leftzero, 1 year ago (edited 10 months ago)

Is piracy not inclusive of subverting the means for a producer to profit off of a product when using that product?

Not really. Most people who “pirate” games or media wouldn’t have paid for them anyway.

As Gabe Newell said (and demonstrated with Steam), “piracy” is a service problem.

Give people an affordable and more convenient way of accessing said games or media (Steam, Spotify before it got enshittified, Netflix before it got enshittified and the market got fragmented beyond any reasonable usability), and we’ll happily stop “pirating”.

If anything, “piracy” . Neil Gaiman compared it to word of mouth, or sharing your copy of a book with a friend: people in markets his books had trouble reaching (again, a service problem) “pirated” his books, liked them, and shared them with others… increasing his sales in said markets (people liked his work enough to try to find the books and buy them, and many who would have never heard of him became paying fans).

“Piracy” is free marketing (of course, this doesn’t work if your product isn’t worth its price, but bad products not earning money is a good way to improve overall quality), not theft. And without all the inconveniences of paid marketing. And often it’s a symptom that the way you’re selling your content is too inconvenient or overpriced for at least a fraction of your potential consumers, and thus needs to be fixed or improved (either voluntarily or through regulation).