[Image Description]: A meme in the style of anti-piracy ads stating the following:
You wouldn’t pirate a game you already paid for to be able to play it again since the company stopped supporting it and no longer sells it
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This made so mad it makes me want to shut down small grassroots videogame tournaments held by passionate communities for games I haven’t monotized in literal decades!
How come copyright owners not legally required to distribute their work?
Copyright is supposedly a deal society strikes with creatives: They create art for society and in return the law ensures that they profit off of their original works. If they no longer uphold their end of the bargain how come the rest of us should still uphold their copyright? If they no longer make their works available their copyright to them should be forfeit automatically.
Good observation, never thought of it. It’s like some people already said: if libraries came after copyright they would say it’s communism and publishers would sue everyone
Hot take: if you bought the game, but need to download a crack or cracked version to play it because the anti cheat or product key validation or whatever is broken, then you haven’t pirated the game. You’re only reclaiming access to something you paid for.
Side note, this isn’t legal advice and IANAL.
I feel the same about downloading movies that you bought which became so damaged that they can no longer be watched from the original media. You own the content, but because they packaged it in a way that was prone to becoming unusable, you lost access to the content. You still paid for a license to the media, but lost access to that media. If you regain that access -by whatever means- then you still legally have the right to it.
I know the courts and copyright lawyers would argue about the license being for that particular copy on that particular media or something, but I disagree.
I think downloading a crack for a game you paid for should be covered under “right to repair” laws.
you own the content
Unfortunately you don’t (if US)
Sorry, I misspoke. You own a license to have the content.
Many years back , a friend was a manager of a game shop. They let me bring in badly scarred discs of movies and PS1/2 games, pay a very small fee (I want to say like $1/disc?) to get a brand new copy of the disc as replacement. Was a service that was available to resell shops apparently, though she mentioned that it also has a subscription aspect that likely placed it well out of reach of mortals.
I’d even be fine with mildly increased cost on something like that for regular consumers, but alas no…
for that particular copy
I think it’s a different version of s movie that’s important. If you bought the director’s cut but downloaded the cinematic version then you technically don’t have a license for that.
As far as I can tell, the most prominent argument is that it’s a different copy due to stuff like the resolution being different, if you own the DVD copy and download the Blu-ray, that’s what they get you on. I imagine that works the other way too.
IDK. The laws are a mess and the courts are largely bought and paid for by the copyright holders.
They get you regardless of format/resolution/etc. The only digital digital copies you’re allowed to “own” are ones you paid for directly or otherwise backed up from your own physical copy (which cannot be shared for any reason but who would do that!?)
Fucking sick. Communist
Alternative inflection:
Fuckin sick, communist!
Me after EA nuked Bookworm Adventures out of existence:
I see this link posted everywhere for weeks now but like, I’ve never been able to use it. The US version of it recommends the DGCCRF which is exclusive to France or visitors thereof. It’s weird that it doesn’t recommend a US branch or have the FTC section at the top
The US version of it recommends the DGCCRF which is exclusive to France or visitors thereof
Because it’s PRIMARILY about The Crew, sold by Ubisoft, a French company.
There is no US push to stop killing games like they’re doing in other countries because it’s impossible without lobbying money, which they don’t have.
I think there was an episode where they found out that there’s a US law that says US citizens don’t have the right to ownership of software or something like that. they’re only trying on countries where customer protection is a thing, but the practice of removing ownership of software after some time is in a gray area.
Yeah even when people talk about “owning“ CDs or cartridges, they don’t actually own it. They own the physical piece that has a limited license. That’s why I can’t take a Blu-ray, invite 50 people over, and charge admission. Hell even doing it free is not technically legal. Same reason we can’t make copies and distribute even for free. The contents aren’t our property.
So you’re saying a company representative can come to your home and take all the clothes you bought from them because they still own the rights to the design ?
That’s not the same thing. This is specifically laws regarding media ownership/licensing/distribution. It’s a completely different world.
And to be clear I’m not saying what it should be, I’m saying what the current legal reality is.
Edit: also a rep can’t show up and take the media off your shelf unless you do something illegal with it and they have an LEO with a warrant. That would be trespassing and theft lol can’t say I’ve even heard of that. Usually they just take/threaten legal action.
Didn’t mean to sound harsh. Not a native English speaker.
It’s still in a gray legal area in most countries or they wouldn’t even be trying. Nobody is trying to steal the intelectual property, just make it that companies can’t come years later and remove things you bought full. It’s a matter of customer protection.
