- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
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If paying full price and obtaining a digital copy isn’t ownership, then taking that digital copy without paying can’t be stealing can it?
I legit wonder what would happen if this argument is used ( in a professional way by a professional lawyer ) in a court of law. Like, could this legit be argued to be the same?
I don’t see it going well but I’d love to see it happen. “One rule for ye, another for me” and all that
Ye, same haha
NAL but technically speaking Ubisoft would lose because they would be unable to prove that they were deprived of anything or anything was appropriated from them with their current stance. Realistically they would just pivot and find some other nonsense to try, like claiming a theft of their computer server’s processing power everytime a pirated game accessed their lobby or some other nonsense that would barely fly, but fly none the less.
What if the game was purely offline? Also, how can a pirated game access online lobbies? The last time I pirated a game was because Epic had a BL3 exclusive. And I couldn’t matchmake.
I wonder who would have to prove what. Ubi, that they missed profit (because you’d want to buy the game and didn’t) or the player (who’d argue he wouldn’t ever buy it anyway).
Well the moving party has to prove their allegations, aka Ubisoft moving to sue you means they have to prove everything they say. Since their stated public position is that they are sole owner at all times irregardless of circumstances, they would be legally barred (estoppel) from arguing that any one could hurt their possessory interest (rights and share of ownership). They essentially would have to shift the argument over, similar to a theft of service argument (not paying a train fare is a crime but you didn’t steal a train or turnstile). The question then becomes what service does ubisoft provide? Online servers that do content distribution seem to be the only thing. If you got it on the high seas you never hit their network, so all I see left with my hypothetical napkin math is all that random network traffic ubisoft games seem to always have (even offline).
Thanks, interesting, I am almost tempted to taunt Ubi that I pirated their game and try to get sued lmao.
Bravo.
There’s a number of cracked games now with online play enabled, you just need to make a burner Steam (etc) account to use it so your main one with purchases doesn’t get nuked if they catch on.
Piracy is never stealing.
Piracy by definition is stealing.
No. It is not. If you’d like a crime to compare it to, forgery would be more accurate.
Forgery usually involves submitting what you faked to some other entity in order to do something. Maybe if you illegally copied and sold that music. Regardless the penalties are similar anyway.
the unauthorized use of another’s production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright
Piracy can often invovle legally obtained items or even bypassing item bans.
You pirate a movie by taking a real copy and sharing it with others over the internet by making more copies or by making it copyable.
Stealing a movie would be taking the real copy without paying for it.
You could both steal and pirate the movie, but in the context of modern media, the source material is usually obtained legally.
That’s why most torrents usually have the source in the title to show what it was taken from (DVD, BluRay, WEBRiP, WEB-DL, etc).
Piracy by definition is sharing
Incorrect. Last I checked, theft is depriving the original owner of their product or service. When it comes down to it, piracy is essentially making an illegal copy, meaning the original is still there.
I’m not sure how you drew this conclusion, since most people I know consider paying full price to obtain a digital copy to be extremely close to ownership.
I liked Telltale’s Law and Order series. They can’t sell it anymore, but I can still download my digital copy because I bought it full price.
The whole argument in the article is about monthly subscription rentals.
When a contract ending almost caused Sony to remove all Discovery content from users last year, including digital copies of things people had paid full price for, the cracks between buying a digital license and actually owning something that can’t be taken away became more visible to a chunk of people. It’s something, but it’s not ownership, and it can be taken away based on agreements you may have no way of gaining insight into.
Audible is open about it. Well, if you dig through the fine print. Easy enough to rip copies but I’d say most people only realise they need to when they loose access. Maybe not, but $30 for an audiobook seems like pretty shity value if you’re only renting it untill you cancel your subscription.
E: I might be misinformed/ outdated.
You keep the audiobooks you’ve paid for directly with credits when you cancel.
Oh I’m very comfortable with it. In fact I haven’t owned a Ubisoft game in many, many years, and I wasn’t about to change that.
They should get comfortable with me downloading cracked versions of their games.
The developers that come out and tell people “pirate our game and if you like it consider buying when you can” will always get my money.
Developers who tell us we own nothing and should be pleased about it can get my steel and cannonballs, cause this ship is ready to set sail.
A-fucken-hoy matey! 🏴☠️ May the seas bless your sails today.
They actually used cracked versions of their games years ago. Rockstar were also caught red-handed using cracked EXEs.
Why not?
I don’t protest it, it’s just funny to see the companies act hypocritical.
Oh, fear not Ubisoft, I’m perfectly comfortable never owning any of your games again. Ever. Eat shit.
If your games are on steam, you’re already not owning them. The only difference seems to be that steam doesn’t demand a monthly subscription cost, yet
We already have game pass so it’s not like this is something completely new either.
If this makes money, other big publishers will join and in 10 years it’s the norm.
Personally, I’ll try my best to keep buying on GOG and itch.io where I get to actually own my games.
Agree, I own a lot of games in Steam but most come from bundles or were not bought a full price. I do buy full price games on GOG because I can have a backup offline.
