. But say you show up and exact copy the Mona Lisa and then take your copy home, that’s not only not theft, it’s perfectly legal. People take photographs of it all the time.
In software there’s no difference between a master copy and the one you’ve downloaded, there is no additional value inherent to being the “original file” so this comparison doesn’t really work.
But this is an even more easily defeated argument. It’s suggesting that anything that can be copy-pasted through File Explorer should never have a monetary compensation for its existence. Given the immense hours devoted to making video games, most people would inherently disagree with that. I think the only people who’d lend any credence to the idea would be cheapskates wanting free entertainment.
It doesn’t mean that at all. What it means is that it isn’t theft. It’s software piracy. When you’re finished downloading your software, everyone who had a copy of that software still has it. So you haven’t stolen anything. You haven’t taken resources from anyone. You aren’t depriving someone else of this object and using it yourself instead. You’ve simply made a copy of an infinitely copiable medium. Sure you did so without paying for it, that’s why piracy is a crime. But it isn’t theft. You haven’t taken anything away from anyone. In fact you’ve done the opposite, and increased the total amount of ordered data in the world, but I won’t try to spin that as something chivalrous for this argument, that’s a different discussion.
Point is, say what you want about piracy and its dubious legality, it factually is not theft.
This is like saying that pointing a loaded gun at a puppy isn’t technically murder or assault. You’re still admitting it’s a harmful and illegal act, and are fussing over the terminology used.
It’s also ignoring how labels and word usage shift for the sake of modern convenience. Words like “insane”, “sick”, generally weren’t used positively in history. If I said a game “technically doesn’t have loot boxes” you’d be pretty upset if you found it still had paid randomized loot, even if they were not technically contained in a six-sided “box”. You’re being overly specific about the words when much of the world agrees you’re taking something you’re not entitled to.
The difference between what you call theft and copyright infringement doesn’t have effective benefit to the seller, especially since even in physical retail, the supply of an item is often largely irrelevant for a store’s financials. As such, I am okay with referring to both as the same thing, even if you’d currently find dictionaries that separate them.
fun fact: you can sell gpl-licensed software, but anyone who receives the software can distribute it for free
And, fun fact, in order for GPL software to operate commercially, they sell “licenses” - yes, foregoing the antipirating software, but still pursuing people with lawyers.
And guess what Oracle has to spend so much time doing?…Because, as it turns out, even businesses are cheapskates.
conflating the gpl license with the license to use software you buy? don’t understand
I find interesting that I remember buying a game in Brazil in 1995 (the 11th hour, sequel to The 7th Guest) and in the receipt it was written “license to use”. So, even back then we were already told that it was a permission, not ownership.
Exactly. This has always been a problem to some extent, but back then no company ever revoked that license or even cared what people did with it unless they sold pirated copies. So it wasn’t a problem for us either.
basically if you get to be a scumbag so do I
2 wrongs don’t make a right, this phrase just points out how piracy is a service issue
I agree that it’s a good reason to pirate, but the meme/phrase is ostensibly trying to use the definition of owning to change the definition of stealing.
It doesn’t prove anything, it just gives a good reason why people are pirating, when it looks like it’s trying to prove some logical relationship of the concepts.
if my property can be taken without fair compensation so can theirs.
pretty cut and dry logical relationship.
I think we’re talking about two different things here.
I agree that they have shitty predatory business practices. However, you did not sign an EULA saying that you could take their property. So even if they do take the things you bought from them away, you would be out of luck. The thing that needs to change is not allowing that to be classified as “buying”.
What I’m talking about is “if buying isn’t owning” having anything to do with “then piracy isn’t stealing”. Buying not being owning is a great reason to pirate. Still doesn’t make piracy any more legal.
I see where you’re coming from now and totally agree.
Whenever a concept is distilled to a catch phrase it always loses something.
Yeah that’s true. I have no creative bone in my body so I can’t even offer an alternative to the catch phrase I am calling out, unfortunately haha
I mean, digital piracy isn’t stealing regardless of the premise that buying ≠ owning.
Stealing is taking another’s property without the intent to return it. Making a digital copy is not taking any property, it’s creating a reproduction of it. The only place left to argue that piracy is stealing would be to say that you’re stealing the company’s theoretical revenue… but that revenue was never tangible property, being that it’s your money up until the moment you give it to them. Piracy is, and only is, copyright infringement.
Why are you entitled to any video game you want for free?
I’d argue stealing is also taking something for free that you would normally have to pay for.
Aren’t you essentially arguing all digital property is worthless because its made of nothing?
You know thats not true though, there is worth or else you wouldnt want to steal it.
Why are you entitled to any video game you want for free?
Nobody here has claimed that, don’t put words in their mouths.
I’d argue stealing is also taking something for free that you would normally have to pay for.
Thats cool. You’re wrong, though.
Aren’t you essentially arguing all digital property is worthless because its made of nothing?
Nope, they’re pointing out that it’s infinitely reproducible and thus making a copy doesn’t deprive someone of their copy.
I know what you mean and I agree. It’s always seemed to not really make logical sense when I hear it. It isn’t quite right. Like you, I also agree with the actually message behind it though.
