This is why I say, with not a single drop of irony, that piracy is a public service.
Piracy isn’t piracy when it’s no longer sold.
now that’s a real problem
deleted by creator
Copyright as it is today is one of humanity’s worst mistake.
You can actually blame Disney for much of this.
Well, humanity did make a HUGE amount of mistakes worse than current copyright, to be honest. That one’s an abomination, but we’re generally really good at ruining stuff.
This kind of thing (and e-waste in general) is why I think we need radical laws about unsupported hardware in general.
If an electronic device (phone, laptop, etc) stops receiving software support, the most recently available firmware should be made freely available under public domain.
Apple is obviously the worst offender, but it’s just horrible when you have really great hardware that’s 100% worthless just because the software is unsupported and proprietary.
The number of iPads, smart home products, and other devices that become e-waste every year is unsustainable. If companies were forced to release the code for free when they stopped supporting devices, maybe they would support them longer. Or at least bother innovating for a change.
Apple is obviously the worst offender, but it’s just horrible when you have really great hardware that’s 100% worthless just because the software is unsupported and proprietary.
How so? Because they produce hardware that one would actually like to use after firmware updates cease? They provide updates the longest and are evidently not worthless, as they have higher resale values than Android devices the same age.
None of that matters. Open hardware from 2003 still works because of course it still works. Apple is artificially bricking hardware for profit.
What is Apple bricking and in which way is it worse than any other android OEM that provides updates for shorter?
Apple stops updating devices and their phones are locked down and their macs are only really supported by proprietary software eventually losing functionality artificially.
Yes other companies are immoral and anti consumer. At least some Android devices let you install custom software making them easily outlive locked down ones.
Every intel Mac lets you install Linux too. M1 is well on its way.
As for phones: Apple provides updates longer than any android manufacturer. In android phones you too have non unlocked bootloaders as well as proprietary firmware blobs without which operating the phone is near impossible.
So I see no Dimension in which Apple is the worst.
You keep playing this comparison game…
The iPhone is full of anti consumer patterns, it simply is, and no external factors excuse this.
Of course I am comparing. Op stated Apple is the worst offender which only has meaning in comparison.
not necessarily manufacturers but the open source community can support 10 year old phones with new security updates like the LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 LTE. https://doc.e.foundation/devices
On IPhones there is not really such a community because apple aggressively screws people for profit and will stay to do so in the future because that works.
Other companies copied Apples design choices like unmovable batteries because that works. And some fans argue “but not replace batteries are more water proof” and such but the phones only got more fragile.And its not like they are the best in customer service, i mean they only offered repairs for design flaws when a lot of people sued them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=801s&pp=ygUUbG91aXMgcm9zc21hbm4gYXBwbGU%3D (25 minute video by Louis Rossmann about apples repeated design failures)
And for the M1, i looked into it, nice that they don’t lock the boot-loader without jailbreak. But they don’t help with the OS, that again is the open source community.
And you are right: Apple is not the worst, Nestlé is the worst but a completely different topic.
I know that the products of apple are very user friendly and everything can like work together. The software is brilliantly comfortable so that a users don’t want to use everything else, because how comfortable it is. For me it is a trap by a greedy mega cooperation.
This is only going to get worse with modern games. Always online to servers that won’t exist. Digital only copies you won’t be able to download.
Not only should the firmware be made available, I think if you are taking servers offline you should be required to release the source code.
I can still play my N64 and PS3 games with physical copies, but many on PS4 are basically unplayable without the day one patch at least
Ubisoft has made it clear, “Well, if you want to play Assasins Creed, or Farcry, we expect you to play the new ones”.
Well, in both cases, the new ones are ass and I want to play the old ones, that I paid for.
As others have said on here, once the product is no longer supported, I feel the rights to that software should pass to the community.
I write code for a living, and when I’m done, the client owns that software. I hand over all the source code as part of close out. If they want me to maintain it, fine. If the want to go with someone else, its theirs to do with as they please.
I love the sneaky Pac-Man graph.
Most classic everything is no longer available. This is a function of time and the general human desire to make new stuff. Otherwise antiques wouldn’t really be special.
