chemical_cutthroat
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
I’m not here to get pedantic with a person who doesn’t capitalize the first letter of their sentences. It’s a crime. It’s theft adjacent. This concludes my TED Talk.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
While digital piracy does not constitute theft in the strict sense defined under common law—namely, the unauthorized taking and carrying away of tangible personal property with intent to permanently deprive the owner thereof—it nonetheless constitutes a violation of exclusive rights granted to copyright holders under Title 17 of the United States Code.
Specifically, piracy infringes upon the copyright owner’s exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and publicly display or perform their work. The fact that no physical object is removed is immaterial; copyright law protects the expression of ideas, not just their physical embodiments. As such, piracy is more accurately classified as a form of copyright infringement—a civil and, in some cases, criminal offense—not as theft per se, but as an analogous wrong with measurable economic harm.
Moreover, jurisprudence has recognized that infringement can result in lost profits, market harm, and unjust enrichment, all of which are actionable. While piracy may lack the zero-sum quality of theft, it undermines the incentive structure copyright law is designed to uphold—namely, the right of creators to control and profit from their original works.
I don’t know what to tell you. Want to know more? Go read about Dowling v United States from 1985. That should help you understand how its still a kind of theft.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
piracy isn’t stealing. it would be stealing if people were able to literally take ownership of a company’s game.
Line one. That’s when you mentioned it. Literally right there in your words.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
This article points to a research that concludes that piracy is really not an issue for those companies though.
And yet we still have anti-theft measures on most games. The anti-theft measures aren’t there because there were never any thieves. They are there because theives provide a scapegoat to publishers to blame low revenue on. Regardless of whether or not it is actually happening, the net results are the same because the lie is there. Pirating or stealing games may not have a real effect, or may even be a positive one, but it doesn’t matter because there is still a negative outcome when companies increase the price of their games and force anti-consumer launchers and anti-theft DRM into games.
Imagine a world where pirating music is shun today. Nobody cares now, we all listen to free music online without paying.
Maybe you and your friends do, but a lot of people pay for music streaming services with give an admittedly mediocre amount of revenue to the artists. The idea that we should steal “culture” and make it free to everyone is ludicrous. People still have to eat. All of the time and effort that goes into making a game or a record has an expected return, and that return is a paycheck.
Now, selling a game that cannot be owned and that can be revoked at anytime or a game that can change its TOS on a whim is much scummy imo.
If you don’t want people to pirate your game, price them fairly and allow you customers to own a copy and offer an easy to use service.
That is why there are pro-consumer groups working to make sure that bullshit like what happens today doesn’t continue in the future. The EU and UK have very strong pro-consumer policies that protect the buyer instead of the seller. Change is happening, but it doesn’t make it easier when there is the ever present scapegoat of, “we do this because people steal.”
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
That’s what they tell their shareholders.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
Whether or not it is what actually happens, it’s what they tell their shareholders, which is enough to make them resort to anti-consumer practices like third party launchers and anti-theft software.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
If you enjoy stealing, then that’s something you should talk to a professional about.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
Which is my point. I pay for games. If they have Denuvo slowing them down, it isn’t because I paid for it, it’s because other people stole it, or have stolen in the past. The anti-theft software doesn’t exist because there are no thieves. I do my best to avoid Denuvo games on principal, but it’s hard to play a AA game or higher without it. There are a lot of people to blame for it, but it wouldn’t be there at all if not for thieves.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
It is theft, and th people that say it isn’t are making excuses so they feel better. You can grow your own food, you know? And it keeps growing back. But if you walk into a grocery store and walk out without paying, you are stealing. If you walk onto a farmers land and keep taking food from their crops without paying, it is stealing.
You make two very different arguments that highlight my reason for calling out theft. The first is that the person steals because companies don’t allow us to own anything. That almost holds water, until you understand that entertainment isn’t a necessity, and so stealing it is a wholly selfish act.
However, that brings us to your second point: people pirate because they can’t afford it. You contradict yourself. Who is the “pirate”? The one who steals in under misguided idea that some things cannot be owned, or the one that steals because they can’t afford it?
