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> Given that in your suggested reality, they still wouldn't pay for the thing, why does it matter if they then pirate it? With respect, this is a logical impos

> Given that in your suggested reality, they still wouldn't pay for the thing, why does it matter if they then pirate it? With respect, this is a logical impossibility since there is no way to prove that nobody who pirated would have purchased that same product if a piracy was not an option. Accordingly, there must be at least some harm to others. Beyond this logical problem, there have been published studies done by "Danaher et al", "Aguiar and Martens" and others which show that purchases do increase when piracy is not an option. And no, these studies do not just rely on "every pirated copy is a lost sale", they look at specific data about how sales of music and movies are affected by the availability of piracy. > Why do people get so bent out of shape if you decide to download something from a willing third-party I covered that: my ability to survive (i.e. paycheck) depends on people paying for the product I build. Heck, if we step back and look at the macro scale, a good 40% of the US GDP depends on people purchasing things which can potentially be pirated (goods which rely on IP or copyright protections).

ndriscoll 3y ago
I'm not making a claim that no one who pirates would have purchased. I'm addressing the reasoning behind "if you're not going to buy it, you should abstain". In the case that you've already decided that you will not buy something (e.g. because the version that's for sale will not work, or requires some unacceptable rootkit to run), then why still abstain? It feels to me like that's just appealing to some self-congratulatory puritan ethic. Why is it better to deny yourself the thing and go stare at the clouds because you don't "deserve" it? Literally no one is affected by your abstention. Sitting in a quiet room isn't going to put food on the tables of artists.
- falcolas 3y ago
  > In the case that you've already decided that you will not buy something How much of that decision is driven by the ready availability of a pirated version of the product? If the answer is "not at all", then why pirate it, since the ability to use the product didn't matter in the first place? > Why is it better to deny yourself the thing and go stare at the clouds because you don't "deserve" it? Particularly when it comes to entertainment, nobody is born with an inherit right to someone else's labor. Copyright is just the legal manifestation of this as applied to non-physical products. Even if nobody is "harmed" (I still consider this specious), nobody is entitled to a developer's game, an actor's movie, a writer's book. What they are entitled to is accessing those in ways the actor/developer/writer have approved. And if they don't have an approved method for someone, well, that's just lost revenue for them; it's not a pass to obtain the product by any means available. As an aside, "go stare at the clouds" is just shy of reductio ad absurdum, since as I pointed out originally there are more games (not to mention other forms of entertainment) out there than there is time to play them. Much simpler to pick up one of those instead.
  - ndriscoll 3y ago
    > If the answer is "not at all", then why pirate it, since the ability to use the product didn't matter in the first place? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The non-pirated version frequently doesn't work for various groups of people. This whole thread is an example of that; the "legitimate" version of some game now refuses to run on Linux (they may fix this game, but others are permanently intentionally broken, and e.g. VOD streamers do similar things with their 4k streams, so it's the general principle that's interesting). Typically, this is an artificial limitation, and pirated versions work just fine or better. Regardless of the existence of the version that does work, you're not going to buy something that doesn't. Then, having already decided that, you have a separate question of whether to receive a thing that does work as a gift from someone else. > nobody is entitled to a developer's game, an actor's movie, a writer's book Sure, but if someone is willing to share it with you, then I'm still not seeing a reason why you wouldn't be "entitled" to accept it. I'm not seeing where the moral necessity for the author's approval comes in; they obviously didn't want anything to do with you, so they're not in the picture. What entitles the author to be upset when someone they didn't want as a customer anyway gets a copy of their work? Where does the author get the right to say that no one else can give it to them? Fundamentally, I don't see a natural right to claim "I came up with that; everyone else needs to ask my permission to use it". We can create artificial rights to design economic incentives, but if someone doesn't even want your money, then why care about the artificial right? > as I pointed out originally there are more games (not to mention other forms of entertainment) out there than there is time to play them Sure, but art isn't fungible, and there are social aspects. Maybe someone isn't interested in Call of Duty 15, or any video game really, but all of their friends are talking about Monster Hunter Rise, so they want to be part of that. They can't buy it since the publisher decided to exclude them as a customer. I still see no reason in such a case why it would be immoral for someone to give them a copy that's been modified to work. They could go do something else, but why is it the case that they ought to do something else if it makes no difference to anybody but them? Doesn't that seem controlling?

ndriscoll 3y ago

I'm not making a claim that no one who pirates would have purchased. I'm addressing the reasoning behind "if you're not going to buy it, you should abstain". In the case that you've already decided that you will not buy something (e.g. because the version that's for sale will not work, or requires some unacceptable rootkit to run), then why still abstain? It feels to me like that's just appealing to some self-congratulatory puritan ethic. Why is it better to deny yourself the thing and go stare at the clouds because you don't "deserve" it? Literally no one is affected by your abstention. Sitting in a quiet room isn't going to put food on the tables of artists.

falcolas 3y ago
> In the case that you've already decided that you will not buy something How much of that decision is driven by the ready availability of a pirated version of the product? If the answer is "not at all", then why pirate it, since the ability to use the product didn't matter in the first place? > Why is it better to deny yourself the thing and go stare at the clouds because you don't "deserve" it? Particularly when it comes to entertainment, nobody is born with an inherit right to someone else's labor. Copyright is just the legal manifestation of this as applied to non-physical products. Even if nobody is "harmed" (I still consider this specious), nobody is entitled to a developer's game, an actor's movie, a writer's book. What they are entitled to is accessing those in ways the actor/developer/writer have approved. And if they don't have an approved method for someone, well, that's just lost revenue for them; it's not a pass to obtain the product by any means available. As an aside, "go stare at the clouds" is just shy of reductio ad absurdum, since as I pointed out originally there are more games (not to mention other forms of entertainment) out there than there is time to play them. Much simpler to pick up one of those instead.
- ndriscoll 3y ago
  > If the answer is "not at all", then why pirate it, since the ability to use the product didn't matter in the first place? I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The non-pirated version frequently doesn't work for various groups of people. This whole thread is an example of that; the "legitimate" version of some game now refuses to run on Linux (they may fix this game, but others are permanently intentionally broken, and e.g. VOD streamers do similar things with their 4k streams, so it's the general principle that's interesting). Typically, this is an artificial limitation, and pirated versions work just fine or better. Regardless of the existence of the version that does work, you're not going to buy something that doesn't. Then, having already decided that, you have a separate question of whether to receive a thing that does work as a gift from someone else. > nobody is entitled to a developer's game, an actor's movie, a writer's book Sure, but if someone is willing to share it with you, then I'm still not seeing a reason why you wouldn't be "entitled" to accept it. I'm not seeing where the moral necessity for the author's approval comes in; they obviously didn't want anything to do with you, so they're not in the picture. What entitles the author to be upset when someone they didn't want as a customer anyway gets a copy of their work? Where does the author get the right to say that no one else can give it to them? Fundamentally, I don't see a natural right to claim "I came up with that; everyone else needs to ask my permission to use it". We can create artificial rights to design economic incentives, but if someone doesn't even want your money, then why care about the artificial right? > as I pointed out originally there are more games (not to mention other forms of entertainment) out there than there is time to play them Sure, but art isn't fungible, and there are social aspects. Maybe someone isn't interested in Call of Duty 15, or any video game really, but all of their friends are talking about Monster Hunter Rise, so they want to be part of that. They can't buy it since the publisher decided to exclude them as a customer. I still see no reason in such a case why it would be immoral for someone to give them a copy that's been modified to work. They could go do something else, but why is it the case that they ought to do something else if it makes no difference to anybody but them? Doesn't that seem controlling?