What if you take a fallen branch from someone’s yard when they aren’t going to use it for something? Dealing with edge cases where maybe theft isn’t theft is why we have a court system.
Words themselves are more generic in nature. It’s through phrases, sentences, etc where that ever finer nuances can be described.
At a single moment sure, but many games have gone from a state where you can’t purchase them to you can. I’d be cautious of any argument which suggests watching a movie the day before it hits movie theaters has zero economic impact.
So you’d need to find a game that couldn’t ever be purchased until the end of copyright coverage, which is more a theoretical argument than something you can demonstrate in the moment.
"watching a movie the day before it hits movie theaters" is not the same thing at all. This is more like trying to show racist Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1940s in an educational setting. No one's making any money off "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" (1943) nor "Pitfall!" (1983) on the Atari 2600. They're not being sold, for reasonable economic reasons, and rigid copyright restrictions should not apply to them.
Corporations already have enough influence over copyright, so I'm loathe to defend a defunct corporation's theoretical ability to resell an ancient game, over an actual person's real interest in preserving and disseminating video game history.
Then make an argument that has some actual separation here.
> I’m loathe to defend a defunct corporation’s theatrical ability to resell an ancient game
Sure it seems harmless, but find some way to quantify things that doesn’t harm an operating studio’s ability to borrow money because a significant chunk of their IP would be valueless in bankruptcy etc.
It’s easy to call anything a victimless crime, coming up with reasonable objective criteria in the face of counter arguments is a little harder.
