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Opinion: if something is delisted from digital stores, then it should be legally allowed to be pirated (feddit.it)

submitted 5 days ago by Moonrise2473@feddit.it to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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While in the past doing a reprint of a book, movie or game was expensive and wasn't worth if something wasn't popular, now selling something on a digital store has only a small initial cost (writing descriptions and graphics) and after that there's nothing more. So why publishers are giving up on free money?

I thought to those delisting reasons:

Artificial scarcity. The publisher wants to artificially drive more sales by saying that's a limited time sale. For example that collection that included sm64. super Mario Galaxy and super Mario sunshine on switch. The greedy publisher essentially said "you only have 6 months to get this game, act now" and people immediately acted like "wow, better pay $60 for this collection of 3 old games, otherwise they'll be gone forever!” otherwise they would have been like "uhm, i liked super Mario sunshine but $60 for a 20 years old game? I'll think about that"
Rights issues. For books the translation rights are often granted for a limited time; same for music in games; or if it's using a certain third party intellectual property. Publisher might decide that the cost for renewing the license is too high compared to projected sales, while the copyright owner instead still wants an unrealistic amount of money in a lump sum instead of just royalties. Example is Capcom DuckTales remastered, delisted because Disney is Disney.
Not worth their time. Those sales need to be reported to governments to pay taxes and for a few sales, small publishers might prefer to close business rather to pay all the accounting overhead. Who's going to buy Microsoft Encarta 99?
Controversial content: there are many instances of something that was funny decades ago but now is unacceptable. Publisher doesn't want to be associated with that anymore
Compatibility issues. That game relied on a specific Windows XP quirk, assumed to always run as admin, writing their saves on system32, and doesn't work on anything newer. The code has been lost and they fired all the devs two weeks after the launch, so they're unable to patch it.

In all those cases (maybe except 5), the publisher and the copyright owners decided together to give up their product, so it should be legally allowed to pirate those products.

If I want to read a book that has been pulled from digital stores and is out of print, the only way to do is:

Piracy (publisher gets $0 from me)
Library (publisher gets $0 from me)
Buying it from an ebay scalper that has a "near mint" edition for $100 (publisher gets $0 from me)

And say that I really want to play super Mario sunshine. Now the only way is to buy it used, even if they ported it to their latest game console and it would literally cost them nothing to continue selling it. But if I buy it used, Nintendo gets the exact same amount of money that they would if I downloaded it with an "illegal" torrent.

In short: they don't want the money for their IP? Then people that want to enjoy that IP should be legally allowed to get it for free

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[-] jet@hackertalks.com 88 points 5 days ago

How about:

If a item isn't available for sale, the copyright is abandoned and now public domain.

[-] thisisbutaname@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 5 days ago

The items would just be kept on sale at hugely inflated prices

[-] Petter1@lemm.ee 16 points 5 days ago

Would still be better than today in my opinion

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 11 points 5 days ago

I'm sure we could legislate in such a way that says if it's purposely priced artificially high to prevent sales, then the same IP abandonment applies.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 7 points 5 days ago

No you couldn't, unless you enact government controlled prices for all media.

Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 7 points 5 days ago

we do this for standards and patents: for a patent to form part of a standard, it must be granted on fair and reasonable, non-discriminatory grounds

it’s different in that the party is entering into that agreement voluntarily, however we use language like “fair and reasonable” already

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 6 points 5 days ago

And you can, in fact, regulate market prices.

But that doesn't make it feasible or convenient. Is a 250 USD collector's edition from Limited Run on a game that originally cost 15 bucks "fair and reasonable"? I mean, they sell. People buy them. People buy them even when the cheaper option is still available.

Digital goods have wildly diverging prices. Laws take intent into account all the time, but how do you take intent into account on something that is agreed upon via supply and demand if your goal is to guarantee supply?

People are being too simplistic here and assuming that things are either copyrighted or on the public domain, which is already not how this works. You don't need to set a killswitch for public domain transition based on whether something is being monetized, just a fair scenario for unmonetized redistribution. If you make it so people sharing and privately copying things at their own cost is fine but selling is reserved for the copyright holder it doesn't matter how the holder prices things. Plus that's in practice already how we all operate anyway.

[-] FrederikNJS@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

It seems to me that any legislation could easily carve out an exemption for any special editions, only applying to the "regular" version.

