Sorry Ubisoft, I’m not buying some of your almost decade-old game that still has Denuvo.
If you don’t put your old games that made the bulk of their money a long time ago on GOG, I won’t buy it.
Companies spend far more on anti piracy for single-player games than they would make if all those stolen copies were legit sales. It’s a power thing
Oh there’s a whole Wikipedia page on the subject
ubisoft should get used to players no longer owning their games
Oops, replied to the wrong comment chain here. Continue your wrath, it is righteous.
I mean, I agree, but what does that have to do with the relationship between buying + owning and piracy + stealing? Ubisoft being shitty is a great reason to pirate, but it does not change the definition of piracy.
Try to pirate the Crew. Or Steep. You can’t, since they rely on a central server.
I actually tried steep a while ago (maybe 6 months?) and refunded it because I couldn’t play offline. I was looking to scratch that SSX Tricky itch and it definitely did not do it for me. Ended up just emulating Tricky, but damn I want a remake or sequel.
Sovcit gamer edition
Pirating is copyright infringement. Best option is to play different games
Yeah but… No.
I fully agree with the general message, but this particular anecdote doesn’t really make sense to me and can easily be waved off by anyone who disagrees with it.
If buying isn’t owning, that means it’s renting or borrowing.
If you pirate it, they get no money and therefore cannot rent it out to you. You cannot just steal a movie from the movie rental store or a car from a car rental place. That’s stealing.
Sure, it’s infinitely reproducible but that’s not what this meme says. That’s an unrelated argument for piracy. It draws a direct connection between the 2 relationships of buying + owning and pirating + stealing. However, one has nothing to do with the other.
When someone owns something, they are allowed to rent it out and take it back at any time. It’s always been that way and that’s valid.
The real argument should be “if there was no intention to buy in the first place, then piracy isn’t stealing” or something like that.
Let me rephrase. I agree that piracy isn’t stealing, but the fact that buying isn’t owning does NOT prove that at all, nor does it have anything to do with it. It’s a reason people pirate, sure, but it in no way proves that piracy isn’t stealing. The phrase is an if;then statement. If one thing is true, it MEANS the other is true, which just isn’t the case. Both can be true sure, but proving the first half does not prove the second half. Making one true does not instantly make the other true.
This will not make anyone at ubisoft mad. In fact, they will be glad that such a poorly crafted argument is being used against them, since it’s 0 effort to disprove and dismiss it. We should raise other arguments that are logically sound if we want to convince anyone - friends, family, lawmakers - of anything.
Am I completely missing the point or is this analogy completely nonsensical?
On a side note, I condone piracy and nobody should ever give money to large media corporations. But if we use stupid arguments like this it makes us easier to dismiss.
Edit: I’m looking for discussion here. If you’re going to downvote me, at least tell me why you think my argument is wrong. I’m here to learn.
It’s about them missrepresenting the transaction. If you go to the store and rent a movie then it’s an agreement that it’s temporary. If you buy it then they can’t take it back, what they are doing is fraud and complaining that we don’t want to deal with them.
I agree with everything you said, however that has nothing to do with piracy. It’s a shitty thing they’re doing that we should be mad at, but it in no way sets the definition of piracy, which is what they’re going to try to defend against in any argument.
What we should demand is that they properly define buying, owning, and renting so that we own our products. Piracy is piracy no matter what the definition of owning is. Only the reasons change. One reason is that they treat buying as renting, but it does not change the definition of piracy, no matter what we think the definition is.
I agree with you here, piracy isn’t theft for reasons unrelated to buying and owning. The reason lies with the infinite reproducibility of the product. While I may agree with the sentiment behind the post, it’s not technically a sound argument.
That phrase means “if you will make an enemy out of me and won’t let me buy the kind of ownership I want, I’ll take it and ignore paying you”.
