Toggle sidebar

"If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing" is a stupid quote and I'm sick of hearing it

  • Thread starter Thread starter SecureBoot
  • Start date Start date
  • Views Views 5,753
  • Replies Replies 92
  • Likes Likes 19
most of the games made these days are indy unity trash and buggy AF. you don't want to waste money play testing these do you?! because that's what your doing before they are either abandoned or never make it out of Early access! i see these games all the time on PCGT and after playing them and deleting them after less than i day i think to myself fucking hell i feel sorry for the poor fools who actually paid money for that!
 
Last edited by Bladexdsl,
  • Like
Reactions: AmeliaFox
Dark_Ansem said:
Embarrassing and boring
Click to expand...
Useless and pathetic reply. Contributed nothing of substance.
Post automatically merged:

MonkeyHead79 said:
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.
Click to expand...
Not a single person who uses the excuse of "archiving" does so with the intention of genuinely archiving the data. As you stated, the perfect example of those who use that excuse are specifically doing it just to not feel bad when they play it. "It's right there, why shouldn't I play it? I'm already backing it up and archiving it!"

Games and softwares are not NEEDS, but WANTS. Experiencing a game is not something that a person needs to do, but entertainment they want to kill time. If you can't financially buy the game for one reason or another, then you can simply move on and either get a cheaper game or play one of the MILLIONS of free games (and a huge bunch of those are quality games) that are available to play natively a browser or that can be downloaded.

MonkeyHead79 said:
I want to support and preserve games
Click to expand...
There are proper organizations who do this. Pirating games and putting them on a hard drive is NOT supporting nor preserving these games.


Pirating is something that the majority of people online do (including me), but when you try to justify it with dumb excuses such as "Buying isn't owning, so pirating isn't stealing!" or "I'm pirating it to archive and preserve it!", you cross the line into pathetic territory. You should either step up and own the fact that you're pirating or stay quiet and don't mention it to others.
 
Last edited by Coolsonickirby,
  • Like
Reactions: nryn99 and Tigran
Not great analogy, but I think it's people being upset, that they buy scissors, but realize too late that they *need* scissors to open the pack of scissors, and whatever simple solution they thought of, is really impossible. You can also use other methods, but it will be either very unsuccessful, or end up hurting yourself in the process.


A slightly better analogy I could think of, is ordering a 500mL glass bottle of water at a restaurant.

It used to be, that you got an open bottle of water, you could drink it, you could spill it on yourself, do anything you wanted, as long as you didn't do anything obscene, didn't cause a racket, and didn't damage the things around you. Then you'd return the bottle as per agreement, and go on with your day.

Nowdays, you go to the restaurant (herein "Restaurant"), you get lectured for 12 minutes in a foreign language you don't understand, but forced to listen to. Then, you have to sign a paper as proof that you have understood and listened to the lecture (even though you've probably signed away rights to your kidneys, however enforcable it is in court or not), just to get the water (herein "Water", "Water Bottle", "Goods").
You get the Water, but it still has the cap on. You are not allowed to touch the bottle, it always has to be handled by the server. You are not allowed to drink from it, it always has to be administered intravenously by the server. You are only entitled to 200mL per day, while supplies last. Water Bottle is only valid in Restaurant it was purchased in. The Restaurant may revoke your permission to the water at any point, without any notice or reason. Restaurant is not responsible for monetary damaged as a result of incomplete or damaged goods, and does not issue refunds, all sale is final where there is no obligation to pay. You are not allowed to sue the Restaurant if you get medical damage as a result of incorrect administering, or damage caused by lack of servers administering it to you in a timely manner. The burden is on you for the loss of Goods caused by servers' improper handling of the Water Bottle. Typical administering speed is guaranteed at 0mL/hr, with typical administering speeds of 200mL/hr. Typical serving size is 160mL, guaranteed 60mL.



I don't give a flying fuck about these artificial limitations. Just give me the damn thing, and leave me alone.

If having to use a "bottle opener" on the game I bought the license to is considered piracy, then I'm a yarr-harr-diddledy-fucking-dee pirate.
I will make as many copies *for myself* as I want, and I will adapt the game to any of my platforms as much as I want. I will go great lengths to bypass the artificial locks, if that's what it takes to adapt the game to a different platform of my choice.
I will not lease, lend, sublicense, etc., those copies to anyone else that is not myself, I will respect that part of the license. For anything else, gargle a hedgehog ass.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Marc_LFD, VinsCool, ciro64 and 1 other person
Sono said:
Not great analogy, but I think it's people being upset, that they buy scissors, but realize too late that they *need* scissors to open the pack of scissors, and whatever simple solution they thought of, is really impossible. You can also use other methods, but it will be either very unsuccessful, or end up hurting yourself in the process.


A slightly better analogy I could think of, is ordering a 500mL glass bottle of water at a restaurant.

