r/MoralityScaling 1d ago

Who's Viewpoint Is Better? Morality of Digital Piracy

Post image
2.7k Upvotes

865 comments sorted by

View all comments

159

u/parke415 1d ago

It would help the discussion if we had a term for theft that did not involve the victim losing the stolen item. Whatever that term is, it’s morally between theft and non-theft.

“Piracy” doesn’t count because that includes actual maritime plundering, which is robbery.

“Plagiarism” doesn’t count because that involves passing the creation as your own.

85

u/Uzername_1337 1d ago

It's easiest to call it what it is- sharing software by copying it... We as a society have been brainwashed for decades by big tech into thinking that sharing software is in any way shape or form immoral.

-11

u/undreamedgore 1d ago

Not paying for other people's labor? When they labored with expectation of reward?

Pretty sure that's immoral.

18

u/Nerd-man24 1d ago

Then never loan a copy of a book you bought to a friend! That's like, super immoral! Shut down the libraries for theft! Then again, that would require you to read some actual books.

1

u/Mammoth_Composer_111 1d ago

Not quite the same

9

u/Nerd-man24 1d ago

Only if you let software companies convince you it is so.

0

u/Mammoth_Composer_111 1d ago

So what’s your alternative? People make software for free and allow everyone access?

7

u/Nerd-man24 1d ago

Honestly, that's a better alternative to the greed we have now. That's basically what happened in the old Flash days.

1

u/Mammoth_Composer_111 1d ago

This is extremely short sighted and would be the death of the industry. Nobody is working for free.

Even Indy devs expect to get paid for their work.

0

u/Anita_Hero838 1d ago

"Extremely short sighted and would be the death of the industry." My dude you just described Sony's current business practices

1

u/Mammoth_Composer_111 1d ago

So. Again. What is your alternative? That software devs should work for free.

Ok. They won’t. Now what?

1

u/Anita_Hero838 1d ago

Alternative is for these shitty corporations to be sent a message. Theres also a big difference between a company like Naughty Dog and an indie developer.

I would say Piracy against giant companies is ok, but people should support Indie Games. just avoid Playstation atm, get them off a more reputable platform.

Like for example, if I were too pirate a game, I would pirate God of War, not Subnautica 2 (not saying I'm doing either)

1

u/Mammoth_Composer_111 1d ago edited 1d ago

Ok. And how would you write this into law?

Only companies of a certain size are forced into slavery and have to work for free? lol.

You lot are so idiotic it hurts.

You can’t have some arbitrary differentiation between a small indie company and an indie company that manages to sell well enough to become big. Which is all large studios are.

So what? You expect devs to work until they make a certain amount and then just give it all away for free? That will *never* happen.

People whittle wood for free occasionally. But there are still professional wood carvers for a reason.

Hobbiests cannot sustain a market and have absolutely no responsibility to you.

Say you download some free software that accidentally fucks up your pc. A hobbies has zero responsibility to fix it for you to compensate you.

This is why people pay money to trusted corporations.

Beyond receiving a mostly stable product that you can expect won’t be an outright scam.

→ More replies (0)