But notice that the full explanation is longer? That phrase captures perfectly well the antagonizing perspective, and nobody goes around making sure they pay fairly the people that treat them as enemies. It also fails to capture any other bit of the logic, but it’s ok, the logic is simple and automatic once the antagonism is explicitated.
I can see that, that’s a good point. However, it’s so easy to misconstrue that phrase into an objective statement of “the relationship between buying and owning directly creates the relationship between piracy and stealing” and the average person, lawmaker, etc can easily get confused when the “ones who own all the content” try to disprove that statement even though it’s not the statement we’re trying to make.
What is literally said in the meme is incorrect, even if it means something completely different. We need to say what we mean, not make a catchy analogy that’s technically incorrect and easily used against us.
Yeah, I can agree with that. And somebody will eventually find some way to use that mismatch against people.
But the correct language doesn’t have an impact, and we don’t decide what gets popular anyway. I don’t like that phrase either (I think it’s too conservative), but it’s here to stay.
From all of these replies, I’m getting the feeling that people generally don’t understand that the phrase is objectively incorrect, whether or not they agree with its sentiment (which they all do, at least around here). So I am questioning the overall effectiveness of sharing it. But like you said, I think it’s here to stay specifically because everyone seems to agree with the sentiment behind it so much, without considering it objectively.
We’re getting to a bigger picture here which I can’t even speculate on, but at least I learned something about this particular narrative. I just hope this meme doesn’t do too much harm when people get into debates with others that disagree.
Also, by the way, technically you can quote any predicate as a consequence of a false one.
I don’t know if the people that made this phrase knew that, but it’s technically correct :)
basically if you get to be a scumbag so do I
2 wrongs don’t make a right, this phrase just points out how piracy is a service issue
I agree that it’s a good reason to pirate, but the meme/phrase is ostensibly trying to use the definition of owning to change the definition of stealing.
It doesn’t prove anything, it just gives a good reason why people are pirating, when it looks like it’s trying to prove some logical relationship of the concepts.
if my property can be taken without fair compensation so can theirs.
pretty cut and dry logical relationship.
I think we’re talking about two different things here.
I agree that they have shitty predatory business practices. However, you did not sign an EULA saying that you could take their property. So even if they do take the things you bought from them away, you would be out of luck. The thing that needs to change is not allowing that to be classified as “buying”.
What I’m talking about is “if buying isn’t owning” having anything to do with “then piracy isn’t stealing”. Buying not being owning is a great reason to pirate. Still doesn’t make piracy any more legal.
I mean, digital piracy isn’t stealing regardless of the premise that buying ≠ owning.
Stealing is taking another’s property without the intent to return it. Making a digital copy is not taking any property, it’s creating a reproduction of it. The only place left to argue that piracy is stealing would be to say that you’re stealing the company’s theoretical revenue… but that revenue was never tangible property, being that it’s your money up until the moment you give it to them. Piracy is, and only is, copyright infringement.
I see where you’re coming from now and totally agree.
Whenever a concept is distilled to a catch phrase it always loses something.
Yeah that’s true. I have no creative bone in my body so I can’t even offer an alternative to the catch phrase I am calling out, unfortunately haha
I find interesting that I remember buying a game in Brazil in 1995 (the 11th hour, sequel to The 7th Guest) and in the receipt it was written “license to use”. So, even back then we were already told that it was a permission, not ownership.
Exactly. This has always been a problem to some extent, but back then no company ever revoked that license or even cared what people did with it unless they sold pirated copies. So it wasn’t a problem for us either.
my opinion: it’s not stealing in the Classic sense because if you copy something you don’t take it away from its owner. it might be against the law because intellectual property is a concept.
Right, I agree with that, but “because if you copy something, you don’t take it away from its owner” is a valid reason, and completely unrelated to the fact that buying isn’t owning. Even if buying WAS owning in all situations, your comment would still be true. That’s my point, the analogy in the meme is useless, and arguments like yours should be the main talking point.
