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AITAH for pirating games before buying them?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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No. Intellectual property is not real, so nothing is being stolen by you.
If it's a small developer, and you like the game, make sure to support them if you can. If it's a mega studio, don't feel bad about not paying anything.
That's my personal policy at least.
Intellectual property is not real?
So unless I make something physical I am not making anything real? So all my work up to the point of a plant being actually built is not real?
Doing anything on a PC or smartphone is not real.
Inventing a train of thought that cures every known desease and mental illness is simply not real - because you can't touch it. This is the equivalent of dark ages church logic.
You are being intentionally obtuse. It's not that the thing itself literally does not exist at all, it's that the ownership of ideas is not real. When you steal a physical item the original owner is deprived of that item. When you copy an idea the original "owner" still has access to it.
I find it funny you're calling him intentionally obtuse right after you seem to just simplify theivery at whether something physical is stolen. If you're basing it off of something being stolen or not, IP is used to protect the realized gains off of an idea. Yeah you aren't stealing a physical something, but you are robbing the creator of what the item is valued at. It is exactly the issue that you can't own an idea that IP is usually heavily protected. Ironically, the intention is to help new ideas(and their profiting worth) from being stolen by someone (or something ie Coporations) with better means to distribute and profit off of the idea. Otherwise, why wouldn't I just get a copy of a game, underpriced it, and sell it as cheap as I wanted? I've put no thought or labor into actualized the idea, so I have no reason to price it beyond my initial investment. It why when someone (or something) sells full rights to their IP, it can be worth millions. They don't care about the idea. They care about what the idea can provide in the future.
To draw a parallel, saying IP isn't real is like saying currency has no worth. On the surface, duh of course currency isn't actually worth anything. It's not like people can (practically) eat a dollar or make shoes out of a dollar, but we've (generally) collectively decided it's worth something. It instils confidence that when I walk into a store, my currency has a conversion rate of so many dollars per good. If thousands of people added millions of dollars into their bank accounts by just "copying" the electronic money, no one has lost money, but the value of the currency is deflated by those actions because there's nothing stopping everyone from from just adding millions to their accounts. The confidence that people will be harshly dealt with for deflating the currency like that is one of the innate things that gives currencies (and IP's) their value. Handwaving it away by saying it isn't actually real is also just being obtuse.
If I value the item at $0 then I have robbed them of $0.
We already do that. It is called piracy. We take it and sell it for as cheap as we want ($0).
I don't care if the value of IP is deflated. I already believe it to be zero so that doesn't change anything. Ideas should be free to be shared.
And before you say something like, "then nothing new will ever get made" just remember you are on Lemmy. The developers make it because they want to, not because of the money. People can still make things without profit incentive. In fact I think the world would be a much better place if we had less creations focused on making money and were left with only creators who are driven by passion rather than profit.
You can also steal physical items and claim their value is 0. What does this have to do with IP specifically?
Luckily we live in reality, where thieves don't get to arbitrarily determine the values of their plunder.
Pirates absolutely can and do arbitrarily determine the value of their plunder. As evidenced by this post.
You can disagree with it, but piracy will always be a part of reality.
FOSS is made because people want it to be made and made available. People who make games and art vary between it purely wanting to be made and wanting to make a profit off of that. If you're dense enough to think saying you value something at $0 and then still enjoying it like the other people willing to support the IP, then you're an asshole.
There is a balance between what the creator is allowed to value their idea and what people are willing to pay for that idea. If they can't find a middle ground, then the transaction shouldn't occur. If you force that transaction by stealing their idea and efforts, you're being a thief. What you use to justify your actions is up to you, but you're a thief nonetheless.
This isn't even a coherent sentence. But I'm assuming you mean I'm an asshole for enjoying something without paying when other people do pay? Except if I enjoy something I do pay for it. Just because I don't think people should own ideas doesn't mean I don't support creators when I enjoy something.
And no, by law I am not a thief. A thief is someone who commits theft, and theft is "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it." Copyright infringement does not deprive the owner of it, it is simply a copy. At least in the United States where I live copyrighted works are not considered stolen property. You can call me an asshole if you want but by definition I am no thief.
He says it is not real, so it can not be stolen. That is a pretty simple message. What am I getting wrong? He says nothing about ownership. It just does not exist. So don't tell me I am obtuse when the maximum is that the person was ambiguous.
That would be a ~~ecumenical~~ philosophical matter.