Current Events > Tell us why you think you deserve Nintendo products for free

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fenderbender321 posted...

I don't see why video games, movies, books, etc that were created decades ago need to continue to have some sort of ownership so that a company or a person can keep making a profit off of it. Make them public domain.

The answer is because Disney.

It was originally something like 20-30 years. After Disney totally bankrolled congress it became 70 years after the death of the creator and now since corporations are people and copyright ownership can be traded like a commodity it's effectively forever.

I think going back to the 30 year maximum time limit is good enough. Being able to profit off of shit you did for 30 years is already extremely generous.
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fenderbender321 posted...

I don't see why video games, movies, books, etc that were created decades ago need to continue to have some sort of ownership so that a company or a person can keep making a profit off of it. Make them public domain.

Because it's literally theirs in the first place.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

I mean if I stole a dollar out of your wallet the amount of harm I'm causing is borderline inconsequential but I suspect you'd be angry about it regardless. Ultimately, that's your dollar and I'm not justified to take it without your permission even if you won't even notice it's missing.

I didn't say it was just, just that it doesn't harm anyone. But that's partially because I don't think your analogy is sound, due to the fact that I don't think intellectual property is itself justified, even if it is the law.
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That's not to say that I'm rejecting the harm that may come from lost potential sales, but a loss of potential revenue hurts them as much as you not giving me a dollar hurts me.
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Balrog0 posted...

That's not to say that I'm rejecting the harm that may come from lost potential sales, but a loss of potential revenue hurts them as much as you not giving me a dollar hurts me.

It's not like I'm just not gifting you a dollar, it's more like you're not being paid for the work I said I'd pay you to do.

Like, if I said "I'll pay you a dollar to take out my trash." and then you do it and you come back for a dollar and I just give you the middle finger and some sanctimonious rant about how the trash shouldn't have been there in the first place.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

It's not like I'm just not gifting you a dollar, it's more like you're not being paid for the work I said I'd pay you to do.

Like, if I said "I'll pay you a dollar to take out my trash." and then you do it and you come back for a dollar and I just give you the middle finger and some sanctimonious rant about how the trash shouldn't have been there in the first place.

I think you're the one being sanctimonious in this conversation, though. I'm being pretty open about the fact that I pirate because I can and because it doesn't hurt any one. Not because I think it's my right or because I think its just. There's just no pain being caused and it makes me happy, how is that explanation sanctimonious?

Your analogy just doesn't make sense to me, I know what you're going for but I don't think it is sound, just like I said about your previous one.

Like, okay, here's another example of my pirating and I want you to help me understand what you think about it so that I can understand where you're coming from:

when I was in grad school, I wanted to do a research paper using a particular index of sprawl. But the index was behind a paywall in a journal that I did not have access to and could not afford access to. So instead I just emailed the author of the article directly and asked if he could share his publication with me. Technically I believe he isn't supposed to do that because he doesn't really own the rights to his article (the way the people who actually developed Itchy & Scratchy in Miniature Golf Madness probably don't own the rights to that) but he did do that for me

Is there any difference here to you between that and pirating a video game?
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Balrog0 posted...

Is there any difference here to you between that and pirating a video game?

The short answer is yes as Educational purposes have special exemptions regarding fair use. Legally speaking anyway.

Morally that is a different story as academia, journals, and textbooks are mired in controversy, shoddy ethics, and elitism. Nintendo isn't really the same thing as academic journals. They don't make their publications exclusive. Their games are available for anyone to purchase. Their products are all luxury items. There is no shortage of competition.

I mean if you're going to use the "I'm not harming Nintendo because it's just $20" then the reverse, taking $20 from Cliffy B. as his company was tanking hardcore after the Lawbreakers flop follows is significant harm. In that sense, taking $20 from people who are already unethically inflating prices and blocking otherwise unlimited information behind a veil of academic elitism is also not comparable.

Likewise, pirating Seiken Densetsu 3 has a different connotation from pirating "Picle Ricc" the latter of which is a shoddy asset flip that barely works as a game and is primarily designed to fuck with some Steam algorithms to generate market items and scam the market out of some money and was banned from Steam shortly after its release.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

Morally that is a different story as academia, journals, and textbooks are mired in controversy, shoddy ethics, and elitism. Nintendo isn't really the same thing as academic journals. They don't make their publications exclusive. Their games are available for anyone to purchase. Their products are all luxury items. There is no shortage of competition.

I mean, I think all of that applies to IP in general. Not specifically video games though to be fair

Tyranthraxus posted...

I mean if you're going to use the "I'm not harming Nintendo because it's just $20" then the reverse, taking $20 from Cliffy B. as his company was tanking hardcore after the Lawbreakers flop follows is significant harm. In that sense, taking $20 from people who are already unethically inflating prices and blocking otherwise unlimited information behind a veil of academic elitism is also not comparable.

That's not my contention, my contention is that a loss of a potential sale isn't the same thing as material theft, which to me seems obvious both from legal and moral standpoints (even if you think it's immoral, very few people conflate piracy and theft)

I agree that either way the potential harm you inflict is contingent on things like that. But I don't agree with that the situation in bold is so different from general IP regulations the way that you do.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Likewise, pirating Seiken Densetsu 3 has a different connotation from pirating "Picle Ricc" the latter of which is a shoddy asset flip that barely works as a game and is primarily designed to fuck with some Steam algorithms to generate market items and scam the market out of some money and was banned from Steam shortly after its release.

I agree with that, too.
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