AnotherLurker
Member
- May 19, 2017
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I watched something recently that got into the "ethics" of pirating content. In the comments, someone pointed out that pirated content is often flagrantly better because it removes ads, de-splinters episodes that get scattered across different platforms, and otherwise un-pozzes what should just be a game, movie, or show by taking out as much corporate bullshit as possible.There should be some form of judgement for pirating certain games, I think with clear communication with the dev and an announcement for a free release piracy goes from helping to make the game available to everyone to people just wanting to fuck over a dev for no reason. Normally piracy comes from people making things available for free for those that cannot pay, but if it being free is just a matter of time piracy has lost that specific meaning and is just there to hurt the dev financially...
But a distinction has to be made, as you've pointed out.
When someone is actively trying to make as much money as possible off of their customers by denying them what they've paid for and stringing them along for as long as possible, we tend to call that a scam. People like that deserve to get fucked over; it's no more than they're doing to everyone else.
But someone who just wants to be paid for the work they've done? We've all been there, at one point or another. If we steal that person's time and effort from them, then we deserve it when our time and effort is stolen from us.
If it's fine when you do it to others, it's fine when others do it to you.