this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Privacy

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[–] TCB13 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

So much for free markets, democracy and freedom of speech. Yes, they blocked it because of copyright infringement but let's face it, piracy should be viewed as a market option for people to get their content, providers need to step up their game and make their content easier to get to from official / payed sources instead of attacking piracy this way. If they can't do it, well, their loss, eventually someone who can will be on the market.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (3 children)

If piracy is a market option, that implies it's legal (or at least decriminalized), therefore copyright is not enforceable. There are all kinds of issues if that's the case, depending on how much of copyright we choose to not enforce.

If piracy is decriminalized, what's to stop someone from setting up a store and completely undermining digital distribution?

I think penalties for piracy are unreasonable, but I don't think piracy should be completely decriminalized. The penalty should be capped at a reasonable number (say, median retail price times number of distributed copies, capped at 50, reduced based on means; if multiple games, cap at 10 games worth). That shouldn't ruin most people, but it should deter enough to preserve demand for legal copies. Also, since penalties are reduced, it's probably not worth it for big publishers to go after pirates unless it's actually impacting their business.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I mean it’s pretty cool if you make something yourself

[–] TCB13 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If piracy is decriminalized, what’s to stop someone from setting up a store and completely undermining digital distribution?

Nothing, and that's kind of the point. However due to the fungible and reproduceable nature of digital media one of those stores won't last long because it will get quickly overrun by free alternatives. It would just apply pressure into "legal" platforms be behave better.

To be fair, I would even agree that piracy for personal usage / not for profit should be okay, while privacy for profit could be a crime. I think that's a more reasonable approach and mostly what happens today.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why would people buy from the legal platform if there's no consequences to using the free platform that's just as convenient? It's really not hard to make a platform that distributes a game, look at Heroic, which is completely volunteer run.

The reason people use services like Steam and GOG over piracy is because piracy requires more work due to legal restrictions. If you legalize it, game studios would respond by putting games entirely (or at least a substantial portion) server side, so there's no way to back up your media. That's absolutely not what I want.

I think it's important to keep piracy illegal, but drastically reduce the penalty so individuals don't get completely screwed if they get caught. That would increase pressure on companies to make their games more accessible and reduce the likelihood that a company would sue someone, but still gives an option if piracy gets out of control.

[–] TCB13 2 points 9 months ago

Why would people buy from the legal platform if there’s no consequences to using the free platform that’s just as convenient?

Because legal platforms backed by large media groups can create platforms more convenient than those pirated options.

The reason people use services like Steam and GOG over piracy is because piracy requires more work due to legal restrictions

Yes, this just shows that those services are crap, nothing else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Interesting approach. Thanks for elaborating. The current copyright rules might be legal but they are both wrong and broken. Companies should not have the right to hold or enforce copyright at all, only the people involved in a project, which means all of them. Then there should not be companies larger than 999 mil which takes a lot of this dystopian shit out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So much for free markets, democracy and freedom of speech.

I don't know whether Spain cares a lot about "free market" at the moment.

Even if I get your point and would even make a similiar point in a privat conversation, there is still a problem. The problem, if and how the Freedom of Speech implies that you can use a certain service you choice. If this implication were true, would it not mean that the provider of the named service has a duty to provide you a access, too?

Yes, they blocked it because of copyright infringement but let’s face it, piracy should be viewed as a market option for people to get their content,

There are messenger out there, which are more privacy as Telegram. Eg. Signal, Threemea, mostly services based on XMPP and Matrix.

[–] TCB13 1 points 9 months ago

The problem, if and how the Freedom of Speech implies that you can use a certain service you choice. If this implication were true, would it not mean that the provider of the named service has a duty to provide you a access, too?

Why would the provider be responsible for the fact that some government is a piece of shits and tries to restrict people's freedoms? A private messenger company will always be weaker than a government with infinite funding and resources.

There are messenger out there, which are more privacy as Telegram. Eg. Signal, Threemea, mostly services based on XMPP and Matrix.

I never said there weren't, I just said that govts shouldn't meddle in this things.