Piracy is piracy.
But the only one that owns Minecraft is Microsoft, since they bought it for over 2 billion dollars. Everyone else just bought a license to use it.
Comment on To buy no longer means anything :(
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 8 months ago
if buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing
there, upvotes to the left pls
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 8 months ago
astronaut_sloth@mander.xyz 8 months ago
You’re getting downvoted, but you’re right. And that is the reason that using proprietary software and SaaS is a problem. If I’m only buying the right to use a copy of something as a company sees fit, then I’m not really buying anything. I’m essentially paying a company a tribute to use their software in their way.
Decades ago, it was the same way, but it felt different. We got physical media, and we could do what we wished with the files: modify them, delete them, etc. Hell, the EULAs for some '90s and early '00s software even said you could use the software in perpetuity, and we could use software in anyway we saw fit. The biggest constraint was on selling copies. Back then, and even now, that seems pretty reasonable. (Though, as an aside, it would have been better to also get access to the source code, but I digress.)
Now, we have to use company’s software exactly how they want us to use it. Personally, I refuse to go along with this (as much as I can), so I have migrated most of my digital life to FLOSS.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Then the button shouldn’t say “buy now” but “license now”
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 8 months ago
Joke’s on them, my instance doesn’t allow downvotes, so my comment is happily at +9 from where I’m standing ;)
Ain’t got no time to worry about popular opinions.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Yes, BUT…
There is buying a licence to use.
And there is buying a copy you can use.This is very much different. Maybe buying a copy of music with a tag attached saying you cannot distribute it further is ok, but saying they can take this copy you bought at any time and make terms how you can use it is another level.
tabular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Some video games are open source; you can modify and redistribute it or even sell it. We need more of those and less fat cats playing a trading card game of copyrights while they erode ownership rights.
admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 8 months ago
I’m sure there are exceptions if you’ll look hard enough. However, even in the case of most open source software, you’ll never become the owner of the intellectual property, you’re just free to use, modify and share it.
tabular@lemmy.world 8 months ago
We don’t own the patients to our hardware but we still say we own an item becauee we are in control of it. Users don’t need the copyright of software they use to control it - to modify and share software is to own it.
(The only thing they may lack is the option to relicense the software if it’s copyleft, but I’d argue that ensures software freedom for 3rd parties).
IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Meanwhile everyone screaming AI is stealing from them.
rutellthesinful@kbin.social 8 months ago
in this case, microsoft just decided that they didn't have to bother supporting legacy accounts because they didn't feel like it, so they pulled them without consent or compensation
in the case of ai generated media, companies just decided that they just had the rights to use existing published media, so they harvested it without consent or compensation
both complaints are the same complaints: that businesses are just deciding on contracts unilaterally and then imposing them on people without the need for consent
aev@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
Microsoft has a history of doing so, both with Minecraft customers and others. They just don’t care.
FaceDeer@kbin.social 8 months ago
in the case of ai generated media, companies just decided that they just had the rights to use existing published media, so they harvested it without consent or compensation
Have you read the ToS of your favourite social media site lately?
In any event, it might well be that companies (and you yourself) have the rights to use existing published media to train AIs. Copyright doesn't cover the analysis of public data. I suspect that people wouldn't like it if copyright got extended to let IP owners prohibit you from learning from their stuff.
rutellthesinful@kbin.social 8 months ago
You mean before or after all the sites updated their ToS it so that they were legally in the clear to sell user posts to AI training companies? Implying that they weren't before?
And in either case, you're missing the key point, which is that legality doesn't matter in either case. You can't fight a megacorporation just doing whatever they please unless you happen to have an army of lawyers lying around. Most consumers don't.
I suspect that people wouldn't like it if copyright got extended to let IP owners prohibit you from learning from their stuff.
Learning from things is a very obviously a completely different process to feeding data into a server farm.
Quite why proponents of AI-generated media still think this argument holds any water after 2 minutes of thought, let alone after almost a full year to consider it, is beyond me.
Beardedsausag3@kbin.social 8 months ago
I've paid my upvote tax
Clbull@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The only times I’d excuse piracy are if the original product is outright unavailable in your region, or if digital rights management leads to a vastly inferior or unusable product for paying users (i.e. strict installation limits, always-online DRM in a single player game.)
I don’t condone pirating Minecraft, regardless of Microsoft’s anti-consumer bullshit.
insomniac_lemon@kbin.social 8 months ago
As a fun aside, unauthorized sharing is the only reason I tried and bought the game back in early beta days before there was a demo (friend A owned, friend B didn't, I tried it from friend B's unauthorized copy and got the copy too, later gave friend A $20 and info to activate my account because I didn't have internet at home).
Colonel_Panic_@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Same. I played MC in early Alpha when you could play free in a web browser. And then I used a cracked game for another year or so. Once I had adult money I bought it. I’ve since bought it probably 6+ times over between Java, Bedrock, consoles, mobile and accounts for my kids.
I probably would never have bought it otherwise, or at least not for a long time.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Pirated Minecraft was a staple of my childhood. Basically everyone I know had it pirated too. I thought that, when I am an adult with my own money and my own debit card, I would buy the game since I liked it so much. Well, I guess that isn’t happening.