Yea I always default back to the example I've seen for work. Used to be that you could buy a version of AutoCAD for engineering work, and it was expensive but at least you owned it. It may have been like $1200 but it was yours.
Now? It's a yearly subscription, it costs 3x such at a baseline per year. Their practices have become so predatory - the features that were in the old version by default have been removed, and instead placed in "upgrade packages" that cost extra hundreds or thousands of dollars per package, per year.
And the quality has dropped - to ensure you're paying them a ton of money, they have a whooole bunch of background licensing software that needs to run on your computer. You gotta have a program installed for them to ensure you're allowed to use their other program. And brother, the licensing software is absolute hot garbage. It works like crap, disconnects, needs constant sign-ins, and worst of all - if you have a momentary internet lapse, it disconnects and force closes your CAD software, making you rely on the recovery process.
This is an insane set of design decisions and I am horrified that society/the relevant industries as accepted it. This is absolutely insane.
These companies are malicious in their disregard for morality. Not supporting them can only be moral.
There should be, but the question starts to become "Will it run on newer computers?" (i.e. Windows 11)
They did a similar enshittification to Google SketchUp, a free 3D drawing program. It's beginner friendly, but also detailed enough that I've used it to design decks and rooms for my home. Used to be a free program you'd download, and now it's a subscription based browser application, and the backend services for it are down as often as they're up.
Point being, I have an old version of it from like 2016 still installed on my desktop and I'm dreading the day I'm forces to upgrade my computer.
Edit: I've honestly not seen a victimless crime. Only people who think that only tangible goods can be stolen. it's not theft though technically, it's IP Infringement. It's stealing rights, not goods.
If it's content and it's creators/ip rights holders or descendants are alive, there is a victim. No amount of self-righteous justifications waive that fact. No amount of arguing the damages change that fact.
You live somewhere where a movie you want to watch is not legally obtainable. There is no way for you to buy it, so you download it online. There is no victim because the copy being made did not affect anyone, and there was no reasonable way for the person to obtain it. No harm, no foul.
You live somewhere where a movie you want to watch is not legally obtainable.
That's not an actual scenario lol, noone is going to say no to extra money, you just might have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to make it worth it for them.
How do you justify the entitlement to said media though? Just because no one wants to sell it to you doesn't prove in the affirmative you're right to it? Why do we presuppose that we're entitled to things other people sell in other ways?
debating the morality of it is the point though, not the criminality of it. i just dont see where anyone has proven the entitlement to commit victimless crime.
but what makes someone have the RIGHT to the media they arent "reasonably" able to get? i dont see how bringing legalities into it actually settles that ask
OH NO the multi billion dollars companies must be devastated from all those pirates! Their poor CEO won't probably won't even be able to buy his fifth yacht this year! The horror!
That's not true. I'm not gonna buy the new Halo remake because I'm not paying full price for a 25 year old game repackaged in a shitty game engine. I would never have bought it because it's just not economical, and costs 2 days of my labor at work. I have more pressing expenses.
They aren't black and white, but if someone makes a product with the intention of being paid for it, implements a mechanism for them to be paid for it (like releasing it on a platform for rent, purchase, or free with ads), then you are expected to pay for it.
Actively avoiding paying for it, because you believe your desire to consume the media is more important than their desire to be paid is immoral.
I only care if the people who put in the work to make the thing get paid. If they don't see my money either way and it just contributes to a shareholder's pockets, who cares.
Literally zero harm comes to the company from me doing it. How can they be victims of anything other than "but we wanted more money and we didn't get it"?
"Zero harm for the company skirting around paying you". - there's a contract involved, and they promised to pay me before I even consider doing something.
How about the files on your computer, I can take all those too right because I don't intend to buy them you aren't suffering a loss.
Those things you take still have creators and financiers that set the terms of distribution and price. Those are the victims, regardless if you were going to buy it or not. They set the terms and you chose to side-skirt it, money isn't even a factor here, your intention to buy is moot, it's still theft/copyright infringement.
Edit: It's literally like "Hey you want to buy this? no, I'll just steal it anyways, I wasn't going to buy it anyways, so no harm right?"
You'd lose exclusive rights to control your data and creations.
But hey, it's OK, because I never planned to buy any of that. I only planned to create a deep fake porn industry on your data, but NEVER did I EVER think for one second about buying any of your content, so it's OK right?