If we want our stuff more permanent, this will be a change from the past that we need to specifically enact. Otherwise it’s just people being subtly out-of-touch with how time will eventually destroy not just them, but their works too. Only the influences it left behind echo into the future, for as long as our art does anyway.
If we want our stuff more permanent, this will be a change from the past that we need to specifically enact.
It’s being done for a lot of stuff, just not videogames.
From the linked article:
Libraries and archives can digitally preserve, but not digitally share video games, and can provide on-premises access only
Libraries and archives are allowed to digitally share other media types, such as books, film, and audio, and are not restricted to on-premises access
The Entertainment Software Association, the video game industry’s lobbying group, has consistently fought against expanding video game preservation within libraries and archives
The difference here is that the data exists still and can be played via emulators still. However, it violates copyright laws to do so. It has nothing to do with “time destroying all works” (at least not yet)
Good point. And with continuous maintenance to keep the ever growing number of emulators maintained with the ever-shifting operating systems, that will remain true. The moment our maintenance of any one thing stops…
This is a new trend thanks to so many products requiring web services to function. Back in the day the only thing that made products inaccessible was the fact they were not produced.
Nowadays a lot of stuff is just a useless brick purely because an unnecessary web endpoint has been shut down. Especially video games.
I would say it’s not new per se, just a new mechanism for an old phenomenon.
If that one problem were solved, it would improve the situation, but not perfectly remedy it. This just makes it more noticeable, it reeks pretty badly of planned obsolescence.
But it isn’t the inevitable ravages of time that take away digital media. It is easier to preserve than anything before, and there’s no lack of interest to do it. The real obstacle are laws that put corporate profits above public interest and demand that we expect an untenable amount of time such that old media just completely decays. Often old digital media only gets preserved in direct defiance to the law.
It really concerns me how this mindset has been spreading, where games and media get wiped away due to companies ceasing services with no interest in preservation, then people start to wax poetically about the inevitability as if this is Ozymandias’ statue from the poem. Not even Ozymandias himself is truly lost to time. No, a decade is nothing in terms of cultural loss, that’s not whats wiping out those works. What is responsible for it is a business strategy of disposability enabled by laws with no regards for our culture.
I genuinely think it’s inevitable, with our current technological, economic and legal frameworks. While that can change, I think the amount of effort it would require far outstrips the gain.
The entire issue bugs me a little bit, actually. It only gets so much attention because its games and the internet has a lot of gamers. There are far bigger challenges to tackle though.
There are volunteer emulator developers. There are people who downright reverse-engineer online games whose servers close down. If loss was inevitable, this couldn’t happen. The limitations can’t possibly be so great that this is easier than, you know, the company releasing server code and technical information as they phase out projects
The limitations are not technological in any sense, and they are only economic in so far as we are subjected to whatever the interests of wealthy executives and investors are as the main priority, because those pushing back against it manage to do a lot even having very little money compared to those businesses. The biggest obstacle is the law, and the law is not unchangeable. This is just a matter of the political tendencies of these years.
While I personally care particularly about games, this isn’t really just about games. As the copyright length increased, we got to a point there are old movies that also got lost because they studios behind them didn’t preserve them properly and nobody else was allowed to, so they rot away. This applies to all digital media. While I could see some limits like backing up the whole of YouTube, there is no reason why major movies or online games should just become lost by delisting.
And maybe even backing up the whole of YouTube could be possible if there was a major concerted effort among international governments to preserve all forms of digital media, rather than leaving it to the efforts of hobbyist archivers. But no, apparently all that international governments will come together to is to enforce copyright and punish piracy.
Of course there are volunteer devs. Do you think each project will always have some though? Particularly passion projects that have no profit? Just because things are a certain way now, does not mean they will be 10, 20, 40 years from now, when who knows what computing looks like.
This is the technological aspect, its swiftly changing nature making everything require maintenance. It’s a fundamental principle that seems like it will remain true for the foreseeable future. Perhaps I’ve gotten used to it simply due to the sheer quantity of projects I have seen fall by the wayside in the past decades, but it’s just a lot. The basic idea is this: At no point can you just stop and say “this thing will work for the next few decades”. Your software will go out of date, your hardware will break and replacement parts will go out of production. Etc etc. I feel like it’s just part of tech for now.