It used to be, that you got an open bottle of water, you could drink it, you could spill it on yourself, do anything you wanted, as long as you didn't do anything obscene, didn't cause a racket, and didn't damage the things around you. Then you'd return the bottle as per agreement, and go on with your day.

Nowdays, you go to the restaurant (herein "Restaurant"), you get lectured for 12 minutes in a foreign language you don't understand, but forced to listen to. Then, you have to sign a paper as proof that you have understood and listened to the lecture (even though you've probably signed away rights to your kidneys, however enforcable it is in court or not), just to get the water (herein "Water", "Water Bottle", "Goods").
You get the Water, but it still has the cap on. You are not allowed to touch the bottle, it always has to be handled by the server. You are not allowed to drink from it, it always has to be administered intravenously by the server. You are only entitled to 200mL per day, while supplies last. Water Bottle is only valid in Restaurant it was purchased in. The Restaurant may revoke your permission to the water at any point, without any notice or reason. Restaurant is not responsible for monetary damaged as a result of incomplete or damaged goods, and does not issue refunds, all sale is final where there is no obligation to pay. You are not allowed to sue the Restaurant if you get medical damage as a result of incorrect administering, or damage caused by lack of servers administering it to you in a timely manner. The burden is on you for the loss of Goods caused by servers' improper handling of the Water Bottle. Typical administering speed is guaranteed at 0mL/hr, with typical administering speeds of 200mL/hr. Typical serving size is 160mL, guaranteed 60mL.



I don't give a flying fuck about these artificial limitations. Just give me the damn thing, and leave me alone.

If having to use a "bottle opener" on the game I bought the license to is considered piracy, then I'm a yarr-harr-diddledy-fucking-dee pirate.
I will make as many copies *for myself* as I want, and I will adapt the game to any of my platforms as much as I want. I will go great lengths to bypass the artificial locks, if that's what it takes to adapt the game to a different platform of my choice.
I will not lease, lend, sublicense, etc., those copies to anyone else that is not myself, I will respect that part of the license. For anything else, gargle a hedgehog ass.
Click to expand...
Pretty much that.

I don't think most people using the "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing" quote are actually trying to classify what they're doing as non-piracy, it's more like "If I'm gonna be subject to bullshit, then I'm not gonna feel bad about pirating it".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sono and VinsCool
So companies want to ditch physical media and have us use long-term rentals instead? Maybe, but they'd need to apply a hefty discount and they certainly aren't gonna do it those greedy bastards.

Don't complain when people pirate as that's the way they have access to the actual files so it's what it has come to.

When I see Switch 2 Key Cards I just don't get it, it's more Code in a Box crap and yes I know you can download the game, play it, and resell it. I can't imagine it being worth much (Pokopia is because it's Pokeman).
 
I don't think it's stealing, in most cases that is not a lost sale.

But when I was a teenager and younger one of my hobbies was stealing stuff, I stole Gameboy games, action figures, plush animals, tinsoldier forms, toy guns, comedy gag joke-toys (sorry don't know what they're called, a hand buzzer and a toy dog shit, those kind of things).

And that's why I still regard it as stealing, because it gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside when I download stuff and pay nothing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cearp
cearp said:
Which one?

Did you steal any good games when you were younger?
Click to expand...

Lol, that's a great edited quote. 😂 I want it to be stealing, I haven't downloaded anything I would have paid for in decades and I actually do enjoy supporting developers if they made something good, mostly that is not games though... When it comes to video games I don't play anything considered modern, I pirated the complete ROM-set of the Famicom including the FDS-games, please God forgive me.

The first game I stole was Double Dragon for the Gameboy, it was at a place where I've already stole tons of Simpson's figurines, I just had to wait until they went away from the cash register area to help a customer. Pitman (Cattrap) is the other one, it's actually worth paying for, very fun puzzle game... If I weren't such a good person I could've easily stolen games at that place everytime I went there, the owner of the store just emptied a big bag of Japan imports on the counter, and if you brought your Gameboy you were good to go with any game you wanted.

I also stole two NES games, after I didn't even have my NES. One of the games was Shadowgate and the other one was some really shitty Pipedreams or... Magic Ball? I don't remember, but I do remember smashing it with a hammer, and that's when I first realized the size of the Famicom carts, without knowing it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cearp
I hate the quote but I get the intent.

Historically under this account name even I used to do some seriously shady shit back in the 90s online and some gray area to ok too. I started out using this on irc, efnet, in spaces like #oldwarez, #emu, #retrogamers and well I think you can figure that out. I moved up to channel ops too in time, lost of sharing, copying, storing things, cataloging, patching of little bits like languages or book based locks off stuff. Some was legit like Japanese emulators to a NES header doc that still exists and some the opposite heading and merging a nes release group into a larger. In that era I would have loved that quote, couldn't afford much of things outside of being like a kid on an allowance so I just grabbed, used, stored, or just skipped the used bit. I got tired of it in time, too much work, no return and no free time.

