Current Events > Piracy is justified if it is for preservation

(+) Yeah! (+)

Or when I say piracy, I'm referring less to the downloaders and more to those uploading games that are inaccessible otherwise. Like that Goldeneye remaster that leaked a month ago. Totally justified imo.

Hollywood cranked out tens of thousands of films in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Most of these films do not exist anymore because they were owned by corporations who didn't give a fuck about the preservation of art. The film reels were not preserved properly, they degraded, and now we only have a fraction of films from that era still watchable. It's not a little percentage; there are more movies not available because no one took the time to preserve them.

The games industry is notorious for having these same issues. Games aren't documented, and if they are, that documentation is behind so much red tape, owned by people who don't give a fuck, that without someone like the person who leaked Goldeneye, we would never, ever see it.

If someone had saved some of those film reels, without permission from the studios, we would still have those films. And what proof do we have of this? Because it's happened. A film gets screened in a few theaters in the 1930s, then gets archived by the studios. But one of those theater operators keeps the reel, and then internet communities 70 years later find it and are able to preserve that film. All of this without permission of the rights holders, and would have not happened under them.

I mean, no joke, fans do a better job preserving game documentation via datamining, than the companies do themselves. There have been game companies, who go to fan made reverse engineered engines and games to get information on them, because the fan communities kept that info, and the publishers did not, and now they need the community's help. This happens.

And there are whole eras of gaming that people know next to nothing about, and the people who made them aren't around. For example, the thousands and thousands of games made for 1980s Japanese computers. These have to be archived by the communities who love them or they will go away forever.

So, yeah, without piracy, without breaking the rules, art and history will go away and be lost forever because it's owned by someone who doesn't care.

Piracy is justified if there is no legitimate means of obtaining the content outside of second-hand sales.

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Trumble posted...

Piracy is justified if there is no legitimate means of obtaining the content outside of second-hand sales.

I personally agree with this also. But people who make next to nothing but feel they have to be free internet attorneys representing these billion dollar companies, do not agree.

Trumble posted...

Piracy is justified if there is no legitimate means of obtaining the content outside of second-hand sales.

no it's not

if the owner of property chooses not to sell you that property, that doesn't mean you have the right to steal it
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Philoktetes posted...

no it's not

if the owner of property chooses not to sell you that property, that doesn't mean you have the right to steal it

Eh, idgaf about your laws, that's not what I'm referring to. All of this is illegal and shouldn't be.

If we were going by the letter of the law, the guys restoring the original version of Metropolis (1928), when they found the film reel, would have trashed it and not worked on the restoration, because they didn't have the film rights. But luckily, cause they aren't psychos, they didn't do that. They found that reel, treasured and babyd it, and then made an awesome restoration to one of the great films.

Topic title is 5 words too long.

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

Topic title is 5 words too long.

"is for preservation" wouldn't make sense as a topic title

Philoktetes posted...

no it's not

if the owner of property chooses not to sell you that property, that doesn't mean you have the right to steal it

Is duplication stealing though, you are talking about data that is infinitely reproduceable with no loss to any "owner" especially if it's owner has no interest in safeguarding it and is likely to lose or destroy it.

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Philoktetes posted...

no it's not

if the owner of property chooses not to sell you that property, that doesn't mean you have the right to steal it

ok boomer

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I agree, but 99%+ of day to day piracy committed isn't to preserve obscure hard to find games.
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Trumble posted...

Piracy is justified if there is no legitimate means of obtaining the content outside of second-hand sales.

crossed out the incorrect part. your statement is now correct. cheers. still illegal thought because a copy-right holder has any rights it wants, even if that means holding out on the consumers.

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Yeah piracy let me play awesome games that you can't play anymore like Terranigma and soon to be Persona 3. Even pirated games I physically and digitally own just in case >_>

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voldothegr8 posted...

I agree, but 99%+ of day to day piracy committed isn't to preserve obscure hard to find games.

Sure, but I have to tackle one issue at a time. This topic is about the instance where it is almost 100% justified.

I don't care too much about it in general, either, but people have more of an argument when the game is readily available.

I mean, I think it's safe to say that most pirated games probably aren't even played.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It would be, but I suspect the most pirated indie games are probably the indie games that are already making tons of money anyway. If I went to the single guy who's made Stardew Valley, and I tagged him on twitter and told him I pirated the game and enjoyed it, do you think he'd be upset with me for even one second?

JACKBUTTMOMMY posted...

Swim pirates but also owns up to it. It's not justified. Trying to justify it is weird. Own up to what you do.

If it's a game I had no reason to pirate other than at that moment I didn't have a few bucks, sure. It's theft. I don't do that, but there's been a handful of times I have in the past and I make no attempt to justify that. I make efforts to purchase games when available.

Now then again, there's something like the illegal Mario 64 PC port with incredible modding capabilities. Not saying I did or didn't do it, but if I wanted to play that superior in every way, community supported version of the game, I would have to illegally download it. But honestly I would lump that back into the "things that need to be preserved" category.

JimmyFraska posted...

Now then again, there's something like the illegal Mario 64 PC port with incredible modding capabilities. Not saying I did or didn't do it, but if I wanted to play that superior in every way, community supported version of the game, I would have to download it.

Still not justified, since then if you're getting mod work for free when Nintendo may some day want to do a remaster/remake update

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JimmyFraska posted...

If I went to the single guy who's made Stardew Valley, and I tagged him on twitter and told him I pirated the game and enjoyed it, do you think he'd be upset with me for even one second?

