Relationship between buyer and the company

There has recently been a resurfaced discussion about piracy especially in the context of abandonware.
Shortly: Abandonware is software (games for example) that are no longer provided nor maintained by the rights owner. You cannot legally access it.

When it comes to pirating abandonware, the copyright law is on the side of the rights holder. The morality on the other hand is much more grey area.

When buying a game, it can be expected that the game is playable forever, if not stated otherwise. West does not share the culture of impermanence (that things are meant to eventually end), thus in the west sellers are morally obligated to clearly outline the timeline of when the game can no longer be played. The end date cannot be arbitrary or unknown as that affects the purchase decision. So if a game stops working, it is viewed as the company breaking the contract because they had implied that by purchasing the license you can play the game. When clear end date is not declared before sale happens, it is seen as a false promise, deceiving advertisement and exploitation of power position, when that end date is introduced after the sale.

In the west companies are known as entities which sole aim is to maximize shareholder profit, companies are not artists nor do they care about the games or programs they abandon. In the west corporations will sacrifice consumers for profits, thus consumers have no moral obligations towards the corporations in western societies. Their interactions are only transactional.

Culture

Games are widely considered as being culture in the west. West sees the right to participate in culture as a human right, thus cultural rights triumph over corporate rights as corporations are not humans.

@Hakitadev once said: ”You should support indies if you can, but culture shouldn’t exist only for those who can afford it.”
In my opinion this quote conveys the quintessence of the piracy argument. Be a good person when you can and recognize your own behavior when you are making excuses. Yet people should not be left out of shared culture.

There is also a cultural aspect affecting western views when it comes to art and artists; Death of the Author – ”meaning is created by the reader (or viewer, listener, etc.), not the creator. The work becomes an independent entity, severed from its origin”. Especially in arts where the community enthusiastically participates in the artworks existence and it’s cultural impact outside the medium, the total cultural output is no longer solely the product of its creator.

I must here clarify that this is not an endorsement for piracy, people absolutely should be paid for their work. Thus we come to the problem of abandonware where the rights holders do not want to be paid for their work. You cannot legally purchase nor participate in abandonware’s culture because the company does not make it legally available to you.

Copyright and harm of piracy

Pirating media that cannot be bought brings only negligible harm to rights owners. They can still do a re-launch, which removes the need to pirate, they can still do a remaster which creates a whole new game, thus making the pirated version non-competitive to that as well. Only thing it does is reduce the possible free time a person could be using to play a new game launched by the company. But in real life if the company makes a good game, the customers will find time to play it.

Reverse engineering abandonware and piracy of media that cannot be legally bought do very little harm to the companies as those pieces of culture cannot be bought from them legally anyway. Allowing reverse engineering of abandonware profits the company when they do not have to provide said service anymore. Second hand sales of legitimate products wont profit those companies either so nothing really changes and people still get to enjoy the culture that way. Piracy of abandonware is simply increasing the supply of the second hand market.

Japan and copyright specifically

This being a controversial subject in Japan is all the more strange considering their AI legislation allows another corporation to copy, modify and commercialize these games without permission from the copyright owner. So if another company does this using software it is not a problem, but if humans want to participate in the culture that does not harm the company in a meaningful way, that is somehow frowned upon.

Japanese people have high respect for the law, thus arguing from legality perspective is reasonable. But more important is to understand why the law is the way it is. What the law aims to accomplish, and does it accomplish that or not.
”One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” – Martin Luther King Jr.
So arguing solely based on that something is a law isn’t a morally valid argument. Laws can and should be changed when they do not benefit humans or align with morality.

Copyright as an artist right and respect

Recognizing and respecting the artists will on their work and who accesses it, is important. It is crucial to distinct between corporate greed and real artist vision for the work. Are the creators asked whether they’d allow the works to exist when the company shuts the product down? Are they truly free to answer without fear of losing their job’s?

In cases like art and games, it is respect that matters. When there is a legal way to experience art, that is always the respectful way to consume it. When there is no legal way to experience art, simply experiencing it is not disrespect.
Shutting down art you have created and destroying culture among it, is disrespectful towards those who have participated in creating that culture and to those who paid for that art.