You can. I’ve reduced my language list down from the default of “every single one”. You should probably still keep “undetermined” selected as a “language”, otherwise a lot of stuff people haven’t actually tagged with a language won’t show up.

Indeed, the right to make copies are often licenced (although you can also sell that right) because it is explicitly written in some conventions (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention?useskin=vector) that the copyright resides with the creator to begin with. I don’t think the Berne Convention deals with the option of transferring intellectual property and the copyright to them, but I’m assuming it’s mostly defined well enough in some contract law or other.

Yes, you own the information on it. You don’t own the rights to distribute it to others, but you bought the information and the right to personally use it. When you buy a painting, do you only have a licence to view it?

Yeah, that makes sense.

I’ve just not replaced the files in any directory at all, just start the game from the download location for the depot (one should be able to rename the folder for it to the version) and then you keep any number of versions to play available by just going into that download location and starting the game.

At least that’s how it has worked for me. I just thought that was easier than having to replace files every time.

Are you downgrading to several different versions? Because I’ve used the console variant and just run the game from the download folder and Steam doesn’t update it

You don’t even need the external tool, you can use the Steam terminal itself to download the depots, which I personally find more palatable than having another application that is getting access to my username and password (it needs those to get the access from Steam). Even though I don’t think that tool is malicious I would still prefer to not have to rely on it.

• Go to SteamDB, and search up your game.
• Click on the app ID of the game you’re looking for to go to its details page.
• Take a look at the depots, and click on the depot ID of the one that looks like the one you want to download.
• Click on the Manifests tab. Look at the list and find the version that you want to download. Record its manifest ID.
• Open the Steam console. You can do this by opening a command window “Run” by pressing «Win + R» and then enter the command: steam://open/console, and then press Enter, or by opening any browser and enter the URL-address field write the same command: steam://open/console. You can even have it always available when you start Steam by appending -console to the launch options of the shortcut to the Steam exe.
• The syntax to the “download_depot” command is as follows:
  download_depot <appid> <depotid> [<target manifestid>] [<delta manifestid>] [<depot flags filter>] : download a single depot
  You only need to worry about the first three arguments to it. Type the command, then the app ID, depot ID, and the manifest ID of the depot version you want.
• Wait for Steam to download the depot. You won’t see any indication of progress, but you can tell it’s downloading by looking at the network usage on your downloads page. The download can pause/resume if your connection goes out, but won’t if you restart the client.
• After the download is done, Steam will show you where the files were downloaded to.
• Go to the game’s installation directory, and move the files somewhere else. Then go to where the depot files were downloaded to, and move everything over to the game folder.
• You may have to rename the game’s EXE file if the dev changed the launch options recently. You can find the current EXE name by going to the game’s SteamDB page and clicking on the Configuration tab. 11. You should now be able to launch the old version through Steam.

Personally I found that you can just start the game from the download location and it will still have the Steam overlay if the game basically uses Steam as DRM.

We just need a proper solar flare to help us get back on track

I really like Kerbal Space Program.

And I also really like Factorio for all my logistics/factory builder needs.

Well, you’re in luck; they’re releasing Baldur’s Gate 3 in a few days ;P

Now you’re making a strawman. Other humans that are actually making art generally don’t fully copy a specific style, they draw inspiration from different sources and that amalgamation is their style.

Your comment reads as bad-faith to me. If it wasn’t meant as such you’re free to explain your stance properly instead of making strawman arguments.

Has he said that no other humans could be inspired by his art style? If no then he hasn’t expressed a want for monopoly rights to his art style. But he has expressed that he doesn’t want computers to generate art explicitly to mimic his art style.

Also don’t make claims that are totally disconnected from the argument discussed. It’s dishonest discourse and serves as a way to brush aside the other argument. You didn’t make any counterargument to my argument and the point of this chain which came from you saying that “Not every human activity deserves compensation” as a reply to someone saying “Greg wants to get paid, remove the threat of poverty from the loss of control and its [sic] a nonissue.”

Your reply to me was inane.

Strictly speaking it wouldn’t exactly be stealing, but I would still consider it as about equal to it, especially with regards to economic benefits. It may not be producing exact copies (which strictly speaking isn’t stealing, but is violating copyright) or actually stealing, but it’s exploiting the style that most people would assume mean that that specific artist made it and thus depriving that artist from benefiting from people wanting art from that artist/in that style.

Now, I’m not conflicted about people who have made millions off their art having people make imitations or copies, those people live more than comfortably enough. But in your example there are still other human artists benefiting, which is not the case for computationally generated works. It’s great for me to be able to have computers create art for a DnD campaign or something, but I still recognize that it’s making it harder for artists to earn a living from their skills. And to a certain degree it makes it so people who never would have had any such art now can. It’s in many ways like piracy with the same ethical framing. And as with piracy it may be that people that use AI to make them art become greater “consumers” of art made by humans as well, paying it forward. But it may also not work exactly that way.

But every human activity desirable to others deserve compensation. If you want someone to do something for you or make something for you or entertain you then it deserves compensation. The way ads on the internet have trained a lot of people to think that a lot of entertainment et cetera on the internet is free has been a negative for this. But at the same time that ad-supported model does make it more available to people that otherwise couldn’t afford the price of admission. It’s partly democratizing, but it’s also a scourge.