Software piracy scene and r/CrackWatch -

[Capsaicin Addict]

I've always been mixed about this.

On one hand, I don't like outright theft -- yes, I know I've joked about sailing the seven seas for RPG books. I will offer in my defense that books I download and like, I will buy print copies as well.

On the other hand, many anti-piracy measures step over the limits of what I would consider reasonable (hello, Sony rootkits).

 

[Aaa0aaa0]

A woman screaming that she is, in fact, a woman is one of the most basic functions of a woman.

Disagree: If this was true then "It's ma'am" would be an unbeatable argument.

In the early days of MMOs women were divided into advertising their womaness to nerds and having 4000 men try and slobber over them at once for being the one in a bazillion nerd girl of their dreams to going stealth so they can play the game in fucking peace without losing friends to nice guy syndrome. While there's a much more even split on the net these days, hacking is certainly a community where the ratio is out of whack and women who are serious go stealth (all 5 of them). The attention whore type women are all doing twitch streams while selling their onlyfans subs or still waving their tits in online gaming since they're too lazy to be in a labor intensive hobby when cameras and boobs work for most simps. The 0.5% of actual women who want to engage shut up, the 9% of troon women advertise that they're a true and honest whamen fighting against gendernorms teehee but don't show their face so they can get attention (just like Girl online guy irl attention whores back in the day) without breaking the illusion that they're wahmen (and hackers are criminals and yada yada).


Thanks on everything else though. There is a reason programming socks are a troon meme.

 

[awoo]

I've always been mixed about this.

On one hand, I don't like outright theft -- yes, I know I've joked about sailing the seven seas for RPG books. I will offer in my defense that books I download and like, I will buy print copies as well.

On the other hand, many anti-piracy measures step over the limits of what I would consider reasonable (hello, Sony rootkits).

You should support sites like GOG.com then. They deliver DRM-free media as an alternative to Steam (as you can probably guess by their copycat UI).

Incidentally, many games are stolen from GOG, but I've also seen comments of pirates claiming they bought the game because they wanted to show appreciation for the DRM-free aspect.

 

[Alcatraz]

Most modern games are shit anyway.

I've got everything from the Wii down at my disposal, so really, fuck these power tripping homos.

 

[serious n00b]

Incidentally, many games are stolen from GOG, but I've also seen comments of pirates claiming they bought the game because they wanted to show appreciation for the DRM-free aspect.

Despite "stealing" a lot of media, I don't have the heart to pirate GOG games because that would be taking advantage of the whole DRM-free thing.

 

[Exist0]

yaarrrrggh

 

[Coffee Shits]

I've always been mixed about this.

On one hand, I don't like outright theft -- yes, I know I've joked about sailing the seven seas for RPG books. I will offer in my defense that books I download and like, I will buy print copies as well.

On the other hand, many anti-piracy measures step over the limits of what I would consider reasonable (hello, Sony rootkits).

I've found pirating to be less morally ambiguous when I admit that yes, it's stealing, and no, I don't care that the authors are not being paid.

The alternative is endless navel-gazing about whether or not logging on to $TORRENT_SITE is a sin, and if my ISP doesn't give a damn, neither can I.

 

[niqlo]

I've always been mixed about this.

On one hand, I don't like outright theft -- yes, I know I've joked about sailing the seven seas for RPG books. I will offer in my defense that books I download and like, I will buy print copies as well.

On the other hand, many anti-piracy measures step over the limits of what I would consider reasonable (hello, Sony rootkits).

I only give money to a game developer that I think actually deserves it, like small indie developers and stuff. "legitimately purchasing" games seems like a complete waste of money, when it could be used to pay for things I actually need. Studio developers still get paid by their bosses. I have far more respect for people who crack games than I do for the companies who make them, honestly.

 

[DumbDude42]

I've found pirating to be less morally ambiguous when I admit that yes, it's stealing, and no, I don't care that the authors are not being paid.

The alternative is endless navel-gazing about whether or not logging on to $TORRENT_SITE is a sin, and if my ISP doesn't give a damn, neither can I.

its not stealing, stealing implies taking something away from someone and thereby causing direct damage to him. piracy does not do that.
the closest IRL equivalent to piracy would be something like sneaking into a baseball stadium and watching the game without having paid the entry fee.

 

[Coffee Shits]

its not stealing, stealing implies taking something away from someone and thereby causing direct damage to him. piracy does not do that.
the closest IRL equivalent to piracy would be something like sneaking into a baseball stadium and watching the game without having paid the entry fee.

I get the physical argument where it's not equivalent to shoplifting - downloading a torrent doesn't prevent someone else from buying the disc. But I'm still getting it where I should be paying for it - someone else's labor is not being compensated. I'm not sure how else to describe it without using the word "stealing".

I suppose the question becomes, does it matter when duplication is so easy? I would say that someone should get paid but rarely does one get what one deserves.

 

[DumbDude42]

I'm not sure how else to describe it without using the word "stealing".

how would you describe someone sneaking in on a baseball game or movie theater without paying the entrance fee?

 

[Coffee Shits]

how would you describe someone sneaking in on a baseball game or movie theater without paying the entrance fee?

Flippantly I would use "stealing"; I don't have a better term off-hand to describe it. If you're sneaking in and sitting in a seat that, even potentially, someone else paid for, I think "stealing" would work. Movie theaters probably much the same. Let's say it's sold out. You're sitting in a seat that someone else paid for, and depriving that person of an experience that he spent the money he earned to gain.

This is kind of deviating from the point at hand - the seats are infinite when you're talking torrents but you're still benefiting from something that you should pay for.

 

[HumanHive]

The problem with the IT’S STEALING argument is that it assumes the copyright holders are the perfect stewards of their own product.

Increasingly often the only ones who give a shit about preserving media are pirates and “I’m putting this up online for free” archivists. So if piracy disappeared tomorrow, we’d likely end up with a dark age (in the traditional lost media sense) very quickly. Culture would be completely transient and no preservation would take place other than the occasional remaster or heavily edited rerelease. The original uncut Song of the South? Gone forever. That old DOS game you liked? Dust.

When we’re talking about physical property, yes copyright should matter. Digital objects need different rules, leaning heavily towards fair use unless you are outright profiting off of a Win11 version of some old DOS game.

 

[Shaka Brah]

The problem with the IT’S STEALING argument is that it assumes the copyright holders are the perfect stewards of their own product.

Increasingly often the only ones who give a shit about preserving media are pirates and “I’m putting this up online for free” archivists. So if piracy disappeared tomorrow, we’d likely end up with a dark age (in the traditional lost media sense) very quickly. Culture would be completely transient and no preservation would take place other than the occasional remaster or heavily edited rerelease. The original uncut Song of the South? Gone forever. That old DOS game you liked? Dust.

When we’re talking about physical property, yes copyright should matter. Digital objects need different rules, leaning heavily towards fair use unless you are outright profiting off of a Win11 version of some old DOS game.

Definitely. The value of back-channel media sharing in the age of the digital memory-hole can't be overstated. Retaining absolute control and ownership of media you've purchased (and defeating media-as-a-service systems) will be the only way to see anything that is unsanitized in the future. Absent some sort of legal mandate, pirates and home recordings are the only way to get anything out of the hands of globohomo.

 

[awoo]

I don't play many video games these days but I feel no guilt over pirating 2005 era Windows XP games because the original companies aren't making money from the game any more

 

[serious n00b]

I don't play many video games these days but I feel no guilt over pirating 2005 era Windows XP games because the original companies aren't making money from the game any more

Moralism involving computers / media is so silly... "Noooo... You shouldn't download that abandonware or go through hard drives people threw away..."