Piracy is Good: The Moral Imperative of Sharing Knowledge

harry_h0udini911@lemmy.fmhy.ml to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 240 points – Piracy is Good:The Moral Imperative of Sharing Knowledge
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Piracy, in today’s context of unauthorized sharing of digital content, is wrongly condemned as immoral theft. However, it is not piracy itself that is immoral. Rather, it is the greed-driven laws and practices that censor knowledge and creative works to maximize profits. At its core, piracy is about sharing information and creative works with others, which should be seen as a moral good. 🤑

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Yes, they can work for free on Lemmy because they have other jobs that are paying them actual money.

And those jobs can pay them actual money because their software is protected by laws that make pirating illegal and unethical.

In your mind FOSS developers had a net income of $0?

For one laws don't decide what is ethical or not. But for two you can still make money working on FOSS. There are donations and companies like Valve for instance pay for the development of proton and DXVK. Etc.

Yes, and Valve can pay for the development of FOSS software because their main products are protected from piracy by laws.

You see, the money always comes from products people buy... Not from products people share for free.

And people can still pay for the product if they want to. I pirate every game and then buy it if it's good. You can have free software and still make money these things are not mutually exclusive. You don't need piracy laws for money to change hands.

Just because you do it that way doesn't mean that other people would. I'm 100% sure that most pirates don't go back and purchase what they pirated if they liked it.

Which is why pirating is illegal... Because you can't rely on the good will of people. Imagine if you opened a restaurant and you charged only if people agreed to pay. You'd go bankrupt in a month.

That's not comparable. Restaurants have to supply physical goods. It costs money to transport and once it is consumed it is lost. Software is not bound by any of that. You can make unlimited copies without lifting a finger and use it indefinitely. If I could open a restaurant and feed people by simplying copy-pasting the food yes I would do that. World hunger would be solved.

Bro WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

Do you think software doesn't need specialized engineers to maintain the quality and fix issues constantly? Do you think the cloud infrastructure that your pirated software is accessing doesn't cost any money?

I'll just stop this here, I'm sorry, I just feel like you're a teenager who doesn't know how things actually work. I'm tired of explaining.

Have a good day sir.

I have probably been programming since before you were born but I'm glad I still give off youthful energy. This may surprise you but there was a time where software was released as a finished product and didn't require any cloud infrastructure. I also feel like you've never actually used cracked software because the cracks are usually there to block the online portion like with Adobe products or video games.

First, times change old man. Software now requires maintenance and requirements change.

Second, I was talking about your ideal scenario in which software can be given away without cracking it or without piracy being illegal. In that scenario, software would use the cloud services because, why not? They are already giving away all the effort of the programmers.

Third, holy shit, I can't believe a programmer is PRO software piracy. Do you even understand how your industry works? Do you realize software needs to be sold to generate a revenue? This ain't charity.

@platypus_plumba @ayaya FOSS is free ... But people create services around it to get revenue. But, the software is free.

Tthose big companies are making money using free software without giving anything back ... And that's disgusting. Check the latest Redhat move ...

Redhat not giving back?

Do you think Redhat hasn't contributed to Linux?

I swear, I'm about to punch a wall reading these replies. Holy shit.

First I was too young now I'm too old. I guess I can never be whatever enlightened age you are that knows how everything works.

You can't believe a programmer is pro piracy? Who do you think runs the sites or rips the content? The Easter Bunny? Piracy is run by technical people.

I have watched the industry change over the years which is precisely why I am against it. And in the described scenario people would be incentivized to not use cloud services for the precise reason that they do cost money. Which would be ideal.

@platypus_plumba @ayaya that actually exist
Just some examples ... There are some offering breakfast and you pay what you want.

https://www.roadaffair.com/pay-what-you-want-restaurants/

Hundlebundle.com does the same

Did you read the descriptions? They are either located in very rich countries or are charities.

If they are located in rich countries, guess how people got the money to be able to pay... They got the money because they got payed for their work. Their work wasn't stolen.

And the charities, looks like an amazing initiative, but definetely not lucrative. So expansion and growth would be extremely hard. Also, they seem to rely on limited resources like supermarket leftover food.