The only difference is a huge difference though. Pay once for a game that you can access anytime versus paying continuously for the rest of your life to keep access to a game.
Some games are not worth keeping access to and subscription may end up being cheaper, but it is trading one benefit for another.
The only difference seems to be that steam doesn’t demand a monthly subscription cost, yet
Which Ubisoft isn’t doing either. This is just Ubisoft’s gamepass style subscription, which has been available for a few years now, it’s just getting a 2 tier pricing model.
I’m not enough of a Linux user to inconvenience myself so I’m just using Steam. The cloud sync is the killer feature for me - if GOG had something like it even if I have to pay extra, I’d so use it.
If your games are on steam, you’re already not owning them
Almost as if all the “evil” in the game’s industry Valve started.
We did it guys, we found the source of corporate greed!
G*mers will do anything to avoid saying anything bad about Lord Gaben
I’m comfortable with not “owning” the games I pirate.
Your move, Ubisoft.
We already don’t own our games, because we can’t sell them. We used to be able to sell and exchange games, but with digital platforms like steam, we don’t have the right to sell them anymore, meaning we only bought the right to play the game, not owning it.
You still can, that’s why - outside of a few exceptions - I only buy console games on disc, and sell them later
Not that there are many pro NFT folks here, but even with that approach it’s still just a transferrable license that they can change to be meaningless.
Can’t sell your organs either… Well, not easily.
Well I’m comfortable not buying any of theirs. They’re in my steam ignore list along with EA 🖕🖕
Ubisoft disable multiplayer in games like splinter cell and then have the nerve to charge you 20 ducats for a 10 year old game with only half the gameplay requiring a shitty launcher and with glaring bugs that they just didn’t bother to address.
As for the future. There is still emulation. So stock up 😉
If buying isn’t ownership then piracy isn’t theft.
Buying a CD/DVD was never ownership of the media that’s on it. It’s ownership of a piece of plastic and a license to play to the content on the plastic within certain limitations. If it was ownership, you would be allowed to project the DVD on a wall and charge patrons to view it, but legally you can’t, because you don’t own anything but the plastic. Buying a CD/DVD was always just a more convenient version of buying a ticket to a concert/theater to see the same thing. You’re paying for the experience of viewing their artwork.
So, as long as you also agree that sneaking into a concert/theater to view a show without paying also isn’t theft in any way, then I can’t argue.
Blah blah blah. Shove that copyright-maximalist take. You own things, god dammit. Even if you only own your copy of a book, it’s not somehow an ink-and-paper license to a copy, it is your copy. That’s what ownership means.
If you don’t know the difference between individual property and intellectual property, stop spitting at people who do.
Just want to highlight how unnecessarily antagonistic your response was. Not sure if that was your intention, but I don’t care to engage with it. Cheers.
The irony is immense.
If you think I’ve been antagonistic, please let me know how. I’m here to have a productive discussion, but so far I’m here by myself.
You could start by actually making an attempt at good faith discussion, instead of pedantic attempts to hide from the point.
But we both know you dont want to do that, because youre not actually here for productive discussion.
I respectfully disagreed with the top level post, and stated facts about why. If that was interpreted as not in good faith, I’m sorry, and I’m open to any counter arguments. So far, two people have pointed out that physical media can’t remotely have their licenses revoked, and I agree, that is relevant to the discussion. If you have anything relevant you’d like to contribute, I’m all ears.
antagonistic
You’re replying to everyone in this thread with half-assed insults and underhanded comments and then playing victim and complaining about how “nobody wants to discuss this in good faith”.
If you think I’ve been antagonistic, please let me know how.
I think you’re a passive aggressive blowhard. I don’t think you’re being antagonistic although I could picture you wanting to be if that makes sense.
although I could picture you wanting to be if that makes sense.
From my perspective, it sounds like you’re reading my posts with an unwarranted intention behind them. I have to assume this stems from you disagreeing with what I am saying, but to my knowledge, nothing I’ve said is incorrect. If you could point to something I’ve said that’s incorrect, I’d be glad to discuss it. Also, if you could refrain from the namecalling, that would also be appreciated.
Blunt rejection of scolding is not where the problem started.
I think his point in this case is you own the physical item but not the information on it. If not then I could buy some musician’s cd then I could say “Now I own their music” and start selling copies of their cd, publishing it, stealing their rights to it, etc. I think we can all agree that would be bad.
‘No, see, he meant exactly what you thought he meant.’
Again: I know the difference between individual property and intellectual property. I am condemning the corporate word-games that would deny one of those exists, and the the tutting of people who take that for granted. I don’t need a fucking primer.
Yes, you own the information on it. You don’t own the rights to distribute it to others, but you bought the information and the right to personally use it. When you buy a painting, do you only have a licence to view it?
When you buy a painting, do you only have a license to view it?
That’s a good question. My guess is that the rights to create prints of the painting usually remain with the artist. You own that painting, you probably even own the right to display it for an entry fee, but unless the artist has granted you a license to the artwork, I don’t think you can freely create copies.
