Ultrakill dev says it's fine to pirate his game if you don't have money to spare: 'Culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it'

Consider the following:

One day we manage to reach the pinnacle of invention - we create the replicator from Star Trek. We can suddenly bring immense amounts of anything we want for everyone in the world, for very little energy (caveat: I don't know enough about Star Trek lore to know this to be true).

Now, this machine would certainly make a whole lot of business models redundant - farming, factory work, you name it - they would all no longer be able to make a living doing what they did before this invention existed.

Now for the moral question - should the fact that this invention will harm certain groups' way of life be considered enough of a motivation to prohibit the use of this invention? Despite the immense wealth we could bring upon the world?

Take a pause to form an opinion on the subject.

Now that you've formed an opinion on the replicator - consider that we already have replicators for all types of digital media. It can be infinitely replicated for trivial amounts of energy. Access to the library of all cataloged information in the world is merely a matter of bandwidth.

Now, should the fact that groups relying on copyright protection for their way of life be considered reason enough to prohibit the use of the information replicator?

To me, the answer is clear. The problem of artists, authors, actors, programmers and so on not being able to make money as easily without copyright protection does not warrant depriving the people of the world from access to the information replicator. What we should focus on is to find another model under which someone creating information can sustain themselves.

You can change the display of your username on the Web version of Lemmy and it accepts emojis.

it's about racial equality and lbtq rights, and alertness to discrimantion.

but some people don't like that so they made it a hate word against everything leftist.

what the fuck are you smoking if that term somehow translates to "piracy is cool"? it sure ain't weed. I guess you're just smoking a big ass blunt of right wing propaganda.

To preface this, I do agree it's not morally correct to pirate. At BEST it's morally neutral, and usually it's not even that. I don't know why people think they're entitled to another person's work without paying just because it's "art". They're not.

However...

I completely disagree that your analogy is spot on. If I have zero plans to ever buy a certain car, but then one day decide to just steal it to see if it's fun to drive, that car can no longer be sold to somebody else and the dealership or whatever just lost a lot of money.

On the other hand, if I have no plans to ever buy a game, but decide to pirate it to see if it's actually fun, the developers don't lose money from that. I never would have bought it in the first place, and they can still sell it to others because I didn't actually take it from them.

That's the difference. Now, if I had already planned on buying it but decided, "nah I'll just pirate it instead", then I would agree they're losing out on a potential sale. That's still different from losing a car though, because the dealership isn't only losing a potential sale, they're also losing an item in limited supply that takes physical time and labor to make (as opposed to just fabricating another Steam key).

Yep, stealing is stealing. This mob mentality exists on self-declared righteous people on Lemmy.

I can even totally understand 'I pirate because I don't have moneh, it's not the right thing to do but alas!'

At least the thief acknowledges, unlike these Lemmy people.

Reading comprehension is key. I wasn't advocating anything, I was simply pointing out that even the law disagrees with you. Pirating digital goods is not theft, it is copyright infringement.