I’ve begun discontinuing many US services in favor of EU ones. However, I’ve noticed that some individuals, instead of simply ceasing to use American products, resorted to illegally downloading everything. While it’s true that the money goes to the US when you pay, it can’t justify disrespecting others’ hard work and effort while still consuming or using their products, and it is also illegal. This is especially true considering that they likely don’t have any direct connection to MAGA. This applies to actors, directors, YouTubers, and many others. We should simply cease using their products without giving them any further consideration.

Edit: adding to the last line, we should give instead more attention to locally and European made creations and products

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[–] parmesan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'd argue it does more damage to directly contribute to triple A gaming companies by buying the crap they release than to abstain from paying for games altogether. People deserve to enjoy things without having to contribute to corporations to do so.

I know you're probably referring mostly to indie developers though. The thing is that this feels like a moot point to argue because we have no real way of knowing how much piracy directly harms a game developer. Maybe an indie game would have performed better had someone not "cracked" it. Maybe it would have performed worse due to people who are unwilling to gamble by spending their money on a revokable game license not discovering & publicly praising it. In reality I think if it's a good game with effort put into it, people are going to pay for it regardless - not everyone, but the vast majority of people who would be playing it, even if just because they don't know how to pirate

[–] adam_y@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

I'm not thinking about indie developers... At least not just indie developers.

I'm talking about musicians, comic artists, illustrators, designers, voice over actors, animators... Whole industries that are being treated like they are disposable.

And the upshot is that the small producers will all leave and we'll only be left with the big producers. This rhetoric around piracy plays into their hands.

I'm not against sticking it to the greedy, just in my experience they have always got a way of mitigating it at the expense of the little guy.