Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”

Gaywallet (they/it)@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 350 points –
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there's no reason to believe what you claimed. a claim made without justification can be dismissed without justification.

They made a justification. They showed you how people couldn't make these things without people paying for them.

They showed you how people couldn’t make these things without people paying for them.

but that's not true. people make things all the time without being paid.

people make things all the time without being paid.

Less people make things without being paid than those who make things to get paid. That is a common fact we can both agree on. If you need the number of open source games compared to the number of paid games then I recommend you grab those numbers yourself.

"snake game" returns over one hundred twenty thousand results on github.

You are equating someone's terrible hobby project to paid games like it's 1 to 1. You are simply arguing in bad faith. Have a good day though, hopefully, one day we can converse properly.

you're moving the goalposts.

Not at all. I just assumed you understood the basics of quality.

you never mentioned 'quality' until you wanted to disqualify data that didn't support your position.

Yes, because there is a basic assumption. Those projects aren't consumer-facing games. Those are hobbies. You know it and you are simply arguing in bad faith. I know actual game developers who released their games for free or under a pay-what-you-want model. They refuse to do so again because they can't support themselves by doing it. I am a game developer and I won't release my games for free because I need to support myself. There is all the data you need. Find me other data saying otherwise.

You know it and you are simply arguing in bad faith

this is rich coming from someone who is moving the goal posts.

I know actual game developers who released their games for free or under a pay-what-you-want model. They refuse to do so again because they can’t support themselves by doing it. I am a game developer and I won’t release my games for free because I need to support myself. There is all the data you need.

the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"

It's more relevant data than you are providing.

your insistence on relevance is giving the lie to your denial about moving the goalposts.

this doesn't prove anyone ever needs to be paid to make something. a single counter example disproves the claim.

github shows a hundred thousand repositories for the query "hangman". assuming 10% of them are false positives it's still a great number.

there are over one hundred fifty thousand results on github for "tictactoe".

just how many paid games do you think there are, by the way?

What unjustified claim did I make that you disagree with? Seems all rather uncontroversial to me.

The moral thing to do is to pay your share of that if you make a copy, even if the copy itself doesn’t cost anything.

i don't need to disagree to disbelieve. i do disagree, but without establishing your justification for this claim, it's kind of hard to argue against it.

The justification was that creating things has a cost, even if a copy doesn't, and that we should distribute that cost as fairly as possible among the people benefiting from the creation.

that's doesn't follow

Idk what to tell you but: Yes it does. We can't really argue if you refuse to elaborate your point.

when you drive over a bridge, do you tip the engineering form? the contractors? they're the ones who created this experience for you.

Yes, you do, in the form of buying gas or paying taxes. You don't even have to use the bridge to have to pay for it.

so use isn't tied to paying. one has nothing to do with the other.

It depends on the system. In taxes, yes. Use isn't tied to paying. In consumer goods and services, they are not paid by taxes. So they do have a direct use/buy causation.

no, they don't: people make things without being paid all the time.

I pay taxes, those were used to pay the people who build the bridge. And yes, taxes should be fair. If it's a private bridge then the owners have every right to demand a fee for crossing it.

not the owners: the designers. what if I copy the bridge and put it in my front yard: do you think I owe royalties to the engineering firm?

Yes, of course. They created the design, it cost them time and money, you want to use it, so you should pay part of those costs. Or to put it differently: You both use the design, why should they be the ones to pay for its creation, and not you?

they still have the design. I haven't taken something from them. I don't owe them anything.

Who says you can only owe something if you take something away first?

Think about how rent works. The building or appartement will still be there, loose value over time and need repairs whether you live there or not, yet you still owe the owner rent if you do.

your might owe under almost any circumstance, but almost all of them have to drop with a mutually agreed contract or transfer of property. what circumstance do you think created the debt here? and what if someone walks across my front yard bridge? do they owe the engineers too? it's just silly.

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