Privateering usually meant the state’s navy issued the ship and demanded a substantial share of the prize leading to creative accounting at sea. It was a deal taken typically by naval officers who might otherwise be tempted to desert when going on the account is offering better prizes and career options. (Desertion to piracy was a big problem in the Queen’s Navee.)
A letter of marque means you can find safe port at colonies of the issuing state so long as you are attacking its enemies (usually Spanish vessels during the Golden Age).
Piracy is midnight oyster and clam harvesting without a license to break the oyster cartel, making restaurant oysters and clams more available and cheaper to customers.
It is from this grand tradition along the US West Coast that the notion of media piracy rose, and much like the Golden Age of Piracy robbing the Spanish Silver Train, piracy is associated with snatching ill-gotten gains from those who don’t deserve it, sometimes benefiting communities that do. (YMMV).
Media Piracy is copyright infringement, which is totally not stealing.
The US Supreme Court taking content out of the public domain so that it can be reserved for private use isn’t stealing either, but it causes more harm than piracy.
We also get little conversation about how copyright extensions and patent trilling robs the public use of public-domain content, especially when the Mouse is lobbying the federal government to extend rights further.
When the upper management sexual predatory practices and HR cover up scandal emerged I stopped looking forward to Watch Dogs: Legion even though I liked WD2 and wanted to see Clint Hocking at the helm again. Oh well.
Looking forward to a spiritual successor to Far Cry 2 some day.
It’s part of how I remember id est versus exempli gratia
The problem is noted by Karl Marx, the capitalist inevitably captures the government and its regulating departments so that the body of laws will be revised in their favor. Remember that the point of copyright laws in the Constitution of the United States, to promote science and the useful arts was killed when IP was extended. Every year that someone owns an idea is year that the rest of us does not.
I don’t know the solution, but corruption of the temporary monopoly was inevitable.
I assume UBI. Already quality of product is not cultivated by the current publishing system. People who get their books published do so by affording a good agent with connections, which rules out the black kid using a manual typewriter her brother rebuilt.
Maybe capitalism doesn’t work, except for the richest capitalists?
Most IP owners didn’t create what they have, but bought it off someone else. I have little pity for rich people.
I’d say society is better off with no IP related temporary monopoly than the system we have. There are enough instances where creators die penniless and publishers make all the profits to suggest there already is no financial incentive for an inventor to invent. Like Goodyear, they do it more as a hobby or in the interest of society.
Maybe if we had social safety nets so everyone not rich wasn’t desperate, we might be able to have a robust innovation sector that was less focused on using law to screw competitors and consumers.
Billions typically paid for by government subsidy, id est taxpayers. I’m not sure what the justification is for private IP rights when the capital is socialized.
Youtube’s ad policy is abusive, and online ads are not always safe. Regardless of whether adblocking is legal or fair to Youtube, not doing so puts you at greater risk of malware insertion so is a necessary safety precaution.
As YouTube profits from your engagement through more than ads, YouTube still benefits even when you watch videos without ads.
I’d assume Adobe was a bad actor sooner than Mozilla. Adobe is a big-time fan of DRM and dark patterns.
Does the game just disappear if it was never cracked?
Considering there are tons of games that are no longer supported, the answer is yes, the game customer is left to the elements when the publisher decides they’re done. And with the current DMCA, we’re not even legally allowed to break DRM for legal purposes (such as to play games we bought when the DRM is no longer supported.)
Curiously, it does send a message for the determined end user that legality is only for suckers (or for companies who have to operate within the constraints of licensing). Curiously, Windows 10 and 11 depend on the ignorance of upper management regarding the degree to which Microsoft has surveillance access, since companies don’t get to medium-sized without having a few skeletons in the accounting closet. I’m surprised so few companies haven’t switched to Linux Red Hat (which has a similar support package) but then Red Hat is going through its own scandals right now.
Anyway, if your game is popular, you can expect the old version to be supported until the redux comes out. If it’s a niche game produced by a company that the publisher bought a while ago and would like to forget, yes, it’ll disappear into the aether as you watch.
Right now we already have aluminum printers and arrays that will turn a stone (wood, ice, etc) block into a detailed sculpture.
The cool thing is that prototypes can be printed and then turned into dyes to be filled with steel and cast, and NGOs are using this tech to arm African villages against warlords.
About the same time we make fusion power viable, well be able to construct civil projects in a simulation, test it against the elements with an advanced physics engine and then send an array of constructor robots to build it from the ground up.
Just in time for humanity to get wiped back to the stone age from perpetual severe weather.
Good to know! Thank you!
Next on my Steam wishlist, games that feature microtransactions or premium currency. (Mostly I play indie games anyway.)
Property is theft. <Bolshevik chorus swells>