A tool that can be used both legally and illegally. And many chose to distribute things illegally. Is it right? No, Must you stop it since it's illegal? Yes. The what are we talking about?
Who defines what is, or is not "illegal"? The Creator? Governments? Courts? The Public? You seem to suggest that laws are absolute values that must be righteously upheld, but laws are best served for maintaining peace and stability in a civil society and are subject to constant change, iteration, and relevance. There's an ongoing debate about what this new digital world should be, for example: Is it right that Elsevier keeps publicly funded research papers behind a paywall to enrich themselves? Is it right for file sharing databases to bypass those paywalls to allow poor or geographically restricted researchers all over the world to conduct their work? Theres also the question as to what degree file sharing should be considered a "crime", should a non-violent file sharing enthusiast who shares films for no monetary gain be getting a sentance longer than a convicted child rapist?
To me it seems like only because pirates make profit for a company then it's justified. You can't erase piracy, but what if you don't "contain" it? It's like an illness: if you don't try to contain an illness, it will spread. And no one wants pirates to spread over the world. Remember they're smugglers, regardless the company's profits.
Its not a question of justification, its a question of motivation. People share information amongst themselves as a matter of instinct, people have been sharing stories, ideas, and all manner of information since the dawn of time, in many respects we have too in order to survive. Copying and sharing digital information is a natural extention of that desire and instinct. You can rage against people as "thieves" but it won't change anything unless you try to understand the underlying reasoning. A small minority would never pay for anything out of principle, many do it because its not available or affordable, others to bypass deceptive marketing practices like fake/non-existent demo's, doctored video's, paid user reviews, or undisclosed paid Youtube promotions, etc. Then there's the growing amount of evidence that shows when legal alternatives are provided, piracy declines [
1][
2].
Who are you to decide what are my needs?
Let's put that some people prefer the old fashoned way and that you "progressist" have no literal right to tell other people what they should do. I couldn't care less about progress. I'll move on only when i will need it, not when "someone" decides for me. What if i still use VHS? It's my problem, not yours. Does a company decide to shut down fan works? Mind your own business. Does SEGA decide to treat fans better than their employees? Alright, i've no respect for these kind of people but that's their problem, may they do what they want, i'll not be there to keep them from doing stuff. But don't syndacate over other people's needs, please! That's the nastiest thing one can ever do, after treating people like shit Like SEGA did, as i previously written.
People and by extension society don't operate in a vacuum, they are all subject to the same cultural forces. The funny thing here though is
I don't have to tell you or anyone else to do jack shit, nor does anyone have to listen to me. In the end the market is going to go where it goes, and thats usually the path of least resistence. Case in point, you can keep your VHS and enjoy it all you want, but you'll never get any new movies or TV shows on it unless you do it yourself because they only release on DVD these days which is cheaper, lighter, convient, stable, and has a higher capacity and run time. Its up to you whether or not you want to keep up. Just to be clear, I find Nintendo's interests and actions regretable, but not abhorent. But I can and will voice my opinion on the subject, if only because I want Nintendo to continue to be a successful and beloved company. You can also be sure that if they or anyone else steps over the line I can and
will act on it, allowing people to blindly do whatever they want is a consistently proven mistake in regards to industry.
How do you decide it boosted sales? But that's not important anyway. No matter if it boosts sales, i can't let a full free remake of something you can't buy roam in the Web avaiable for all. Or i can but is that really convenient? Neverthless, you've no righto to criticize Nintendo's moves if they don't harm anybody but few disgruntled fans.
I
don't know whether it harmed or boosted their sales, nobody does, thats the point. Regardless of how anyone feels, the remake is out there being shared and celebrated, as are all the developers of the original title by those whose lives they touched. Again, I have every right to offer my opinion on the subject, and 1.5 million+ people is not an inconsequential number of fans.
You write like it was though... or better, you write like there should be more freedom. But freedom, if not checked upon, can get out of hand. And that's bad.
And you write like an authoritarian, that doesn't mean we can't have a civil discussion of the issue. To a certain extent, I agree. But constraints on freedom shouldn't be applied without consensus, if they overly support a minorities or third parties interests it can be equally bad for everyone.
If that bothers you, then, you should go after the shitlords who abuse their power and not go against Nintendo because they've done something you just don't like but it's not all that wrong.
I'm not launching a hate campaign against Nintendo, I'm allowed to have an opinion about their actions and talk openly about it. As for the "shitlords", if it were that easy people would have done it by now, but suing people is not a zero sum game. Its why Copyright Trolls avoid the courts as much as possible and try to push settlements from people who can't afford to defend themselves. Theres also the problem of some not-so-honest judges who get a quid-pro-quo out of such legal actions, like the ever infamous patent courts of East Texas where any company who doesn't favor them with a free
skating rink or two gets an automatic loss because of their overwhelming bias. Or the US Patent Office who seems to rubber stamp whatever bullshit idea hits their desk. There are groups like the EFF and others using hard fought provisions like the "inter partes review" process to invalidate garbage Patents, but its an uphill battle with things like many of the provisions in the
Trans Pacific Partnership being the latest in an ongoing struggle over what this new digital world is supposed to look like.
I've the feeling that, when people say "it's gray" they mean that "it's more white than black". But, if it's gray, it an tend also to black. "It's a grey area" doesn't mean "i can do it".
Being a grey area simply means that the majority hasn't decided whether its good or bad yet, remember that nothing like the internet has ever existed in the whole of recorded human history, there are many forces working towards shaping what that means and how it will effect the future, the narative of intellectual "theft" being just one of many.
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