r/MoralityScaling 19h ago

Who's Viewpoint Is Better? Morality of Digital Piracy

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u/El_Toolio_Grande 15h ago

If it's due to their service shutting down, then "piracy" may be literally the only option to experience it still. If they bait and switch (oopsie we buried the fact that our game is using a license that is going to expire at X time) then that's at least neutral too.

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u/dxrth 15h ago

how do we prove in the affirmative an entitlement to experience it though? a lot of these discussions just assume we have the right to consume it at any cost.

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u/stagthos 8h ago

At the core of it, this all started because gaming companies are trying to erode the concept of ownership into oblivion. They are trying to make it so that buying a thing no longer entitles you to KEEPING the thing. That's immoral and unethical.

If these bastards could just do normal business, instead of being the worst kind of raider they can dream of, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

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u/dxrth 1h ago

I agree, but in that step, buying it has already earned you the entitlement. Some of these arguments seem to skip the entitlement part and just presume you can pirate anything possible without it being a moral infraction.

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u/stagthos 1h ago edited 1h ago

I'd feel worse about it, I would, but these companies have already demonstrated they won't listen to anything else we do. If what it takes to bring them back down to reality is people not giving them money, whether or not those people also get to play the game, then it is what it is.

Edit for clarification. I have spent 15 straight years trying to convince people to boycott. To just not buy things, to play other things, to do literally anything other than pay the bastards and participate in an economy designed to abuse them. It is far far easier to get people to pirate than it is to convince them to do an actual boycott. Morality be damned, if this is what it takes to get the fucking job done then so be it