I’ve never liked how this argument fights on semantic vocabulary, rather than healthy consumer relationships.
What it seems to say is just: “Digital media companies are evil, take copies of everything without paying for it”. Another much better take, but not as easily implied, is: “When we pay for a digital piece of media, there should be a requirement that for the user’s lifetime, that product continues to be available in some form through the provider’s best reasonable efforts.”
Even the “piracy isn’t theft” part ignores the logical outcomes in favor of dictionary definition of “theft”. If an indie dev goes into debt making his one big game, and then 80,000 people pirate it and no one buys it, did the pirates “lose him money” or “commit theft”? Semantically, logically, no. But spiritually, by common understanding? Absolutely. Such a stupid wording fight.
I’ve never liked how this argument fights on semantic vocabulary, rather than healthy consumer relationships.
What it seems to say is just: “Digital media companies are evil, take copies of everything without paying for it”. Another much better take, but not as easily implied, is: “When we pay for a digital piece of media, there should be a requirement that for the user’s lifetime, that product continues to be available in some form through the provider’s best reasonable efforts.”
Even the “piracy isn’t theft” part ignores the logical outcomes in favor of dictionary definition of “theft”. If an indie dev goes into debt making his one big game, and then 80,000 people pirate it and no one buys it, did the pirates “lose him money” or “commit theft”? Semantically, logically, no. But spiritually, by common understanding? Absolutely. Such a stupid wording fight.