apostaterevolutionary:

ratliker1917:

I feel like at some point the internet had the entire piracy debate settled and then a bunch of money got pumped into making people believe the slogan “intellectual property rights are human rights” and now we’re stuck with like, that kind of millennial/zoomer whose entire lifestyle is based on feeling guilty and never wanting to do anything even slightly ethically questionable, who will try to lecture you about how you’re causing real human harm and suffering because you torrented skyrim.

Millennial here: the secret to pirating ethically is just only pirate from big companies. Indie stuff? Pay for it, if you’re able. If it’s a big company, particularly an evil one (*coughdisneycough*)? Torrent that fucker and feel no shame. You haven’t hurt anyone. All the profit goes in the CEO’s/shareholders pockets, not those of honest workers who were already paid for their work via their contract

Like this is really interesting to me as an example where base determines superstructure (i.e. economic structure as constrained by mechanical possibility creates power hierarchies that ideology is then picked to legitimate)

Because software was really proprietary when it was individually trackable in the mainframe era… but then kinda common in the early “microcomputer” era to share with your user group or BBS… but then again proprietary off limited physical media or keygens… but then cheap CD collections and the Internet and the “shareware” concept (and keygens and [k]racks to get around disk insertion requirements…)