Can proprietary software be justified?
Yeah.
For example, does Microsoft deserve my money for how much of a dumping they’ve taken onto Windows since Windows 8? No, they don’t.
Because if I did give Microsoft my money, I’m REWARDING them for their half-assery.
What’s the justification for not allowing me to make a copy? Those who decry piracy call it theft, but it’s not theft since they aren’t losing anything. Not a physical product they could run out of, nor a potential sale as has been shown time and time again; people who pirate a thing generally wouldn’t have purchased the thing anyway.
This is the only correct answer.
It IS justified lol.
why is anyone still trying to justify piracy? that’s step 2 of a conversation that even non-criminals are on step 9 in
Believe it or not, I’ve met people like this. I know a guy who was worried about showing a movie to our Meetup group.
Not because he was afraid of getting caught. He thought it might be unethical.
it’s crazy how worried normal everyday people are worried about accidentally hurting the feelings of corporations. especially post-covid.
Hey wow! A headline that isn"t answered with “no”.
in journalism they teach you to only do headlines with a question if the answer is no, otherwise just make it say “piracy is justified”.
obviously this guy is a musician and not a journalist, and as such, actually thinking about things he makes….
(i like his other videos too)That’s what I was referring to. Thank you for elucidating it, though, for others that may not have known.
Yes
Yes. Next stupid question.
yes but why is probably the bulk of it…
Everyone has already given their response so there’s nothing really to add other than, well, there’s lots of reasons to justify piracy. Most of them are even provided by the publishers / distributors themselves!
Also it’s weird to browse the top 10 responses or even below, and NOT see this xkcd posted or even linked. What is going on, Lemmy?
I am not stealing. It’s there, I take it and it’s still there. Don’t know why these posts keep popping up in piracy communities. Same plague was there on reddit too. Like seriously it’s 2025.
Its almost like you think pirating something has no effect on anything.
Usability and user experience. I’ve been on irc, newsgroups, dc++, etc etc. hell i traded d2 items for game keys on d2jsp.
Why? Convenient as fuck. From my perspective, fuck anyone who is gonna tell me how to consume media. Give me a better experience than i can give myself or fuck off. I’ll give my money happily (i have subscriptions) if it’s a good service. If it’s the only service, meh AND if it sucks ass well, fuck off again.
I bought a quite expensive piece of animation software (that cost over $1000) to use professionally. The specific term it was sold to me under was a “perpetual license.” I took this to mean “never ending”, which is the dictionary definition of the word “perpetual.” You can probably guess where this is going.
A few years later, in the middle of a professional project, it stopped working. I contacted support, and was told that they changed the way they were doing licenses so I’d have to buy a new one (at almost double the price) or eat shit. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
So yeah, if you’re thinking of buying a Toon Boom Harmony perpetual license, maybe save yourself a lot of money and hassle and just pirate it instead. Or tell them to get fucked and use their direct competitor. I have done both.
Can purchasing anything within the system of monstrous exploitation called global capitalism be justified?
This is as flippant and useless as somebody saying “well just don’t participate in capitalism“ as if that’s a reasonable thing to suggest
No, but saying to participate and that purchasing software is inherently moral is also fallacious.
Developers, musicians, creatives, actors etc all need to be paid to live in society. However, the current system rewards the lucky few and large corporations as well as the non creative side of media and software creation.
there’s nothing stopping you from donating money to artists you torrent.
I think that’s a bad argument but frankly it slots in with yours
No, but that’s the case with or without piracy. Artists and devs shouldn’t rely on goodwill. That’s just expanding the tips system which is already awful.
Sounds like a lot of really convenient excuses for you to never have to open your wallet and get free shit all while doing nothing to end these systems.
Must be pretty convenient so easily justifying giving artists money as immoral.
Why don’t you just say you like not paying for things and you feel entitled to them? Skip all the extra steps
No, I’m not saying artist money is any more immoral than any other purchase. I’m also saying artists should not depend on donations only. I also did not say I exclusively pirate. Don’t put words in my mouth.
I’m saying the current system is broken. Replacing it with tips is not the solution. Transport and creative industries will see huge lay offs in the coming years. We need to decide as a society what we value. Is it creating art and pleasure or lines going up on company spreadsheets. Free spread of ideas and art is an ideology. The only reason not to allow it is to profit. Those profits don’t go to most artists.
You’re still not saying how you plan on paying for anything or otherwise supporting artists. Or what you’re doing to end these systems. What are you doing other than making up excuses for your entitlement?
No unless you lack self respect
Corporate is your enemy and paying them money is funding your own oppression
It’s always moral to steal from billionaires
Most Billionaires don’t write much code.
I agree, but software piracy isn’t stealing from anyone.
Stealing definitively requires depriving someone of their own stuff. Piracy is more akin to a massive crowdsourced library. We’re all just helping to share the burden of hosting costs.
I want the stuff, the stuff is there. I take it. The stuff is still there, nothing was lost, nothing was stolen.
You’re not stealing stuff, you’re stealing revenue. The missing revenue is what they care about. But they have plenty of that already, so they can get bent
Not really, it’s just free publicity.
Unless their product is shit, of course, and no one would pay for it after trying or recommend it to others… in which case, fuck them, they deserve it for attempting to sell shit.
Stealing revenue it’s hypothetical, because it supposes that you were going to pay for the product if it wasn’t available pirated. And that is far from being certain.
That is very true, but that doesn’t stop them from going after piracy to protect the revenue
Me at the grocery store
Except the second half
Same. And for some reason I can’t seem to lose weight.
