The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • @Rough_N_Ready@lemmy.world
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    2602 years ago

    Piracy was never stealing. It’s copyright infringement, but that’s not the same as stealing at all. People saying it’s stealing have always been wrong.

    • @gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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      1412 years ago

      One of the great modern scams, was to convince society that unauthorized copying of data is somehow equivalent to taking away a physical object.

        • @gapbetweenus@feddit.de
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          82 years ago

          I don’t see anything wrong with paying for software or music or digital media. I don’t think that not doing so is theft - like I also don’t think that getting into a concert without paying is theft. By the way a concert is also not digital data, at least an irl one.

          • @SCB@lemmy.world
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            62 years ago

            A library card is your ticket there and libraries are paid via taxes, which is why they’re free at point of use.

            Attending a free concert is not stealing. Breaking into the Eras tour is.

            • snooggums
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              62 years ago

              The library buys once and allows multiple people to read/watch each item without each person needing to individually purchase. Just like one person buying something and sharing it with others.

              The main point is that digitization distribution is not a concert

              • @SCB@lemmy.world
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                -22 years ago

                Digital distribution is a service. You can steal a service.

                If you fuck a prostitute and then don’t pay them, you are stealing from them.

                • snooggums
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                  22 years ago

                  If the prostitute uses a technique, and then you use the same technique without paying hem for reuse, is that stealing or does their direct involvement matter?

                  • @sdoorex@slrpnk.net
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                    02 years ago

                    If you’re going to retype the code of a program from scratch, then your analogy is valid. If instead you are taking the production created through someone else’s labor without compensating them, then you are stealing from them.

                  • @SCB@lemmy.world
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                    2 years ago

                    Prostitutes don’t become prostitutes because they know secret techniques.

                    The metaphor is describing the service provided, and that not paying for said service is indeed stealing.

                    Trying to make it a different metaphor requires a new framework from you, because you copying their actual service would be you pimping them, under this metaphor.

          • @ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            2 years ago

            Libraries get money via tax. What people here are arguing for is that others should work for them or free. Because game studios, for example, are overwhelmingly not paid via tax money. They are depending on people buying their software. And many software has ongoing costs.

          • @grue@lemmy.world
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            152 years ago

            Yes.

            Well, not literally, both because I’m more inclined to “high five” and you can’t do either gesture over the Internet. But figuratively, yes.

            • @ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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              -132 years ago

              Why don’t you just gift away your software than? That’s an honest question. You obviously aren’t expecting to be paid for it, do you think in general developers shouldn’t earn money with software or is it just you?

              • @grue@lemmy.world
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                152 years ago

                Why don’t you just gift away your software than?

                Because I don’t make those decisions; my employer does. They ought to give it away, but they don’t.

                (The software I’ve worked on has tended to be either (a) tools for internal company use or (b) stuff used by the government/large companies where the revenue would definitely have come from a support contract even if the code itself were free.)

                  • @grue@lemmy.world
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                    12 years ago

                    That question is a red herring. My employer isn’t paying me to write software; they’re paying me to write the software they want instead of the software I want to make.

              • Aniki 🌱🌿
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                122 years ago

                I am a system engineer who works on a project that is open source, AMA

      • @iegod@lemm.ee
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        272 years ago

        You need to disconnect the badness with the term stealing because you’re just wrong. Yeah it’s ip infringement. Yes it’s illegal. Yes people are impacted. And still… Not stealing.

      • @Rough_N_Ready@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I have been for over 20 years actually! What do I get for winning the bet?

        Edit:

        One of our games we actually ended up supporting a form of piracy. A huge amount of our user base ended up using cheat tools to play our game which meant that they could get things that they would normally have to purchase with premium currency. Instead of banning them, we were careful to not break their cheat tools and I even had to debug why their cheat tool stopped working after a release.

        • @ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          2 years ago

          How did your employer pay your salaries? Or did your money perhaps came from those people who actually do pay for in-game currency in your games?