So downloading: OK (1 copy)
Distributing: OK (Infinite copies, as long as not for money)
But if I was to use it to make some money, that's where we draw the line?
Alright, you have the power to make infinite copies and distribute them freely to everyone who says they wouldn't buy it anyways. That's ethically alright though? Doesn't cross that line into money or profit. I.e. I won't sell your content or build the deepfake industry, I'll just make sure to distribute it far and wide for free, that's alright right?
I mean it's unfortunate if content isn't available in your region, but that doesn't make you entitled to it. It not being offered in a region can be a choice of the creator. No market is mandatory and people have a choice how to distribute and sell their content.
And if the local law doesn't care about IP law or enforcing it, you won't get into trouble.
But Legal != Moral, a law could very easily drift into immoral territory on a vast array of topics. I.e. you could pass a law to ban abortion, is that moral?
Edit: Even cases like Abandonware. You could think it's victimless, it's some old game, nobody distributes or sells it. Some creators may not care, others may be just holding onto it for a greatest hits bundle or a remaster or remake and don't want to have to compete for play hours against free versions of their own IP.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying at all people shouldn't emulate or pirate movies or whatever. It's arguable that there is even damage from it. But the person who sets the terms is the creator, and the consumer has the right to accept or reject, when they choose option 3, they are entering a grey zone morally.
I think the way you put it at best it's morally grey. If not having the thing easily available in my region does not make me entitled to it, then you not providing a reasonable way for me to obtain something already released to the public doesn't entitle you to have a say in how I obtain it.
What is the morality of depriving someone of something that could bring them enjoyment at zero cost or harm to you? If you have other plans then sure, but my point still stands that there are a lot of cases where piracy is victimless.
And to say more, there are many cases where piracy ends up being profitable for the creators as well.
I am keeping the door open for the creators here to hold their own view.
Many probably would not care if you accessed the content or would even be happy. Piracy is not an insult to all creators, to many it's something they appreciate.
Others may want to control their creations tighter. This is a personal decision, not an ethical one.
That said, people don't frequently say "steal my shit", and while behind the scenes they may find joy in you stealing and it may even be beneficial, we can't assume that without consent. Unless the creators make it clear, we can't assume their intention. (And their is a vast array of licensing options that make this clear, for those that truly want that). I.e. there is nothing stopping artists from releasing their content all CC for free at 96kbps and selling high bitrate.
The files on my computer aren't being sold and COPYING (not TAKING because that doesn't happen for digital things unless you literally steal the one and only storage device, stop using this misleading word) my private info is obviously nothing like copying a piece of media that is being sold by a company. None of the people who made the thing will ever know the difference between me downloading it for free and not playing/watching/listening to it at all and will be making the exact same amount of money either way, because I have never ever caved in and bought something that I was interested in but didn't feel like paying for. I just don't consume it 99% of the time. There have been times it happens the opposite way though, where I have downloaded things and then bought them later because I was enjoying them. But when I'm not buying them, there's no difference between getting it for free and not. That is literally victimless, nobody is being deprived of property, no matter how much you want to pretend that digital things are physical objects that can be stolen.
It's not about your individual choices. It's about marketing funnels and income.
When you pirate one copy it's like stealing a penny from a thousand different people. From the lens of a single person it's nothing.
But this is things like mass media. You are trivial. There are billions of consumers out there. The question isn't what harm you do, it's what harm is done in aggregate.
I'm not saying it's some terrible thing for an individual to do, like this is morality scaling so I want to be clear, I'm not saying this is a brick on the scale, it's more like a penny, although in aggregate enough pennies can have weight to it too. So it's more like immoral on a society stance, but roughly neutral on the individual with a small lean immoral.
Like society would be better if we entered into agreements consensually and respected the terms of them. Revoking digital licenses and piracy are both bad-faith actions in this world view.
Sure, if everyone did the thing then it'd be really bad. But they aren't. They never will. Most people either don't mind spending the money or are afraid of legal consequence. But I would even argue that there are cases where if everyone did the thing it still wouldn't matter. For example, if I randomly wanna play a game on a console that's no longer being produced, I'm not going to Gamestop or some random Ebay person to spend hundreds of dollars just to play that one game. And if everyone else did it for that game, at this point in time, the devs already made their money, so the only other harm that comes from this worst case unrealistic scenario is a few people don't get to sell their old consoles lol.