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[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago

Is a 250 USD collector's edition from Limited Run on a game that originally cost 15 bucks "fair and reasonable"? I mean, they sell. People buy them. People buy them even when the cheaper option is still available.

well that’s an easy one - you can have whatever price you like for a collectors edition, as long as some edition of the game continues to be offered at or around the original price (or perhaps average unit sale price) that the game was sold at

again, we sometimes do this for housing in australia in some areas - you can build a luxury apartment block as long as you have a certain amount of affordable housing mixed with it

People are being too simplistic here and assuming that things are either copyrighted or on the public domain

i think perhaps you’re misreading what people are saying. copyright is an important tool to ensure people get paid for their creative works, and that investment gets put into such projects however the point of copyright is not to make people money - money is itself a tool to maximise the goods and services available. the point is to maximise the availability of goods and services.

i think it’s pretty easy to have a law that days if the work is not available for consumption, it loses at least some of the protections of the copyright system to ensure others can make it available for consumption in some way

based on whether something is being monetized, just a fair scenario for unmonetized redistribution. If you make it so people sharing and privately copying things at their own cost is fine but selling is reserved for the copyright holder it doesn't matter how the holder prices things

i think now we’re kind of agreeing - im not sure that anyone is arguing that monetisation itself is the trigger - the availability of the product to the average (or perhaps original target) group on fair terms is the trigger

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 4 days ago

It is, very much, not "an easy one". You're describing a regulated market, which is what I said above. Housing is regulated aggressively almost everywhere, and the scheme you describe would require a centralized control over how much people are allowed to raise prices to match inflation for games.

And, as mentioned many times already, it doesn't work with microtransactions or free to play games and it incentivizes setting a very high launch price to work around the limitation of using launch pricing as a benchmark for a product's entire lifetime.

Also, no, I don't think I'm misunderstanding what people are saying. It's definitely not easy to tie "availability" to copyright protection. Which is why in the real world the way copyrights sometimes get extinguished has more to do with enforcement than availability. People ARE arguing that something being up for sale should be the trigger instead, but this is very hard to manage, very hard to trigger and doesn't come even close to fitting all the ways things are marketed.

I think this is a very, very hard problem to fix, but if you made me try, I'd argue that a deep reform should enable copyright exceptions regardless of whether something is up for sale. I don't even know why people here are so fixated with that element. The exclusive right should not be about copying a thing, it should be about selling or profiting from a thing. Not copyright, but sale right.

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 3 days ago

require a centralized control over how much people are allowed to raise prices to match inflation for games.

and? governments already track inflation. in australia, our minimum wage and unemployment benefit amount and a lot of other things are legally defined relative to CPI (the “cost of a basket of groceries”)… rental increases are capped at “reasonable” amounts given the increase of other properties in the area… these are not only doable, but already being done in different contexts

And, as mentioned many times already, it doesn't work with microtransactions or free to play games

that’s true, but this is why we say “reasonably available” as the core metric rather than specifics: we define what IS reasonable, and then let the courts decide outside of that list

incentivizes setting a very high launch price to work around the limitation of using launch pricing as a benchmark for a product's entire lifetime.

which is why i didn’t say launch price - i suggested something along the lines of an average… the cost of the game should be something like the median price that people paid. what most people are willing to pay is “reasonable”

People ARE arguing that something being up for sale should be the trigger instead

think you’re misunderstand - it’s not “for sale”, it’s “reasonably available” to an average targeted person

I think this is a very, very hard problem to fix, but if you made me try, I'd argue that a deep reform should enable copyright exceptions regardless of whether something is up for sale. I don't even know why people here are so fixated with that element. The exclusive right should not be about copying a thing, it should be about selling or profiting from a thing. Not copyright, but sale right.

sale is irrelevant to the issue though - the issue that we’re trying to solve is general availability to the majority of people the product was designed for. if you are the copyright holder, and you make your work available for consumption then nobody should be allowed to distribute your work without permission (for some reasonable time)… if you decide to stop distributing a work, there’s no public good that comes from that, and thus it should have no copyright protections because copyright protection is meant to increase the volume of creative works

[-] MudMan@fedia.io -1 points 3 days ago

Sale is the only issue because you're talking about an exclusive right to profit for something. You can already copy a thing at any point for free. That technology is trivial, we just don't allow it as a general rule. You're fantasizing about creating an exception based on a thing not being widely available to purchase. If the thing is free, then there is no exception because... well, the thing is free. It's a valid distinction in that yeah, it'd allow people to retain some control over free licenses, but it still wouldn't fix what happens to things that haven't been commercialized yet or that aren't commercialized constantly.

TV shows that were aired once and aren't available for purchase, private art that is not made freely available, one-off concerts or events, tools created for private use... there are so many things that would be severed from protections if that was the line.

