I’ve just watched the video. I find it pretty outrageous. The word about it should spread.
if buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing
there, upvotes to the left pls
Piracy is piracy.
But the only one that owns Minecraft is Microsoft, since they bought it for over 2 billion dollars. Everyone else just bought a license to use it. Just like in all the other cases of buying music, video, or software. Unless lots of lawyers were involved, you only bought permission to use it, in a certain way at that. Pretending otherwise or not knowing in the first place has never been a legal excuse.
You’re getting downvoted, but you’re right. And that is the reason that using proprietary software and SaaS is a problem. If I’m only buying the right to use a copy of something as a company sees fit, then I’m not really buying anything. I’m essentially paying a company a tribute to use their software in their way.
Decades ago, it was the same way, but it felt different. We got physical media, and we could do what we wished with the files: modify them, delete them, etc. Hell, the EULAs for some '90s and early '00s software even said you could use the software in perpetuity, and we could use software in anyway we saw fit. The biggest constraint was on selling copies. Back then, and even now, that seems pretty reasonable. (Though, as an aside, it would have been better to also get access to the source code, but I digress.)
Now, we have to use company’s software exactly how they want us to use it. Personally, I refuse to go along with this (as much as I can), so I have migrated most of my digital life to FLOSS.
Yes, BUT…
There is buying a licence to use.
And there is buying a copy you can use.
This is very much different. Maybe buying a copy of music with a tag attached saying you cannot distribute it further is ok, but saying they can take this copy you bought at any time and make terms how you can use it is another level.
Some video games are open source; you can modify and redistribute it or even sell it. We need more of those and less fat cats playing a trading card game of copyrights while they erode ownership rights.
I’m sure there are exceptions if you’ll look hard enough. However, even in the case of most open source software, you’ll never become the owner of the intellectual property, you’re just free to use, modify and share it.
in this case, microsoft just decided that they didn’t have to bother supporting legacy accounts because they didn’t feel like it, so they pulled them without consent or compensation
in the case of ai generated media, companies just decided that they just had the rights to use existing published media, so they harvested it without consent or compensation
both complaints are the same complaint: that businesses are just deciding on contracts unilaterally and then imposing them on people without the need for consent
in the case of ai generated media, companies just decided that they just had the rights to use existing published media, so they harvested it without consent or compensation
Have you read the ToS of your favourite social media site lately?
In any event, it might well be that companies (and you yourself) have the rights to use existing published media to train AIs. Copyright doesn’t cover the analysis of public data. I suspect that people wouldn’t like it if copyright got extended to let IP owners prohibit you from learning from their stuff.
As a fun aside, unauthorized sharing is the only reason I tried and bought the game back in early beta days before there was a demo (friend A owned, friend B didn’t, I tried it from friend B’s unauthorized copy of friend A’s game and got the copy too, later gave friend A $20 and info to activate my account because I didn’t have internet at home).
Same. I played MC in early Alpha when you could play free in a web browser. And then I used a cracked game for another year or so. Once I had adult money I bought it. I’ve since bought it probably 6+ times over between Java, Bedrock, consoles, mobile and accounts for my kids.
I probably would never have bought it otherwise, or at least not for a long time.
The only times I’d excuse piracy are if the original product is outright unavailable in your region, or if digital rights management leads to a vastly inferior or unusable product for paying users (i.e. strict installation limits, always-online DRM in a single player game.)
I don’t condone pirating Minecraft, regardless of Microsoft’s anti-consumer bullshit.