Totally right, I was just responding specifically to the US side of it. No worries I probably over interpreted the heat a bit there.
You wouldn’t throw away a project you spent years and millions of dollars working on for a tax write off
You wouldn’t shutter a studio that produced a critically acclaimed game and then tell your remaining employees they need to make more games like that one.
You wouldn’t pirate a ~30 year old game that was never sold in your country and never translated to your language for a no longer made console but that was carefully ported to the PC and lovingly translated to multiple languages, including your own, by a dedicated group of enthusiasts that genuinely love the game and only want others to have a chance to enjoy it as well.
The fuck I wouldn’t.
You wouldn’t download an NFT
It’s hilarious that lotr:bfme2 is still the best lotr game to date and is pretty much kept alive by enthusiasts through piracy because EA stopped supporting it 15 years ago.
There is still an active mod scene for it to this day, including one that is a massive graphics overhaul bringing a 20 year old game to near modern graphics
Just turn off your antivirus bro, it’s cool bro. No, it doesn’t work in a vm either. It’s fine, just do it.
I’d describe this issue as very Black & White, too!
I am pro-piracy for many reasons but I do think there is a failure to acknowledge within the piracy world that most people download things because they want it for free. Nobody owns all the thousands of games available for their emulators or thousands of blu-rays they simply want to enjoy off their drive/server lol.
Like I ultimately don’t care that they do it, but I’m not really buying “it’s about game preservation“ from people who just indiscriminately download everything available, or just things that they like, and don’t even have a basic backup system. If they want to make claims like that then they need to actually follow basic protocol like 3-2-1 to make it at least believable lol
I guess I mostly agree, though, I disagree that it isn’t acknowledged. From what I see, piracy oftentimes is explicitly precisely just because people want something for free (myself included tee-hee).
The preservation argument has gotten a lot more prevalent, and I agree that there are a lot of people who use that as a justification for pirating while not actually working to preserve the media they pirate, but I at least see far more people who don’t justify it at all. Not that they have to, IMHO.
Meh in my experience usually people cite reasons that clearly don’t apply to them and they get VERY hostile when you say “it’s cool I am not judging people who like free shit” lol but obviously that’s my experience and everyone is different.
Most people download things because they want it for free
Which is the original point of IP such as copyright in the first place, to create a robust public domain. We have Mr. Disney to thank for repurposing our IP laws to lock up content so that we plebs can never enjoy anything without paying for it.
Most artists are more interested in their work getting experienced than getting paid each time, but its the industrialists and the ownership class who profits the most (by far) by locking things down, and even they are glad to circumvent licensing for convenience. It appears we all know it’s a top-side racket.
Download that bear!
Nobody owns all the thousands of games available for their emulators or thousands of blu-rays
And companies fail to acknowledge that not every download is a lost sale. The people who have downloaded thousands of games for their emulators would not have purchased those thousands of games if emulation wasn’t available.
people who just indiscriminately download everything available
Case in point. Just because they’re downloading it “because it’s free” doesn’t mean they were going to purchase “everything available” but find it all for free instead. They are likely not even consuming most of it anyway, and just collecting.
It is absurd that Nintendo will spend money to shut down a webpage hosting “Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link” when that’s not something they will ever sell again. Someone pirating Baldur’s Gate 3 because they don’t want to pay for it doesn’t change the absurdity of keeping a stranglehold on a 37 year old game.
I don’t disagree with any of this but I’m not sure if this is you disagreeing or yes-and’ing me
Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.
I do not disagree that there are people who download things for free because they don’t want to pay for it. However that doesn’t mean every download represents a lost sale. I would argue the majority of downloads never would have been sales in the first place.
Personally I frequently pirate things to try them. If I bounce off of it then I’m glad I didn’t pay for it, if I like it I buy it. I have many games on Steam with under an hour of playtime and most achievements unlocked because I finished the game on a pirated copy, then purchased it and loaded my save.
All that said my main point is that all of this is irrelevant to the actual topic at hand: if I have purchased a game legally and it is no longer being supported there should be no issue with me acquiring the files through another method in order to play it.
Saying “well some people use piracy to get things for free” is as relevant as coming into a discussion about roads needing to be maintained with “well some people use roads to speed, which is breaking the law.”
I never said every download represents a lost sale because I’d never say that!
Not everything is a debate, you’re allowed to just discuss.
Yes which is why I’m seeking clarification from them. Thank you for your contribution.