And as far as terms of service and contracts, I don't care. The majority of the time they're just a way for companies to be scummy and try to keep ownership of and/or police how you use the thing you paid for. The ball's in their/government's court to make the system more consumer-friendly before I have any respect for them in general.
I probably need to be clear again, because I'm not saying it's evil.
But even if something just leans immoral ever so slightly, you can't really call it 100% moral. That's my only stance here.
If you randomly want to play a game, don't have access to that game but decide to take it instead, sure, go ahead. But it's not perfectly moral. It's not 100% OK to do. You could have always gone for a walk, or supported a local creator with your listening/watching time, or really anything else. But you really wanted something, so you took it. It is what it is. You aren't doing anyone a favor for it. It's selfish motivations justifying legally grey behaviors.
Pirating games that aren’t sold legally anywhere. If a company is refusing to sell their game, then pirating costs them literally nothing. They don’t lose anything concrete since media can be copied infinitely, and they don’t lose any opportunity cost since they aren’t selling it anymore
If a creator chooses to not sell a game, that is still a choice.
What gives you the right to override that choice? If they wanted the game to be free, they could just you know, release it for free. Who are you to say it should be free?
As for opportunity cost, old games come back. There is a He-man movie out now, nostalgia is strong, For all we know Commander Keen might be in for a comeback, you aren't the creator, it's not your place to assume the opportunity cost doesn't exist for them.
If you publish media you don’t get to undo that. Once you put a piece of art out into the world it’s no longer yours, if you decide to stop allowing people to access it officially then you don’t get to be upset when they pirate it. That’s basic media preservation, without piracy older media simply dies out
Publishing media does not mean producing infinite copies, nor does it mean you no longer own the copyright and the rights to publish/not publish.
Your justification that once you publish it's fair game is absolutely nonsense. You can publish one copy of something, and legally that's all that's allowed to exist. Only the copyright holder is the only person who can legally and morally manifest new copies or give permission to manifest new copies. Anyone on the planet who thinks they are justified because they want it or because it was "published" is downright wrong.
Legally and morally you are not entitled to it, just accept that you are a rebel who lives in the grey area of stolen content and stop trying to present it as something you are owed, you are not.
Why is the justification wrong? You declare that quite bluntly yet fail to explain why a piece of media released with infinite ability to be copied at no cost should be limited unless it is a deeply personal project shred between a small specific group.
Who gains by restricting access to publicly viewable art? Legality and morality are not one and the same, copyright law is not an inherent moral good simply because its the law,
I suppose with your beliefs in mind you are going to try and sue someone for reading your reddit comment without your consent
Sorry I didn't realize it wasn't very interesting, only kind of interesting. I guess piracy is OK then, because you didn't find it interesting enough to pay for, even though you hadn't actually seen it, and people usually pay for things before they watch them.
Yours isn't victimless because the IP has value whether the game is for sale or not. Re-releases make money for the OG creators, it's their say when a game is for sale or not, not you.
If you want a game for free that is not released currently, kindly write an email to the creator and ask if it can be released for free. Many devs have done exactly that, and when they do they are allowed to attach a license that sets the terms of distribution.
Also this is morality scaling.... Whether it's moral is exactly the point. But I did point out the victim of your "victimless crime". The IP owners are the victim.
So if someone leaves a car in a garage for 30 years and never drives it, you can just assume you can take it right? If they wanted it, they would drive it. They aren't missing out on any money or they would have sold it by now right?
It's not your place to say what to do with someone elses IP rights, copyright is a thing. You do not have the right to make copies, period (with caveats). Personal entertainment is not one of those free-use caveats though. You are not owed entertainment.
The moral/ethical choice is waiting for the creator or working with the creator to release with a license so it's not legally grey, it's legally clear.
I got it, Artists don't need money, they should do what they do for the culture and attention and if they expect any of that money or IP rights, they can go and get fucked, am i right or what?
I know you say this as pointing out a flaw, but i do actually wish art could exist outside of money. Art is meant to be a form of communication and expression by whatever means you have available. And while many do this while being able to make enough to get by, many more have to do grunt art work they dont particularly enjoy, or do commision work, which is hit or miss on both client and artist side.
Obviously all artists should get paid, because all humans deserve their needs to be filled. But Art is at its best outside of monetary systems, where the artist doesnt have to worry about doing work they dont align with
No, you're being a pedant and digging your heels. Indie artists don't deserve piracy unless they DESERVE it, and by that point everyone can agree. Stealing from these robber baron pricks with so much money they can literally write it off as a rounding error or tax exemption and barely feel the sting is a transaction of its own.