Indeed, the right to make copies are often licenced (although you can also sell that right) because it is explicitly written in some conventions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention?useskin=vector) that the copyright resides with the creator to begin with. I don’t think the Berne Convention deals with the option of transferring intellectual property and the copyright to them, but I’m assuming it’s mostly defined well enough in some contract law or other.
I think we can all agree that would be bad.
You’d be surprised. There seem to be vanishingly few people here willing to honestly discuss the legal questions around piracy and copyright. The vast majority are just here to circle jerk about how much corporations suck, completely forgetting about the rights of artists they’re defending in the anti-AI circle jerk one thread over. I honestly think they spend more time flaming anything they disagree with than actually putting any thought into the matter. The dogmatism rivals that of conservative forums.
We found the record company shill.
I‘m all for sneaking into concerts and everything else since ticketmaster is trying to wring every penny out of customers.
All those leeches can die in a hole.
I‘m all for sneaking into concerts and everything else
Then as I said, I can’t argue.
But you should keep this in mind when you go to the next thread and join the anti-AI circle jerk, pretending to defend artists for upvotes.
The record company can’t disable my physical CD from working if they choose to. That’s 99% of the point.
That’s a fair distinction. Congrats, I’m finding there are very few people willing to engage in productive discussion on here.
You arent actually putting forward a productive premise, of course no one is treating it as such
If I’ve said something false, let me know. As far as I’m aware, what I’ve said is how the law works (at least in the US). I understand if you don’t like those laws, but that doesn’t make them not exist, nor does it make them irrelevant when someone makes a reductive statement like “if buying isn’t ownership, then piracy isn’t stealing”. The fact is, in some cases, it is.
Nice, more bad faith misinterpreting of the point
So how many plays do I get with the media license that comes with a CD?
Worried they’ll revoke my license on my blues traveler CD that’s been stuck in my car since '99.
Yep, this is a valid point. The volatility of access seems to be a convenient side effect of modern streaming technology. I agree that there needs to be regulation around this as it’s currently too easy for a company to suddenly say “we’re pulling access to the thing you paid for right now, sorrynotsorry”.
It’s not reasonable to expect that they have to have servers available serving the content 24/7 indefinitely, but either govts need to force companies to clearly label access to digital media as some sort of “rental agreement” similarly to how renting a video on youtube or amazon works, and making it clear that the user will only be able to access the stream for a minimum of some specified amount of time, and/or they should be required to offer a download of the media for a certain amount of time.
“volatility of access” implies a lack of intent.
This isn’t a side effect of streaming technology, they could let me download content on my NAS and burn my own discs but they don’t because their goal is profiteering and NOT serving the best content in an open technological environments.
“Corporate enshittification and commodity fraud” is a more apt term.
“Fraud” would imply a crime. I’m always happy when some european country has a law on the book that enables people to hold a company accountable for their shitty behavior, but in the US, we have some work to do there.
“Enshittification” is a…surface-level description of what is happening. I’m more interested in the “how we got here” and “what needs to happen to prevent it”. Because no company has “make the experience objectively shittier” on their list of new features. Blaming “enshittification” holds as much weight to me as blaming “the deep state”. It’s not a real thing, it’s just how you perceive the emergent result of a system with certain rules and incentives. The real question is, which rules and incentives should we prioritize, and how can those changes most effectively be implemented.
I’m not blaming “enshittification”. This IS enshittification.
I blame shareholders and greedy C level executives. You know, the ones who make these types of decisions to milk customers for the bottom line.
Just move on if you want to debate, these are facts and I don’t have time to defend reality from your contrarian garbage.
I think we agree and could learn from each other, but I agree, I don’t think that’s in the cards here. Have a good one.
Removed by mod
I want ubisoft to be comfortable with me not playing their games.
They already fucked me on this years ago. One day I logged into Uplay and Battlefield 3 and my 2 other games were just fucking gone. Haven’t touched them with a 10 foot pole since.
What Ubi wants means fuck all to me. Yall wanted us to buy NFT guns too, see how that worked out…
It’s rather amusing how everything people fear happening under communism comes to pass under capitalism in one way or another. Turns out that it is the capitalists who aim to strip individuals of their personal property by transforming everything into a rental service. You see, you no longer possess your media, books, computer, phone, or any other device; they’ve all been transformed into internet-connected subscriptions. The moment you cease paying or when the company decides to discontinue its services, you find yourself in quite an unfortunate predicament.
This is the direction the big companies are looking to move in. This is the direction Microsoft is banking on, too. Even if you like one service more, the end result may be the same. It’s a matter of time before we see subscription exclusives.
GamePass subscribers are the pre-orderers and mtx consumers of yesteryear, normalizing the industry to practices harmful to general consumers.
Piracy is a very noble endeavor to keep alive. Thank you Ubisoft for keeping us on our toes instead of being complacent with trusting digital platforms. Piracy is the true preservation and ownership.
