Another issue with avoiding breaking the law entirely, what do you do when a law is completely unjust? Do you think laws that consistently happen in authoritarian and fascist countries just happen out of no where? No they are legislated. Are you willing to follow the SS? Or defend humanity from them?
So while for the most part you should follow laws, you should at least ask why for many. Like should black people never have escaped, never fought their slavers, never use the whites only restroom, sit in the wrong spot on the bus or just protest at a rally in modern times?
Now that I went over why trying to point to law as justification for not doing something isn't good. Let's go over IP.
At the very minimum IP laws need to be completely overhauled for modern times. Medicine shouldn't have patents. Technological improves and theories shouldn't. I can see art having it. That includes games.
But with games you have companies that will stop selling a game. They will stop making the console or hardware and they potentially will shut down. This where right to repair and piracy comes in. John Deere doesn't want to provide the way for people to service their own machinery, eventually doing planned obsolescence. Like what Apple did with the iPhone batteries. Or light bulbs having their duration cut from 2500 hours to 1000 in the early 1900. This has been a problem for a very long time. People are trying really damn hard to get laws in place to legally get schematics and parts for 3rd party iphone or tractor repair. Or whatever else really. But it's barely working. You know what's still happening though? They keep trying their damn best and buy parts from people stealing them from their factories in Taiwan or wherever.
With games you have companies that don't provide ways to get their old games or to even play them. Or if they do something, it's a remaster or remake that completely changed things. Not the original product. It's still art worth preservation. So who will do it? Someone will and should. If companies are intentionally not providing a service or getting in the way, it's morally good to do something about it.
Now with modern games, piracy of indie games may have an impact however often times those games aren't made for profit, but for passion because there's a very little chance they profit unless it's just a hobby they do on the side. Do you know how many games come out a day? At least a new one every hour, it's like anything else art, you just got to get lucky or be part of an already large group. large companies don't have this issue. They have the disposable funds. They can make their games artificially scarce. They have advertisement that they spend more on than making the game. The games can be bought digitally and they can provide for free if they wanted. Piracy then becomes a way to reject over pricing or how the new Pokemon game was so bad, they started refunding the game. What's the difference between a pirate and a refund? A pirate might play the whole game. The company doesn't make money either way
@Phlaike it doesn't matter if judges disagree. I'm saying it isn't immoral to do it. Sure it might be against the law, but so what? It's not like people don't understand that when they pirate things.
The reason companies do what they do is because they have a fear of their IPs being stolen. Except IP law isn't even moral in the first place, consider that the discovery of insulin was sold for a $1 to someone else so they could mass produce it for everyone to just have. Now instead of it being a given for the people who need it, it's needlessly expensive.
Proper ways to change laws without breaking them. Sometimes no, that's not true. You do realize the country had a civil war over slavery and lots of laws were broken to end and keep slavery.
Depending on the power disparity between groups, sometimes the only way is to break laws. In this case IP laws have the backing of the economy because large multibillion dollar companies get to control things economically. We can't just make the systemic change if we can't even get a voice. why do you think loot boxes and gacha games are so accessible and ignored? Gambling makes huge money for the company, they do everything possible to prevent laws or to even place laws that let them do their thing.
@Phlaike laws are morally grey. Laws are sometimes an attempt at harm, or harm reduction. Like the laws that made people return runaway slaves. To say it's wrong to break a law is just bad. Unless you are pro slavery.
What essentially everyone that is against piracy doesn't realize. The company isn't losing money. The people who pirate games weren't going to buy the game in the first place. So no lost sale there. Or if they actually were to buy after piracy, then that's a purchase the company wouldn't have gotten without the person pirating. As they wouldn't have bought it otherwise.
Or the other thing piracy is used for, preserving the classics that every company refuses to preserve. Art is art and it shouldn't just be left in the dust forever. Piracy is the best way to preserve old games that will never get a moment of attention. They won't resell dragons lair. They won't resell festers quest. At best, you get an online only service with the games on that. That isn't preserving the classics.
So to reiterate, piracy doesn't negatively impact sales because pirates wouldn't have bought the game in the first place, or they actually will from testing the game. Game preservation relies on piracy. There are thousands of games left in history never to see the light of day because of corporate greed.