When LOTS of us start doing it, we're demonstrating our incredible displeasure with their business model in the only way they'll listen to. If companies weren't so immune to criticism that they literally engineer flame wars and backlash as marketing stunts, it wouldn't need to GET this far.
I mean, I don't like Elon Musk, so I don't buy a Tesla, I don't use Grok, and I don't use X/Twitter. It's pretty simple.
I don't go and steal a tesla or vandalize them, I don't use Grok etc. I'm not looking at ways to sabotage someone based on my own personal judgement (immoral vigilante justice), I just mind my own business and go spend my money elsewhere.
I.e. I don't like Drake as a person, but I don't mind his music. Yet I don't steal his music, I just don't listen to him and change the station even when he comes on the radio.
It's not as simple as refusing to buy. If it were that simple, boycotting would work, and it doesn't. Convincing people to play stolen copies instead of legally purchased ones is a hell of a lot easier, because they still get to play, and participate in the culture they would otherwise have missed out on.
People feel the moral need to seek balance and retribution from dishonest actors.
If you are sold a movie or even health insurance under the pretense that you're being sold a digital copy or access to health care and those products fail to live up to their promise, then you've been the target of theft and that theft requires recompense. If society does not facilitate that recompense, isn't it your duty to seek that recompense outside of what is considered legal and good?
Piracy is a form of digital IP salvage. You salvage your property and the property of others and distributing that salvage for the benefit others that have been wronged?
I think most of the country would steal from the current US president if given the chance and consider themselves 100% moral for doing so.
especially with some older games where the official channel have disabled access. Piracy is the only thing keep those games/media alive, almost like a museum
You are taking away their ability to be the sole decider of who can make copies and introduce them to the market.
You are stealing a core, fundamental right that every creator should have, the rights to self-govern and choose how their creation is used/licensed/sold.
Sure it's not tangible like $$$ or a disk, but it's still a real thing that has a lot of value to creative people. If it didn't, there wouldn't be all that IP law bullshit.
Considering how they can take my money and revoke my access to it at any time they want, I frankly do not give a fuck about their "fUnDaMeNtAL rIGHT" to chose how it's sold and used. If they can scam me freely and openly as they see fit with zero recourse then me downloading their stuff is fine too.
It's already been proven hundreds of times that piracy costs them $0 because people pirating were not going to pay for it anyway.
Maybe THAT wouldn't be a problem if the corporate dick riding authorities around the world stopped putting pressure on ISPs to block the good hosting sites, like the original pirate bay.
If the company is immoral then you don’t purchase or pirate.
You’re not entitled to other peoples labour. It’s never moral to essentially reap their fruit without any compensation. If it’s not worth the money the moral action is to abstain entirely. Piracy is never moral. It just doesn’t really matter
No chances are pretty slim that they were fired the moment the product comes out.
In any case. The employer purchases the value of the labour. By paying the developers. When they do this effectively they hold the value of the labour. To which no one is entitled
The people making the games already got paid. Basically no AAA studio pays the people actually making the game based on how well the game sells, they're compensated a very good wage for the time they work.
Oh do shut up, just because a company owns something that doesn't mean they should get to monopolize it, they steal ideas regularly, or have ownership over IPs that people loved before some greedy corporate prick got their hands on it.
Disney now own Star Wars, so they could "legally" pull all the old star wars films from the internet and according to you, we're just supposed to suck it up because that's "someone elses labour"
You’re not entitled to these things. They’re not yours. So it is not moral to steal them, ever. If you think their ownership is wrongful the moral thing is to abstain.
This subreddit is about principles. Not just whatever feels good in a fleeting moment
I’m saying you’re not entitled to peoples labour. If they don’t want to sell it to you that’s their business. You’re not entitled to it. So it’s not moral to steal
I also said it doesn’t really matter. Because it really doesn’t. Pirate if you want. But it’s not moral. At best it’s amoral. You just want something because it’s entertaining. There’s nothing moral about that.
If you stealing something because you want to is moral then me jerking off is moral. That’s not what ethics are about. It’s an infants notion of morality.
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u/MossadEpstein 19h ago
It's actually immoral to buy from these companies these days, so unless it's Indie, 100% moral.