• evranch@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    I would agree in the case of reselling pirated content, as a core piracy principle is that data itself has no value and can be given away for free. Once you start selling it, you’re just a thief.

    But he was part of a modchip team selling physical hardware. They manufactured a real product that was not itself pirated, and users had the choice to use the devices for homebrew or even to not install them at all.

    This case is literally like blaming a gun manufacturer for murder.

    • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      data itself has no value

      Programming: the art of creating worthless things and still getting paid for it.

      • evranch@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Well, no cost to replicate, anyways. I’m a strong believer that if you get value from something you should pay for it, but in my youth I did pirate a lot of games and media because I didn’t have the disposable income for it. No sales were lost.

        I still do pirate games I own. My daughter pretty much has exclusive use of my Switch now so I play my Switch games on PC. Honestly I will buy games and then never play the official copy, and download the ROMs to run at 1440/120FPS on PC.

        Ironic that Xecuter got busted for Switch modchips when emulators now do a better job than the Switch itself.

        • Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I also only pirate games I own, though for slightly different reasons. I don’t think you should pay for everything you get value from (I don’t [directly] pay people back for gifts, for example,) but I do think it’s theft to pirate a game you never bought. Plus, buying games is how you support the developers.

      • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Kind of makes sense if you view the program as a service. Many programs could be interpreted as contained, executable, repeatable services. Either way they’re so abstract compared to lots of other goods and services that they’re gonna be their own niche kind of commodity anyway.

    • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      This is nothing like a company selling a weapon specifically designed to kill people being used for the thing it’s designed to do…