“If purchasing isn't owning piracy isn't stealing”
re: digital goods shenanigans mostly centered around sony recently.
how do you feel about the titular quote?
it’s been quite a while since i pirated a game but i may or may not be able to say the same for movies and shows. lately ive been thinking about why this might be the case. for one, i am literally always at the movies watching and supporting the latest releases i care to check out (s/o I Love Boosters lol). furthermore, i haven’t ever considered myself a thief nor do i enjoy stealing but also -
merrriam-webster’s definition of “steal”:
> to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as a habitual or regular practice
by definition, if games/movies/shows etc are not a form of property that is owned then they can’t be stolen. there is no value lost. but, one could argue that games for example, are more so a service. well can you as a consumer actually “steal” that service? i would say no, maybe you can commit some form of copyright infringement but this leads me to the main reason i’m even making this post.
i recently came across an old article that quotes Gabe Newell (ceo of valve/steam) where he says:
> We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem…If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable
and that’s where it really clicked for me. i’m not buying games and possibly pirating movies and shows because i’m some thief who wants to see media companies specifically suffer. when it comes to moves and shows, it is a wholly inconvenient, expensive, unreliable and sometimes time-consuming affair these days to curate a legal media library. or to simply watch that one movie or show you have been wanting to check out.
like if you’re not hunting for the physical version of a particular movie or show which may not even be available, you’re probably juggling or
jumping between a number of different streaming service memberships, including that one you always forget to cancel each month. or maybe you’re one of those poor suckers who recently found out that that digital movie or show you purchased from sony is now going to be deleted from your library without recompense.
either way, what Gabe said years ago really underscores what i believe to be a fundamental issue with digital media in general but especially movies and shows. it is a service problem, maybe even a crisis of sorts that seemingly isn’t worth it for these media companies to address, that ultimately results in a shitty end user/consumer experience.
and now that sony just announced that they will be moving away from physical games altogether, it’s hard to imagine a future where game piracy doesn’t increase, maybe drastically so for console/exclusive titles because they will continue to pull games from storefronts, close down game servers, make them unplayable, and gouge gouge gouge for the slightest thing forcing a shitty end user/consumer experience that might have been previously avoidable via physical games