And just to frame what you're arguing regarding price control: the outlandish scenario people are trying to prevent with the price control here is one where, to prevent losing copyright under the weird "access" rule, someone keeps a game up for sale somewhwere at an inflated price because they don't want to sell it otherwise. That is not why meida goes out of print or gets delisted, for one thing, and price control wouldn't impact it much, for another. I mean, Starfox 64 was 80 USD in 1997, so you could sell it for like 200 bucks now, which doesn't seem like it fixes the entirely imaginary problem that idea was trying to solve.

Meanwhile, what happens to all the games that depend on a server or that lose compatibility with modern platforms? Are you mandating people to sell iOS games that no longer work on modern phones? Movies in discontinued formats? Is Disney obligated to keep selling the VHS version of The Little Mermaid or to publish a new version of that cut? What about Star Wars, where the movie is actually different? What happens in scenarios like Apple removing the old 1080p cut of Alien and replacing it with a 4K that has different color grading that annoys purists? Are those the same thing or different? Can you take GTA San Andreas down if you sell the remaster?

This is not "easy", and it doesn't work the way people here seem to think it works. You're just working backwards from a specific example that annoys you and not considering the wider context.

[-] illi@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'm not aware of an instance when media like movies or games would grow in price in time (except for on second hand market due to scarcity). So could be worded so the price might not be higher than on the time of the release or something

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 5 days ago

If this thread is proving something is that policymaking is very difficult.

That doesn't work either, things don't have a single price point in modern media, and it'd be easy to just do what some games are already doing where you give people early access for extra money and save yourself from being price locked later.

Plus, how do you price out subscriptions and free to play games with MTX? Not every individual piece of media has a price, but a lot of dead media comes from broadcast, subscriptions and other nonstandard arrangements.

You guys are too fixated in the scenario where publishers hike prices to retain copyright without actually distributing the content. It's not as big of a loophole as you think and the idea of tying copyright to a thing being actively sold has bigger problems than that.

[-] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 2 points 5 days ago

No, as we already have a market price for new games. We also have differing prices for differing versions already.

If you're selling an older less popular or less critically acclaimed game for higher than what newer games with reasonable sales are selling at, then you're clearly manipulating the market.

We don't have to micromanage the market. We can set in place mechanisms to make sure it's efficient and is a true market.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 4 points 5 days ago

Do we? Could have fooled me. The games I played this week ranged from free to 90 bucks, including 5, 15, 20 and 39. And I used the 250 limited edition example because I had the Virtua Fighter collector's edition they announced on the TGAs in a cart before I thought better of it.

So I have no idea what the "market price for new games" is supposed to be.

[-] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Apparently whatever the person you replied to feels it is supposed to be. Something something common sense.

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[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 18 points 5 days ago

I like the alternative better of "support or opensource it" as it can be expanded to nearly any product. You stop selling your game and thus don't provide support to those that bought it? Better opensource that shit bud. You made some dropship product that sold 100k units but stop supporting it a year later because $reasons? Tough shit, opensource it bucko!

Things like Amazon's Astro business robots being bricked after a year would be much less interesting to companies. There are probably also a whole lot of devices out there that aren't supported anymore and just junk, but could be serviced if they were opensource.

Anti Commercial-AI license

[-] tuhriel@infosec.pub 8 points 5 days ago

I really like the idea, Im currently struggling with the implementation. There are so many issues to cover:

who enforces the law? It needs to be worldwide (at least for some products)
how are mergers handled?
what to do if the company goes bancrupt or is closed otherwises? Who will outsource the code where? And who will be accountable
does that also count for private people? (e.g.: if I take a picture, I own the copyright for it, do I lose my copyright if I don't sell the picture? Or does it only count if I sold it once? What if I sold it exclusively to someone?)
probably more

There are so many loopholes which corps will use to get out of it :-(

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

yeah the concept is great, but open sourcing often takes a lot of work. closed source code often relies on proprietary libraries etc and you can’t just publish them, or perhaps there are secrets embedded somewhere - even it source control history

the concept is great, the implementation faces some pretty big logical challenges

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[-] MudMan@fedia.io 4 points 5 days ago

I don't think you need to put something in the public domain immediately. And obviously that would immediately destroy any protections for physical media (in that the moment a physical book is published and sold through it immediately becomes "not available for sale").

But you can make exceptions for free distribution that work both online and physically. Libraries existed long before the Internet did. You can enable private distribution of free copies without fully removing the right of the copyright holder to own an exclusive right to sell an item, which is fundamentally different than something being in the public domain.

