• save_vs_death [they/them]
    ·
    1 month ago

    Whatever petty rights you retain over physical media is only because publishers didn't find a good way to take them away for now.

    To use a very very stupid example (it's late give me some slack) you can buy a tomato and eat it, but if you plant the seeds of the tomato, you might get blackbagged by monsanto or whoever, because you only got a licence to eat the tomato, not to plant it. And it doesn't get more "physical" than shit you buy to eat. Digitalisation is coming for everything.

    As for physical game libraries, I don't think they are piracy, no. As for game emulation, it could be piracy because most games are encrypted on disk and only the publisher's $300 machine is allowed to decrypt it without falling foul of the DMCA.

    I think people should be making the moral and ethical case for game ownership (and game piracy). My point is more, I don't want to need a bachelor's in law or ethics to justify piracy because i think piracy in and of itself is value neutral.