Whether it’s the same from a legal standpoint or not, it’s not the same ethically at all.
Plus there’s the fact that it’s explicitly against the rules of this website, so I’m not sure what argument you think you’re trying to make here.
How is it not the same ethically? You’re stealing from Lucasfilm either way.
This is an argument I’ll never understand. When it comes to media that’s been out of print for 10-20 years, how exactly is that stealing from the copyright holder? I feel exactly the same about Nintendo. I’m not stealing from you if you don’t give me the option to buy a product. Nintendo doesn’t even provide all their first party IPs using their retro services. A lot of games they never gave people the option to play because they were never released in PAL/NTSC regions and never translated. A lot of games that were translated and released had core aspects of gameplay and the story altered to “better suit” and American/Euro audience by boardroom executives. So it’s not even the authors original vision. Lucasfilm doesn’t provide the original versions of the Star Wars movies. Even Clones and The Phantom Menace. Give me the option to buy your product and I will.
Copyright law in America was originally supposed to work like patent law. The inventor of an invention/innovation gets exclusive rights to profit from the fruits of their labor for a limited time until that invention/innovation is given to everyone for the betterment of mankind. Copyright law has been perverted by multi-national, multi-billion dollar media conglomerates lobbying the government for seemingly indefinite extensions. All under the false pretense that it “protects the artist”.
It “protects artists” by suppressing other artists inspired by the original work who would want to say sample that original work, or re-edit it to create something new entirely using the legal system. We’ve even seen fan editors/fan restorers on THIS website be so influenced to create after completing their projects that they move onto working in the film industry.
We’re at a point now where practically nothing is in the public domain, if nothing is in the public domain everything is. It makes people who would otherwise respect ethical boundaries to wait for something to be in public domain/OOP not care and create derivative works no matter how new a property is because the legal repercussions are exactly the same. It also stagnates culture. Instead of creating something new, companies will continuously milk the same franchise for decades.
Sorry mods if this is too political, I’m not opposed to removing this if you feel it necessary. Also sorry Darth Lucas, I know this is massively off topic.
JEDIT:
MASTER 260, I don’t mean to come off as hostile by throwing a wall of text at you. After re-reading my post I feel like I blew up over one offhand comment. Sorry my dude.