I'm fine with you being able to sell a copy of the Iliad but not one of Metal Gear Solid 4. That's not to say putting a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4 up for download should be illegal.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

that the moment a physical book is published and sold through it immediately becomes "not available for sale"

Because that specific book now has a new owner who can keep it or sell it as they see fit. Like people still do with physical games.

If you mean that a book becomes generally unavailable when it's between printings, though, you're wrong.

Publishers overlap print runs and begin selling the first paperbacks before they've sold out the initial hard cover prints PRECISELY to avoid the situation you seem to think happens with every single book.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago

You're missing the point, though. The concern copyright has isn't the physical book. If we were operating on physical books we would be fine with 20th century copyright.

The concern is the difference between the physical book and the contents of the book. You can make a book and send it off into the world as a physical object and have no new copies being printed while that book remains physically stocked in stores where you can go buy it.

What happens to that book in the interim? Is it okay to republish the contents of the book?

And yeah, sure, media that is constantly selling often has multiple prints. This scenario still happens when they stop making new prints, though, since some stock won't have sold through. And plenty of media is made on limited runs, too. Monthly magazines, collector's editions....

Hell, what happens to movies once they are out of cinemas and not printed in physical media or available for streaming in your scenario? Do you give up copyright if there isn't an overlap? That seems harsh. TV shows that are broadcast once live but not available on streaming or physical media until the season is over?

Also, somebody below raises a great point: what happens to the copyright of things not commercialized by companies? If you make a picture and don't sell it, does that mean I can use it? Sell it myself? Because people around here seem... not okay with that one.

[-] Abrinoxus@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago

Careful what you wish for- with cheaper storagesolutions and advance in ai someday it might come true. How about a limit ln copyright for say at most 20 years like for medicine ip? It is sick medias copyrights can be held in practical perpetuity.

[-] Commiunism@beehaw.org 42 points 5 days ago

A few weeks ago there was this article posted here about why some game companies are trying so hard to kill their old video games and give 0 shits about preservation (as in delisting them from stores, not selling them anymore, etc.).

One of the answers given by the publishers in the article basically boils down to "old, preserved games would compete with the newer ones and eat into their sales", which does say quite a lot - they don't care about losing sales of older video games, all that matters is the sales of the newer ones, preservation be damned.

[-] Shirasho@lemmings.world 20 points 5 days ago

Alongside this comment was an equally damning comment: "if your past games are competing with your new games then your new games aren't worth buying in the first place."

[-] veniasilente@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago

It also somewhat says they know the new games are nowhere near as good as the good ol' ones, which is one of the big reasons to pirate older stuff.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 33 points 5 days ago

Additional opinion: piracy is always morally good if the reason for your piracy is inability to buy something. That includes when the item is delisted, as in the OP, but also when you can't afford it.

[I agree with the OP by the way. Specificities should be ironed out, but in spirit it would be a good law.]

[-] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If it's not for sale any more it I don't even consider it piracy. It's abandonware and thus free for all.

[-] Vespair@lemm.ee 19 points 4 days ago

Let's be real, this should extend even beyond piracy.

History is full of examples of companies buying patents for good innovations and intentionally burying them because they compete with or are too similar to the company's offerings.

Think about that - literal pieces of human innovation, steps in the ever-evolving game of technological development.... just buried for no reason other than because some company thought they'd make more money without it and had the capital to force the situation.

It's gross.

We as a people should absolutely reject the idea that which has been brought into our world through the creativity of humanity should be able to erased by the greed of monsters.

Free knowledge, free humanity.

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

Think about that - literal pieces of human innovation, steps in the ever-evolving game of technological development… just buried for no reason other than because some company thought they’d make more money without it and had the capital to force the situation

in defense, if the patent was better, it would've been used, otherwise it's going to be about the same as the existing patent.

Really the only crime here is removing innovation from the open market. And bringing it into the closed market, Which is, less than ideal.

[-] Melody@lemmy.one 16 points 4 days ago

If I can't buy it, and own it, for a reasonable price - Piracy is acceptable. Copyright holders are required to sell/license their product in an accessible and reasonable manner in order to assert their copyright over consumers.

If I can't legally obtain a copy for a period of time longer than a year - Piracy is acceptable. Withholding copyrighted products to make them artificially scarce or to manipulate sales of other products is the same as the previous scenario; it is a failing to sell your product in an accessible manner.

If the only manner of sale is 'a streaming license of the content' - Piracy is acceptable. If I cannot go to any retailer and buy a physical copy legitimately, expect users to ignore unreasonable terms of sale to access their content in a format of their choosing. This physically sold copy may be reasonably more expensive than the digital license edition; but not over significantly in excess of the cost of box/media/cover art. Make a profit; not a mint.

