When you don’t give your money to “rich assholes,” they have no incentive to re-contract the people whose work you enjoyed. That harms their ability to be employed. Sure feels good, making sure those creators can’t get paid, right?

It’s not a matter of lost sales but of using labor without compensation. If you aren’t going to buy something, don’t consume it. It’s that simple.

I’m well aware of the difference, that was rather the point of my post.

Actually, that’s exactly what piracy is, by definition. It’s simply that the term came later than the act.

I specifically mean labor, yes. Volunteers are essentially donating their work to a cause, similar to donating funds to that cause. It’s essentially an act of charity. There’s a distinct difference between someone who offers to work without compensation and someone who is forced to work without compensation, and…

If there are not enough sales of a contracted work, the value of that contract decreases, and those who were contracted are subsequently not able to work for as much compensation. So yes, creators do get hurt by a lack of sales.

Art is labor. If you claim that the joy of working should be the entirety of the compensation involved, feel free to start rejecting paychecks, and tell people that they should be happy to have you eating their food. See how far it gets you.

Compensation is inherently about ethics. By pirating, people are stating that labor has no value, which is inherently incorrect. If someone is not going to pay for the labor, they should not benefit from it. It’s that simple.

I’m aware of what the paper says. I’m pointing out that, regardless of these statistics, enjoying something without compensating the creator is still not okay.

Digital works should not have as much of a cost as physical works, true, but stating in any way that their lack of physicality is somehow less worth being paid for their labor is ingenuous at best. Someone put in the time, effort, and creativity to make something, and that labor has a value. If you claim that labor…

Actually, how well a game sells reflects heavily on the people who made it. If a game does not sell well, it becomes that much harder for people involved with the project to find future employment. Don’t wave around an economic model if you don’t understand how it works.

Yeah, no, just because someone might not have made a purchase anyways doesn’t mean that they get to enjoy someone’s work gratis. Try again.

Piracy is wrong because it is the direct consumption of media without compensating the creators. If you want an example of piracy actively harming people, look at artists and photographers, whose work is frequently used without their permission and without compensation.

Why does an android need clothes? First, technically these are cyborgs, and second, it’s entirely cosmetic.

As far as I’m concerned, the Punisher stories fall under “guilty pleasure,” one of those things that doesn’t necessarily align with your beliefs, but is oh so satisfying. The Person of Interest series fell under that same umbrella for me, with the number of deaths in the early series and it’s basic premise of outsized…

Doesn’t that suggest that the issue is not the program but the community? While there have been some early missteps (especially pre-downloading of otherwise unavailable content), the program itself isn’t a problem. However, the community at large seems to view it solely as a threat to their continued existence,…

Sounds like someone seriously needs to visit Shut Up & Sit Down.

Given that every single mod is going to be made from scratch (thanks to Bethesda’s “no old code” policy), things more complex than basic art assets or items are going to take more time to appear. Judging the creation club based on the quality of the first mods to appear is a bit like judging the mod scene by which…

Lots of bones for bone broth, and some animal zombies may have the benefit of aging a la aged mutton. Really depends on what happens to the remains.

No, no, that’s his OTHER video.