At the end of the day, you are being advertised to, and you feel that you have to have the latest thing because the advertising is working, and so you steal when you can’t afford. You are a part of the system that you fight against with your mantra of “nothing can be owned.” Stop.
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
every person that does it is just another reason for companies to put Denuvo in their games.
If you want more, it’s also a rally cry for execs to bring up at board meetings about why their latest game didn’t sell well. It’s why Nintendo can brick your Switch 2 from orbit if they detect pirated software (which will surely lead to false positives).
- Comment on Anon tries to save money 1 day ago:
Or, and hear me out… you could stop treating entertainment as a right. Stealing food and necessities? I’ll help you carry your prize. But stealing entertainment isn’t a flex. You aren’t helping to drive cost down, and every person that does it is just another reason for companies to put Denuvo in their games. You aren’t “owed” entertainment. Don’t steal it. Find something else to do. Get an old console and a shit ton of games for next to nothing and simultaneously help out the second hand game economy.
What it comes down to is the price of modern entertainment isn’t just $60 for the game. It’s that plus all of the extra bullshit you have to do. If you don’t want to pay that, fine, no one is forcing you to buy the games, and you don’t need them to survive. Your silent protest against the gaming industry isn’t some valiant effort to rob from the rich and give to the poor. It’s theft. Call it that. You aren’t fucking batman; you are a person who steals entertainment because you have to have the latest thing. You aren’t fighting capitalism, you are part of it, and you are making it worse for everyone else.
Downvotes are to the left.
- Comment on Unholy curses 4 days ago:
- Comment on SteamOS finally released by Valve 4 days ago:
Lol “finally”.
- Comment on the young always think they have all the right answers but THIS eventually happens 1 week ago:
Nah, he was an idiot when I was 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42. He’ll probably be an idiot until he dies. Can’t hold a job, can’t stop drinking, and can’t help but vote red down the line every 4 years. The world will be better when he’s shuffled loose this mortal coil.
- Comment on The first ever earthquake fault rupture captured on a security cam in Myanmar 2 weeks ago:
The amount of power on display here is staggering. I don’t even have a way to compare it to anything else. It’s truly terrifying.
- Comment on Very gently, I’m sure 2 weeks ago:
I think Bruce Lee said that.
- Comment on rawdogging it 2 weeks ago:
This is nothing new. Cardinals have been rawdogging kids for centuries.
- Comment on Pope 3 weeks ago:
Fuck it. Have any of the other candidates been to space?
- Comment on Beans 3 weeks ago:
That’s all I taste when I eat eggs, and I can’t eat them. It turns my stomach.
- Comment on She will devour your soul 3 weeks ago:
Why are you wearing that human suit?
- Comment on Apex Legends writer gets laid off 24 hours after the character she wrote is revealed, because that's what the games industry in 2025 looks like 4 weeks ago:
I mean, if you want to emulate a corporate ethos, I don’t think Japan should be the benchmark, either…
- Comment on Anon plays ff14 4 weeks ago:
Play Limsa games, win Limsa prizes.
- Comment on He's gonna be walking for a little bit 4 weeks ago:
That’s my secret, I’m always moving.
- Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hits 500k sales in one day 4 weeks ago:
It’s more of a progression from FFX than something like Persona or the newer FF games. It’s still turn based, but its more active. It feels like what Square should have done with the franchise, instead of going the direction they did.
- Comment on Choose a number, 1-5! 4 weeks ago:
Glad to see my undiagnosed disorder is alive and well. #2 crew represent.
- Comment on Neutronium would like a word. 5 weeks ago:
A very large no.
- Comment on Do it 1 month ago:
Eternal Procession in my ass.
- Comment on The good old days 1 month ago:
You gotta fumigate the ghosts somehow.
- Comment on IT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE 1 month ago:
Unwelcome opinions.
- Comment on IT'S NOT A COINCIDENCE 1 month ago:
Can I change my user name? Apparently there is some kind of fire sale on doctorates, and they’re just giving them away. I’d like to be Dr_Chemical_Cutthroat.