Pirating Doom: Yea or Nae?

I want to preface this by saying that I think using the term "piracy" to refer to filesharing is not just inaccurate, it's an insidious bit of linguistic manipulation at the hands of multi-billion dollar corporations. Real pirates (armed thugs on the high seas) still exist to this day and I know people who have had to fight them in combat. Comparing rape, murder, and pillaging to a guy on a computer copying a bunch of numbers from another guy is, at best, incredibly melodramatic.

That said, when it comes to sharing Doom I'm all for it for three big reasons:

1. Doom is a very old game, over 30 years old. Were it not for how Disney abused US copyright law, this game would be in the public domain.

2. None of the original creators of the game work at id Software anymore; if you buy a copy of the game "legitimately," the people who actually worked on it will not see your money.

3. As one of the most important video games of all time, Doom is an intangible, inextricable part of modern human culture, and thus must be vigorously preserved by way of free and open distribution.

Now I totally understand and respect that most places have rules about filesharing, and that's fine. But personally I think Doom's IWADs should be shared far and wide.

@p0 why do you need to comment something when you'll chicken out and delete all things you've written in a few days?

i never even owned any "legal copy" of Doom (but have Strife VE and Hedon Bloodrite on GOG).

i mean, i see current id/bethesda as pirates. because they have nothing to do with the original games, they just looted them from the corpse of the old id software, and now selling the loot.

I say nae to pirating Doom. I do believe the copyright should be lifted yes.

Since I imagine there are enough bespoke resources out there under favourable license terms, I think a more constructive and productive approach is this;
Assemble libre textures and monsters and create a new libre IWAD and use that as the base for new PWADS from now on.

@dmslr huh i'm not chicken out, but i don't bother if you perceive me as a pussy. We have the big (content removed), i'm fine in fitting the big cunt role. Deleting my own stuff? Well that's just my shtick. I plan in doing this on a monthly basis, so get used to it (:

I like to take every small opportunity that life gives me and cause a small cigarette burn on my ego so all the accumulated vanity slips through. But i stand by every word and sentence i've ever typed here and i have no problem in reinterate my points when necessary. From my very first account here (the esselfortium impersonation: Sarah Mancubus) to this one, to many others to come - i think that's enough proof to let you know that i'm not gonna leave this place too soon.

As seg mentioned, no payment goes to the original creators of the game which is enough for me to say it is ethical to pirate the game. Beyond that, DOOM is almost thirty years old and is a monument in pop culture, it should be treated like public domain, DOOM belongs to everyone.
Personally, I've paid for both DOOM and DOOM II in so many forms. CD-ROM, Steam, Switch, Xbox One, even DOOM 3 on XBOX. I feel zero shame about sharing a flashdrive with the IWADs and a source port whenever a friend has expressed interest in playing the game.

The forum host doesn't permit the distribution of pirated content per its Section 20(a) Compliance with Law clause in the TOS. So I'm not really allowed to allow it.

My opinion is similar to the honors system with downloading ROMs (for antique console game emulators.) You should download it if you've at some point in your life owned the game. Doom is a 25 year old game and pretty much everyone has played it at some point. The WAD files are not very hard to find in a google search so just get it if you really want it. I personally think Bethesda's rerelease of the game through its unity port is trash, as community-made source ports are far better and have much better utility than it. I wouldn't recommend paying for that to anyone.

Also, I think people holding a self-governing opinion that they shouldn't download whatever they want because it withholds money from the property owner is trash. Bethesda didn't make Doom, they acquired Doom. They are an enormous company and they have enormous investments in other things. Even if I encouraged people to destroy the company, giving non-owners of Doom links to download Doom illegally in lieu of paying $5.00 for it wouldn't make a dent in the company. So just do whatever you want.

From what I understand the official port serves as a good-enough "gateway drug" so that people who actually want to dig deeper beyond what's available through that port can definitely do so. It's better than it was before.

The port "does the job" but I am sad that it doesn't seem to have much support for custom content beyond standard limit-removing, and, afaik, no easy way to play custom content.

Just make sure you're wearing clothes under that trench coat Gokuma .