He'd probably be a bit annoyed that you took the time to shove it in his face. Let's be honest, that's kinda a dick move. But I doubt he'd care much about the financial side of things.

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nfearurspecimn posted...

Still not justified, since then if you're getting mod work for free when Nintendo may some day want to do a remaster/remake update

I'll reiterate, I'm not talking about the law.

There is nothing stopping Nintendo from making such a version. The company is worth 85 billion dollars. In fact, I guarantee there are developers within Nintendo who would love to work on such a remaster, but are not allowed to do so.

Why hasn't Nintendo done it? Money. They can still make money off doing almost nothing, which they are. It is at that point, when the third richest company in Japan could have done it but won't to make money, that I stop giving a fuck.

There is no need to "justify" piracy. Unless you're saying copyright law should be adjusted to allow archiving, in which case, if you're ever gonna touch DMCA you should throw the whole thing out.

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justified reasons to steal: you need to eat, your kids need to eat, your siblings need to eat.

and that's the complete list.

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JimmyFraska posted...

Why hasn't Nintendo done it? Money.

That's irrelevant. Welcome to capitalism, bay bee.

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Doe posted...

There is no need to "justify" piracy. Unless you're saying copyright law should be adjusted to allow archiving, in which case, if you're ever gonna touch DMCA you should throw the whole thing out.

Copyright became so fucked over the course of the 20th century that I would not mind a complete revision at all. It used to be in place to protect individual artists and designers for years or decades. Now, it only protects corporations, and it can be for 100 years or more sometimes. It has totally lost its original purpose in lieu of how these billion dollar corporations use it.

nfearurspecimn posted...

That's irrelevant. Welcome to capitalism, bay bee.

It's irrelevant to whether or not it's illegal, not whether or not I care.

It's not justified.

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nfearurspecimn posted...

It's not justified.

It is justified.

JimmyFraska posted...

It is justified.

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no. N. O.

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nfearurspecimn posted...

no. N. O.

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I Like Toast posted...

justified reasons to steal: you need to eat, your kids need to eat, your siblings need to eat.

and that's the complete list.

What if your kid is sick and needs medication you can't afford?

You're going to prison for 20 years, any last words?!
It was justified! A gamefaqs poster said so!

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nfearurspecimn posted...

You're going to prison for 20 years, any last words?!
It was justified! A gamefaqs poster said so!

bruh how many times do I have to emphasize in this topic that I'm not talking about your bullshit laws lmao

And besides, even those people who actually got charged millions of dollars for music piracy in the early 2000s, have never paid a dime to those companies. Because the courts know it's bullshit and they're not gonna throw people in jail for it.

famous last words before you get sent to the slammer

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nfearurspecimn posted...

famous last words before you get sent to the slammer

Only if you're the one who reports me

nah just kidding I wouldn't do that I'm no snitch

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nfearurspecimn posted...

nah just kidding I wouldn't do that I'm no snitch

famous last words

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lmao

Can we please stop calling piracy theft? It isn't, even legally speaking. Theft means parting someone with their property. If you pirate a game, the publisher still has it, therefor it's not theft. What the law actually says is that piracy is a form of copyright infringement.
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pokedude900 posted...

Can we please stop calling piracy theft? It isn't, even legally speaking. Theft means parting someone with their property. If you pirate a game, the publisher still has it, therefor it's not theft. What the law actually says is that piracy is a form of copyright infringement.

I am down with this. I am always telling people to not conflate emulation with piracy, so I can do the same thing with piracy.

imagine claiming insurance on a stolen car that's still there in your driveway.
"help my car got pirated"

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I used to pirate notes from the chalkboard back in school

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Zikten posted...

What if your kid is sick and needs medication you can't afford?

then you go into bankruptcy and thank mr obama and biden for protecting health insurance companies or be in a country where that isn't a problem to deal with at all.

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I Like Toast posted...

then you go into bankruptcy and thank mr obama and biden for protecting health insurance companies or be in a country where that isn't a problem to deal with at all.

Bro how do you talk shit on our healthcare system and then defend these billion dollar corporations

How the fuck did we get to healthcare? lol

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NeonOctopus posted...

How the fuck did we get to healthcare? lol

idk they started talking about bread and shit

I think most of us who played some of the late released roms on the SNES would agree that Piracy can be justified. Nintendo didn't release Terranigma in the States at all, with the only way to play it is obtaining a European copy, which requires a bunch of work arounds to play on an American console. Same with long lost games that there is no chance it will ever show up on any form of EShop, regardless of it being Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo or Sega.

JimmyFraska posted...

Bro how do you talk shit on our healthcare system and then defend these billion dollar corporations

haven't defended them once. Stealing something is not justified unless it's to sustain your life. I don't give a fuck if you choose to steal or not, just have the balls to admit what you do instead of trying to make yourself feel better about it.

It's not a complicated subject. Not to mention the notion that stealing only impacts billion dollar corporations is laughable. I guarantee if you shared all the software you stole it isn't exclusively 20+ year old software with no means to purchase from billion dollar corporations.


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Ivany2008 posted...

I think most of us who played some of the late released roms on the SNES would agree that Piracy can be justified. Nintendo didn't release Terranigma in the States at all, with the only way to play it is obtaining a European copy, which requires a bunch of work arounds to play on an American console. Same with long lost games that there is no chance it will ever show up on any form of EShop, regardless of it being Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo or Sega.

Lmao it's funny that literally all of us who got SNES roms got Terranigma.