If the only version of physical media is over-encumbered with Rights Management or other digital restrictions - Piracy is acceptable. Sold physical copies must be playable on any compatible device as determined by the media format with minimal exceptions. We shouldn't need to connect our BluRay players to the internet every month to pull fresh certs down and lose the ability to play new BluRays when the player runs out of cert storage or becomes unsupported.

[-] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago

I have a better idea. Define piracy as profiting off of the creative work of another without compensation. Piracy for personal use is theft only in the amount it was offered for sale. For torrenting it could be argued you have stolen 1 copy plus your seed ratio. However, lots of content isn’t even available for legal purchase, only subscription for viewing. Owning a copy of this content is not piracy because it did not interfere with the sale of the item (since it’s not offered for sale). Therefore, an act of media preservation is theft by this definition, but the amount or value of that theft is $0, because it’s not currently offered for sale.

[-] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

Piracy for personal use is theft only in the amount it was offered for sale.

copying is not and cannot be theft

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

personally i like to think of piracy as dissemination of illegal copies for personal gain.

[-] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 days ago

Remember that in the US (whose laws have been extended by trade agreement through most of the world), intellectual property laws are To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 (or the Copyright Clause of the Constitution of the United States

(Europe has older stuff based on guild secrets and has had literal wars waged over things like cloth buttons vs. brass buttons)

Since we have a long list of instances now in which Science and useful Arts have been inhibited or simply robbed from their developers (case in point Charles Goodyear) within the current system, we might get better art and science without any IP law at all rather than trying to reform the system we have, which is used entirely to control and inhibit progress.

And the efforts by software publishers to inhibit the archival of old games, and the effort of book publishers to eliminate libraries are only the latest examples of how IP is only an instrument of oppression in the 21st century, and has been pretty much since Disney.

When you pirate, you're not stealing from the developers or authors or creators. You're stealing from the shareholders, and they are already fat and marbled.

So fuck intellectual property rights.

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 9 points 5 days ago

So how is stopkillinggames.com doing?

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 6 points 5 days ago

We still need massive support for the EU initiative.

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 3 points 4 days ago

Yes we do

[-] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

My Hypothetical Policy would be:

If a thing doesn't show up in a store for a time totaling 5 years, it should be able to be freely copied without repercussion.

So if you publish a thing, you need to keep selling it. Once you pause the sales, timer starts to tick, until you resume sales (in good faith, no intentionally limiting quantities of items), whenever you pause sales again, timer begins to tick again, once the 5 year timer is up, no more protections.

And theres also the normal copyright expiration to factor in as well. (Which I think should be somewhere around 10-20 years after initial publication, no extensions)

I think this is quite a fair policy.

Edit: Also, they can't set the price to more than 150% of the average pricing of the item. (Almost forgot this loophole of intentionally "selling" the item at high prices but not actually wanting to continue selling)

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 4 points 5 days ago

Lots of impractical wishful thinking in this one. Laws don't work very well when you have to add "but you need to be nice about it".

This is a very hard problem to solve for that reason, but in fairness, it's not like the current implementation tries very hard or is working very well. It's just that finding a working solution would be hard even if that wasn't the case.

[-] SeekPie@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago

I don't think that a random person on Lemmy is going to be able to write a law that has zero issues. They're just suggesting an example and government should build on that and make it complete.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 5 days ago

Yeah, of course. Writing laws is hard.

Which is my point.

This one is way harder than average, if anything.

[-] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 12 points 5 days ago

They should be legally allowed to be pirated anyways

[-] tissek@sopuli.xyz 9 points 5 days ago

Yet another opinion. Everything published goes into public domain, copyright only gives commercial (and public?) distribution rights

[-] 8000gnat@reddthat.com 3 points 4 days ago

legally allowed

pirated

😑

[-] imogen_underscore@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

"intellectual property" and copyright would just be totally abolished in an ideal world

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago

It's hard to get this right, but I do think the system needs fundamental reform.

I think the principle that only the copyright holder is able to profit from the media for a period of time is pretty sound, although there are also questions about creatives having no say in the copyright of the things they create if they are working for a corporation, which I also think need adjustment.

The real issue is what happens to other types of distribution. In practice, private non-profit use of media is already commonplace and bans aren't particularly enforceable. And then there is the derivative use, that is inconsistently supported and held to weird, arbitrary standards created ad-hoc for a handful of big platforms.

By the letter of the law, Google is by far the biggest pirate on the planet, it's just so big that unwritten rules have been created about it and now effectively the global copyright law has more to do with Google's detection algorithms than any kind of enforcement. We clearly need a better alternative.

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