The thing is, the argument the companies will always make, and their excuse for nailing you with massive fines in court, is that piracy
is theft in the form of lost sales. I'm not saying it's accurate, but it's the inevitable recourse. And if you're the type who legitimately
does want to preserve, by amassing as much as possible in complete sets and doing your best to offer some form of redistribution, generally at zero recompense and even at great personal expense in some cases, you are the
absolute worst kind of pirate/thief to those companies and they will do everything in their power to make an example of you.
Yes, the quote is more than anything a rallying cry in the face of the ongoing and aggressive erosion of ownership. Used a MIG cart for Switch 1 games on your Switch 2, or a game card that's been remotely flagged as suspicious? Your console's bricked now, because Nintendo can do that for some reason, and nine times out of ten they will lie to your face that it can't be undone unless you happen to be very persistent with the right people. This is also a massive blow to the second-hand market by way of sowing mistrust. Used the original game sharing function on the older versions of Switch firmware? They took that function out to add the more restrictive one. Wanted to own a physical version with your physical purchase of Pokopia? Screw you, game key cards only. And on and on like this. And when people continue to unironically make the argument:
Since when did people ever OWN other peoples/companies software that THEY wrote and sold?????
Unless YOU hired everyone on the project and made it clear that they're writing that software for YOU, its not YOUR OWN software.
A perpetual license (aka physical (and most digital) games) does not mean you own the software itself.
It really doesn't help. It's an argument that entirely misses or seeks to obfuscate the core issue of, "I bought the thing. I own what I bought, otherwise it can't legally be called a purchase. As such I should continue to be able to use it as long as it physically lasts, but that is no longer a guarantee."
Is it an entitled attitude? It certainly can be, but I think you'll find most people don't need the excuse if free access was all they were interested in to begin with. And consider the following: a game that you would otherwise find precious, you are forced on principle not to financially support for one reason or another, so the moral "high ground" is to neither purchase nor pirate and simply suffer the loss of the experience. Presumably others in the wild will still maintain pirated copies, but depending on the nature of the game and its distribution and general level of public interest, how long until the last known mirror goes offline? It happens. Next to how many games remain available, albeit near-exclusively through unofficial channels, it's an infrequent occurrence but still a scary thought, especially as more and more public archivals bite the dust over time.
In theory, then, the TRUE high ground is to pirate but then not
play the game in service of keeping one more copy of it alive, but at that point... c'mon, it's
right there. And if we leave aside the rigid and oft-abused letter of the law for a moment in an attempt to obey the spirit, where do we allocate things like the NSO subscription, having to pay in perpetuity as the ONLY legitimate modern means of supporting retro Nintendo games? Even leaving aside the price, it's such a fraction of those systems' vast libraries, and leaves out titles like Mother 3 which have only ever been playable in English through unofficial channels. Should third-party retro handhelds be completely illegal based on the requirement of obtaining game dumps via what are in 99.99% of cases illicit means because it is a NIGHTMARE to actually go through the process of dumping your own carts and discs even if you still have them? What about if you pirated but didn't play a game and then, years later, it stops being sold. Is it more acceptable to play it then? Is it only "okay" if you get a second-hand copy from somewhere, and what does that even really matter when none of that money is going to go to any of the devs or even the rights holders?
I want to support and preserve games. The companies I need to go through are more interested in charging me an arm and a leg for the privilege and then ripping away that privilege after the fact. I'll still try to support the games where it seems reasonable, but at the end of the day, if you're consistently going out of your way to abuse and antagonize your customer base, you don't get to wear the Shocked Pikachu Face when the customer base finally begins antagonizing you back, and that is at the heart of that phrase, self-serving as it may be at face value.
So if I only lick you, at intervals I presume acceptable yet unnoticeable by you, I unlock the infinite flavor town?!
Thanks for this. This is the worst analogy I have ever heard and also my new favourite.