The thing is back then downloads or not, carts, discs, disks or not, if you had it, you had it, you controlled it, owned it, had full second hand rights to resell it. Now, lessening a lot, the utter 100% lie of the BUY button which should legally be made to say RENT or LEASE because that's what it is, limited usage with caveats. And that's why I don't liek the quote, but understand it, because if they're going to obfusgate the truth under a TOS you'll need to be pre-law to get, they can kind of just get fucked getting mad when people hack, steal, or whatever their stuff as it's sneaky. Perhaps make a bullet point for kids short version of the TOS that says in middle school english, YOU DO NOT OWN THIS. YOU ARE BORROWING THIS. WE CAN TAKE IT AWAY FOR ANY REASON AT ANY TIME. YOU GET NO REFUND. They won't, far more people won't buy it.

We need a forced upgrade to the way legal rights are spelled out with media in general so people understand it and can't claim otherwise unless they're illiterate. We should also have a term, whether you're a TOS violator or not (online play ban/account ban from X date) you still can use/hold onto and access anything previously purchased offline and recover it if necessary until what time the full server is pulled offline completely. There needs to be some ground floor, because otherwise it has a stink of theft.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cearp
SecureBoot said:
There seems to be an increasing amount of fervor behind digital preservation. I see a lot of content about media destruction and revocation of purchased content. Without fail, the top comments on videos like this are "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing". A nice-sounding sentiment for sure, and one that people seem to rally around to justify their digital looting, but if you apply any amount common sense to the quote, it entirely falls apart as nonsense.

First of all, obviously piracy is not stealing. That's why those two actions are named different things. If piracy was stealing, you would just call it theft. You can remove the first part of the sentence and it remains equally as true. "Piracy isn't stealing". What piracy still is is the circumvention of payment to the rights holder for a product that they have the right to sell.

Second, lets look at the first half of the quote. "If buying isn't owning". I want to be clear, I strongly feel that there should always be a path to DRM-free, non-revocable access of media. However, in a world that isn't the case, prefacing that thought with the word "if" does more to shine a light on the fact that you were too lazy to read the Ts&Cs before making a purchase. The information that you do not have complete ownership is right there in the Terms and Conditions and you actively decided to purchase the product anyway. Now you're turning around and lying about it like no one told you this information. It's like buying a meal at a restaurant where the menu lists "soft drinks are non-refillable" and then getting pissed that your soft drink is, in fact, non-refillable. Should the restaurant make the drink refillable to improve the customer experience? Probably, but that doesn't change the fact that you were informed of what you were getting into when you made the order.

Third, the two clauses of the quote have practically no correlation. Buying isn't owning because these are the terms set by the vendor. If these terms weren't explicitly set, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The vendor does not set terms that say piracy is not theft. If you want this to be true, then that would have to be negotiated by you, the customer, with the vendor prior to purchase. By making the purchase, you agree to the terms whether you like it or not. You don't get to retroactively decide you don't like the terms any more and change them.

Fourth, it's just an excuse to justify your piracy. Don't get me wrong, I have done my fair share of piracy, but piracy is not a clear or sustainable path to preservation. Piracy is often the only way some media is preserved, but that preservation is contingent on someone caring enough about the media to make a backup available for others. My guess is that the majority of people screaming this mantra, are just trying to absolve themselves of the guilt that pirating brings them.

That's all. That's the tweet. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Click to expand...
I do agree with the points you've made here and I do hate that phrase too. Though generally hatred of phrases comes from people who genuinely do try and be moral and see others use that exact phrase as an excuse to justify their actions.

I experience this myself constantly with people saying they pirated games for "archival." Which is the biggest load of shit excuse I've heard in my life. As a genuine archivist who has probably spent well over $30,000 USD on my efforts it is a straight up slap in the face. Defaming my title to come up with an excuse to justify your actions. Those are the people who give genuine archivists like me a bad name.

Now don't get me wrong. Some media is so scarce that piracy genuinely is the only option. I've experienced this myself namely in the mobile market of media with applications delisted years ago. But the people using this term as an excuse to justify their piracy of easily accessible media aren't archivists at all. They aren't making the media more accessible or ensuring its longevity. They are simply wanting access to the media and using it as a coverup for them pirating it. I'll look past a lot of the bullshit excuses people make but making excuses defaming the genuine effort of others? Those people can fuck right off.

I guess rant over lol.
 

Site & Scene News

Go to forum More news

Popular threads in this forum

Is it still necessary to make a closed gaming system?

Gaming  Do you avoid old games that are only playable in 30fps or less?

Wind Waker VS Twilight Princess

Eden emulator is making me pull my hair out

Listing of all available PC ports ?

Gaming Oldies  [PS Vita][Oldies] ID obscure Asian pixel RPG — CN/JP title, ENG dialog, Earth hero saves alien girl from wolf, evil prince kidnaps her [UNID]

OG Xbox sofmod: Password Protection / Security options?

Gaming Hardware Oldies Others  Do you have a Pioneer LaserActive?