Comments 4
Re: Nintendo Isn't Happy About Switch Game Images On Steam
Another issue with avoiding breaking the law entirely, what do you do when a law is completely unjust? Do you think laws that consistently happen in authoritarian and fascist countries just happen out of no where? No they are legislated. Are you willing to follow the SS? Or defend humanity from them?
So while for the most part you should follow laws, you should at least ask why for many. Like should black people never have escaped, never fought their slavers, never use the whites only restroom, sit in the wrong spot on the bus or just protest at a rally in modern times?
Now that I went over why trying to point to law as justification for not doing something isn't good. Let's go over IP.
At the very minimum IP laws need to be completely overhauled for modern times. Medicine shouldn't have patents. Technological improves and theories shouldn't. I can see art having it. That includes games.
But with games you have companies that will stop selling a game. They will stop making the console or hardware and they potentially will shut down. This where right to repair and piracy comes in. John Deere doesn't want to provide the way for people to service their own machinery, eventually doing planned obsolescence. Like what Apple did with the iPhone batteries. Or light bulbs having their duration cut from 2500 hours to 1000 in the early 1900. This has been a problem for a very long time. People are trying really damn hard to get laws in place to legally get schematics and parts for 3rd party iphone or tractor repair. Or whatever else really. But it's barely working. You know what's still happening though? They keep trying their damn best and buy parts from people stealing them from their factories in Taiwan or wherever.
With games you have companies that don't provide ways to get their old games or to even play them. Or if they do something, it's a remaster or remake that completely changed things. Not the original product. It's still art worth preservation. So who will do it? Someone will and should. If companies are intentionally not providing a service or getting in the way, it's morally good to do something about it.
Now with modern games, piracy of indie games may have an impact however often times those games aren't made for profit, but for passion because there's a very little chance they profit unless it's just a hobby they do on the side. Do you know how many games come out a day? At least a new one every hour, it's like anything else art, you just got to get lucky or be part of an already large group. large companies don't have this issue. They have the disposable funds. They can make their games artificially scarce. They have advertisement that they spend more on than making the game. The games can be bought digitally and they can provide for free if they wanted. Piracy then becomes a way to reject over pricing or how the new Pokemon game was so bad, they started refunding the game. What's the difference between a pirate and a refund? A pirate might play the whole game. The company doesn't make money either way
Re: Nintendo Isn't Happy About Switch Game Images On Steam
@Phlaike it doesn't matter if judges disagree. I'm saying it isn't immoral to do it. Sure it might be against the law, but so what? It's not like people don't understand that when they pirate things.
The reason companies do what they do is because they have a fear of their IPs being stolen. Except IP law isn't even moral in the first place, consider that the discovery of insulin was sold for a $1 to someone else so they could mass produce it for everyone to just have. Now instead of it being a given for the people who need it, it's needlessly expensive.
Proper ways to change laws without breaking them. Sometimes no, that's not true. You do realize the country had a civil war over slavery and lots of laws were broken to end and keep slavery.
Depending on the power disparity between groups, sometimes the only way is to break laws. In this case IP laws have the backing of the economy because large multibillion dollar companies get to control things economically. We can't just make the systemic change if we can't even get a voice. why do you think loot boxes and gacha games are so accessible and ignored? Gambling makes huge money for the company, they do everything possible to prevent laws or to even place laws that let them do their thing.
Re: Nintendo Isn't Happy About Switch Game Images On Steam
@Phlaike laws are morally grey. Laws are sometimes an attempt at harm, or harm reduction. Like the laws that made people return runaway slaves. To say it's wrong to break a law is just bad. Unless you are pro slavery.
Re: Nintendo Isn't Happy About Switch Game Images On Steam
What essentially everyone that is against piracy doesn't realize. The company isn't losing money. The people who pirate games weren't going to buy the game in the first place. So no lost sale there. Or if they actually were to buy after piracy, then that's a purchase the company wouldn't have gotten without the person pirating. As they wouldn't have bought it otherwise.
Or the other thing piracy is used for, preserving the classics that every company refuses to preserve. Art is art and it shouldn't just be left in the dust forever. Piracy is the best way to preserve old games that will never get a moment of attention. They won't resell dragons lair. They won't resell festers quest. At best, you get an online only service with the games on that. That isn't preserving the classics.
So to reiterate, piracy doesn't negatively impact sales because pirates wouldn't have bought the game in the first place, or they actually will from testing the game. Game preservation relies on piracy. There are thousands of games left in history never to see the light of day because of corporate greed.