So sure, we’ve identified the problem and that’s great. But it has no good solutions. Which is why it bugs me as a debate. As I said earlier, the effort to fix this, the political will it would require, is just not worth the benefit of preserving art large-scale for the first time in human history. That’s just not good enough to fight for, in such a problematic world. Imo at least.
Btw, thanks for the engaging discussion. I’ve never debated this particular topic actually.
It’s true that not every game will keep being updated to play on the latest Windows and Android, and I agree that this would be an unrealistic expectation, But we do have a solution even for that. There are virtual machines and emulators and compatibility layers we can use to replicate these older software environments. I can play a 1990s DOS game or an Atari game just fine today, even if we don’t have River Patrol for Windows 11.
There is also a noteworthy distinction between keeping a game updated or available. Maybe we could get to a point when nobody cares about Ultima Online or Club Penguin, although it’s noteworthy that it didn’t happen yet. But we could go through decades of dust gathering only for someone to become interested in it again. Why shouldn’t we keep at least the codebase and assets and documentation available as they are for when that time comes? Then they could put the effort into porting it, or maybe just study it for learning and inspiration. And we have the means to do that today, it’s the matter of copyright infringement that gets in the way.
I’m glad you enjoyed the discussion. It’s a topic I care about a lot as you can tell.
Copyright laws desperately need to be updated to account for scenarios like these. Although, to many people piracy is undesirable, I take no issue with anyone using this method to acquire content that is otherwise unavailable.
Unfortunately I’m not expecting those laws to ever change for the better.
and they won’t as long as lobbying is legal and legislators are all in the pockets of big companies
Yep. A lot of streaming services recently have been taking shows and films off the service and burry them as a tax write off. In my world if they write it off they should have to put it in public domain. If they can still sue people who copy it then it obviously has value to the rights owner still.
100%
The regulatory and legal system is mostly reactionary. Eventually someone will be sued or sue one of the services about it and it will be settled and become precedent. Which way is hard to say, but I can definitely see your argument being persuasive.
The problem is essentially how do you define ownership? Is there a right to not make something the copyright holder owns publicly available?
I think in the cases of abandonware or more recently the moves by media companies to delist certain media for tax benefits, there’s a good argument to be made over forfeiting the copyright, so it’s now public domain and fair game. But I also think for something like the Star Wars Holiday Special, where the creator/copyright holder (not sure about that status post-Disney acquisition) genuinely hates it and does not want it available to the public, the owner should be allowed to restrict access to it.
But I also think for something like the Star Wars Holiday Special, where the creator/copyright holder (not sure about that status post-Disney acquisition) genuinely hates it and does not want it available to the public, the owner should be allowed to restrict access to it.
Personally I disagree on that too. If something has been made public once it should stay public, unless it contains actively harmful information or something.
How do you get tax benefits for that? Sounds pretty shady.
The only times I allow it myself are in this case (zero legal availability) and for unofficial/fan translations of games not available in your home region/language. Nobody would be getting your money anyway, no theft of compensation/profits there. If any games do become available, though, then we should support them. The more we put our money where our mouth is for a return to market for these games, the more incentive there is for companies to bring more of them back.
I’m also ok with pirating anything that now sells for more than original retail value due to scarcity. Looking at you, $1k SNES cartridges…
I personally put that in the “company can’t make profit from me purchasing it” category and consider that pirating or purchasing a used copy is ethically the same.
This is why emulation is important.
He who does not pirate software steals from himself
Though on the other hand, he who pirates software leaves door wide open for hackers posing as crackers.
At first when my antivirus software started getting hits in my cracked software folder, I thought it was just the companies working together to label pirated software as something scary. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the antivirus software might have just been doing what it was supposed to. Though a false positive is also possible since injecting a crack might use code that looks similar to malicious code injection, but then I wonder if all of these crackers are just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or if even just one of them can be malicious and I honestly see them going both ways.
The only games I buy these days are indie games and those by consistently based companies like fromsoft
Ah, classic Confucius.
Now do TV
Why was this cross-posted to bisexual?
that’s why the “ahoy mateys” system exists
The secret is crime
I wonder what proportion of the average user’s rom library is from the 87%
Probably around 87% of it
