Quickfire round.
You buy the hardware you own it.
You can smash it with a hammer, use it as a book stop, sell it on if you want...
At the same time the software on it is remarkably hard to go and install your own stuff on it via any kind of obvious means.
Some places will call your buying the item as accepting terms, others will want you to actively/tacitly accept things prior to that (this can include downloading if you click the "by downloading this..." bit).
Right to repair.
Most places in the world will only technically allow places to void a warranty if the user's actions caused the problem. As a consumer device is maybe only a few hundred and to speak to a lawyer for a couple of hours (never mind have them file papers with the court, and especially never mind go stand in one and argue your corner, possibly plus forensics work to prove your case) is more than that then they have been getting away with saying "no thanks, you modded it" despite very famous cases saying otherwise.
This combined does in many ways effectively leave you are merely being allowed to use a device you own by the company the made it by dint of their good nature. To that end in a strict definitional sense you are not a licensee but in many practical ones... you kind of are.
For the most part for purposes of discussion on this site we don't care about that (or more accurately go with a strict interpretation that says "your device, your rules"), a warranty is just a piece of paper worth less than the card stock it came on, and are delighted to see things be pushed to the limit in ways the corporate software farms pumping out games can't, or won't, allow because lawyers, finances, lack of imagination or otherwise.
Nintendo's anti consumer practices.
Charging for online.
Not allowing resale of downloadable games.
Not allowing homebrew on their devices
Hard evidence is hard to come by but I doubt we can say Nintendo has never artificially caused a bit of scarcity.
I get you have to fight it but their responses to various design issues has been pretty woeful.
This could go on for a while.
Before someone says "but X does it" then maybe, still does not mean it is suddenly consumer friendly.
Piracy. Other than the raiding of boats, planes, spaceships and whatever by force this is defined as obtaining intellectual property (music, games, books, films...) that you do not have the rights to a copy for.
You can buy second hand things (technically even downloadable stuff is supposed to fall under this in various places, though the US is rather hazy here) so there is that option. The supply might be limited or non existent but... sucks to be you I guess is how that one works.
Anyway copyright lasts a long time, longer than any game you have likely ever played or will ever play barring some kind of life extension technology.
Sometimes things can be gifted to the public domain but this is very rare indeed (all those open source games you see that require you to provide the assets from a legit copy... yeah), and I don't think any games are likely to fall into the registration trap (not to mention we still have a while before even stuff from the 80s hits that window). Before someone mentions it then abandonware is not a legal term, defence against things or anything at all other than something some people out there in copyright reform land are pushing for (and are extremely unlikely to get).
If you want to call something acceptable because it was released in 1995 and not 1996 then that is all you. The law does not recognise anything and in fact trying to argue that in court this side of several decades from now (this start of this year saw things from 1924 be rendered public domain --
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2020/ ) will probably be welcomed with open arms by the copyright holders as you just admitted it.
Now I did argue a functional equivalent above and yeah nobody is probably going to come after you for grabbing a torrent of barbie's horse adventures on the GBA, or similar on the PS1. I should also note as part of this that if such a thing is still being sold as an emulated title, in a collection on a later system or similar then that counts as an actively sold product.
Paying for things.
People do this. Typically they will pay to make things easier or more pleasant for themselves (we are a tool using species after all). This is more handily summarised in a favourite album title -- Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death. You equally pay someone if it is something you can't do yourself or you don't want to.
On "real" pirates. I have had a chance to speak to some of the people doing the actual work here of cracking software and hardware over the years, and otherwise had cause to observe things as they are done and know what it would have taken to do them. They have some wonderful toys they often paid handsomely for.
I think that clears up several misconceptions I saw over the past few pages.
Source
