this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Nowadays, the absolute vast majority of games that I play are shit tbh.

This is why I pirate games first to try them out. I wanna be very clear that if I think a game is good I buy it, no questions asked.

However, since most games don't have demos or trials, I don't want to feel like I've wasted money so I look to piracy so that I can try them out before making a purchase.

AITAH?

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

you are robbing the creator of what the item is valued at

If I value the item at $0 then I have robbed them of $0.

why wouldn't I just get a copy of a game, underpriced it, and sell it as cheap as I wanted?

We already do that. It is called piracy. We take it and sell it for as cheap as we want ($0).

the value of the currency is deflated by those actions because there's nothing stopping everyone from from just adding millions to their accounts

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You can also steal physical items and claim their value is 0. What does this have to do with IP specifically?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I value the item at $0 then I have robbed them of $0.

Luckily we live in reality, where thieves don't get to arbitrarily determine the values of their plunder.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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.

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.

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The results of your ideas are real, the outcomes and impacts are real. The mental labor you do is valuable, but none of it is "property."

If your thoughts and ideas and concepts are property that can be stolen, then please explain how you can be deprived of them.

Thinking hard about something is labor, but it's not property, it can't possibly be property, because it lacks all of the aspects typically required to define property.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ironically by not advocating for IP you are depriving people from earning from their valuable mental labour.

If I invent something and spend time, effort and money into developing it, I should be allowed to be rewarded for that effort. If a competitor comes along and steals my idea without putting the wok in, I am absolutely being deprived of all the value of my hard work. That's how someone can steal your intellectual property.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

IP laws are not the only way to ensure a creator is compensated for their work. Money isn't the only possible compensation, and modern IP law doesn't protect most small time creators. It protects mega-corps and their monopolies on content/products/services.

It stifles competition and progress, not enhances it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I used to think this way, then I realized physical property is not real either. Both are defined by the state, recorded on paper somewhere, and protected by force.

Just because you can actually physically go to my property does not change the fact that it is only my property because I have a deed.

I'm still not sure how to feel about IP but I'm less dismissive of it for now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Let's word it differently then. Physical property is literally real, like, you can go to it. IPs are not a resource. The game devs do not run out of copies of a game because OP pirated them. They remain at an infinite supply. If someone breaks into your house and makes off with your microwave, you are now short a microwave; If you pirate software, the developer is not short in any stock of software

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Possession of property isn't the same as property itself. Although I agree with you that I am sceptical of property in general, at least physical property makes some sense when defined. Intellectual property just makes absolutely no sense.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

With intellectual property there is at least (by default) a direct link between the work necessary to create an item and its ownership. With physical items the initial ownership is necessarily predicated on having controlled a means of production.

I can create an IP and I do not need to spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to do so. But I cannot create a substantial physical item without paying the people who own the materials and the factories for the privilege of doing so. Why is previous ownership such a critical factor in ownership of new items, separate from the work to create them?

Intellectual property laws have their own issues but at least with regard to them conceptually, intellectual property is more “pure” than physical property.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Your ethics are on point.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who works in intellectual property it is very much real. Unless you think people shouldn't receive rewards for their mental efforts in much the same way as physical labour?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People should be rewarded for their mental labor, but that's not the same as saying they have created intellectual property.

A thought or concept is not an object that can be stolen. An idea cannot be a scarce resource that is used up.

If concepts or ideas can be "stolen" then that means somebody is being deprived of them. But unless you somehow erased the idea from all parts of that person's brain and transfered it into yours, nobody has been deprived of anything, and thus nothing has been stolen.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ideas certainly will become scarce products if people aren't protected for having them.

Of course you can steal someone's intellectual property. If you copy someone's idea you are depriving that person from profiting from said idea and depriving them of income. There is a limit on how many people can profit from a given idea.

Intellectual property protects those who innovate against predatory practices. You are displaying naivety for who intellectual property is seeking to protect. By not enshrining IP in law you are literally stopping people from earning money from their mental labour.

If IP law didn't exist why would anybody spend their time and money researching and creating new inventions if someone can come along and steal their idea?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

You cannot be "deprived of profit." That makes no sense. Nobody is owed any profit for simply trying to sell something.

If I create art to sell, and nobody buys it, I haven't been robbed of anything at all. And that fact doesn't change if somebody walks past my art booth, looks at my painting, admires it, and then walks away. They didn't "steal" anything from me. I haven't been deprived of anything. Unless you want to make the claim that they are a thief now that they enjoyed my painting without paying my anything for it.

If that's true, then everybody who walks through an art fair or gallery but doesn't buy any art is a robber and should be arrested and charged.

The idea that IP protects the little folks who are struggling artists is a capitalist myth perpetuated primarily by corporate advocates that are the actual beneficiaries of IP laws. It's used by mega-corps to lock down massive amounts of content, make billions off of it, exploit actual artists to perpetuate their monopoly on creative expressions of characters.

It's also used by pharma corps to artifically restrict supply of critical drugs to the population in order to make billions in profits and enrich their shareholders.

And the whole, "nobody would create anything if copyright/patents didn't exist" is yet another capitalist myth, disproved by countless examples. As if the entire internet doesn't run on the back of Linux, a free and open source project spanning literal decades, Wikipedia, the largest single encyclopedia of human knowledge in dozens of languages, all the millions of pages of fan fiction and hobbiest artists that have created passion projects with no expectation of making money. Etc etc.

Don't buy into the propaganda.