Remember kids, if buying is owning, piracy still isn't stealing. You can make infinite copies of digital media.
It's still very much copyright infringement. I don't give a shit about CI, but it still is that.
Except for the authors and content creators you're stealing from who get oh so much from whatever publisher they had to suck up to.
Next you're going to argue that reposting a creators content on your own channel isn't stealing.
That's a different argument. We went through this with VHS. If you tape a broadcast that you paid for, it is not copyright infringement. Unless, you start making several copies and distributing them. Recording a Netflix screen and keeping it neatly in your hard drive is not CI, nor stealing for that matter. The only leg they have to stand on is when people start making copies and charging for distributing it. But even that argument has always been dubious.
i really hate how they call it a 'library', very disingenuous if it's all on their servers and predicated on their fucking license agreements
what if real libraries had to throw away books because harpercollins got pissy. would anyone stand for it? (probably yes)
Abortion instructions*. The Bible tells you how to force your wife to have an abortion if she cheats on you.
I actually love imagining ways in which one can build a digital library in its core meaning.
A system reliable enough to survive centuries and maybe millennia, many times redundant and verifiable and self-repairing, allowing exhaustive search.
This fascination is maybe the reason I love systems intended for "piracy". Because frankly paying for media is not such a big deal - I download things not too often and most of the time download things I've downloaded before. I even have a few bought games in Steam which I haven't played.
But I love to feel that there's no company, no organization behind that exchange.
Getting back to libraries - in early 00s people would think of the Web like of a layer upon which such a thing can be built. It turns out that this didn't work, but let's please don't stop with the optimism, and let's please discard the approach which hasn't worked instead of clinging to it.
I'm aboard the ceramics train, I love the laser engraving, QR code method they got going on now.
It can fit about a Terabyte per cm^2, and is laser engraved QR codes versus 0s and 1s.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/cerabyte-ceramic-storage-poised-to-usher-in-yottabyte-era
Would you suggest that a location that houses thousands of books that are available to borrow and/or use for research is not a library?
It does seem to be some differentiation, I can't walk into my child's school and check out a book. At least I don't think that would fly. It would definitely not be the norm.
They do actually have to re-license their online audio books every so many listens. They have to pay for the same audiobook over and over.
That's why it's a lot better for them to lend out the CDs, a few people are coming in for that.
Want me to buy your media legally? Oh please, this is tremendously easy to do for a corporation!
- Downloadable files (you have files, right? Otherwise how are you streaming out the stuff)
- ...with open codecs (you are using an open codec right? Otherwise you have to encode your stuff like 10 times for 10 different devices each with its own idiosyncrasy)
- ...without DRM (you have clean copies right? it'd not be smart to base a business model on files you can't open, see the above)
- ...at an aggregate price that's lower than paying for TV cable (you can cash in only a bit, right? It's digital media and your competition is literally over-the-air TV with extra steps, it's not like you have the mother of pearl of cancer cures here)
In other words, media as a "service" makes more money than media as a one-point sale. Why should they sell you a one-point solution when the service model makes more money for the shareholders? I love the shareholder economy; it makes all our lives better and makes us focus on what really matters at the end of the day, which is, of course, profits for people who already have too much money. :) very cool
The only way for most of these companies to constantly generate income is to offer a subscription model. As they need to increase income, they can increase subscription prices.
Everybody (well, just the conpany) wins. Can't you see how beneficial this is to everyone (just the company)?
They exist to fuck over artists and the viewers as much as they can get away with.
I just decided I’m perfectly comfortable fucking the media companies over first.
If you want to stay truly legit, buy used physical releases. They cost less money and you could support your local record store. Movies and music on a home NAS + Plex Server are god tier.
Not only that, but they think people are dumb enough to keep paying (and sometimes they're not wrong).
There is an easy fix here:
Require mergers to refund customers impacted as part of the merger.
Refund the sale price (that's less than its value to me), or the value I placed on it (that's difficult to estimate)?
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Or just let people download the media they purchased before you shutter the service.
The whole issue here is that everyone wants to sell you some service and never let you own something.
Refunding simply the sales price means the users lose out because the $100 I paid for my library 5 years ago is worth less now due to inflation. Simply giving me back $100 now would yield a value of $80 back in 2019.
Just give the game/music/movie file without DRM
The reason they aren't is because methods for cracking DRM like Widevine are kept extremely secret so that the exploits don't get patched. It does mean that a lot of content is locked to whatever the scene decides is worth their time to crack and distribute, but if anyone made the methods they use public, they would stop working very quickly.
This happened with a version of Denuvo. Someone leaked an unobfuscated cracked version of a game (I think it was Need for Speed), giving Denuvo the opportunity to study how their protection got cracked.
What does Widevine actually do? You may not be able to download directly but you can just use OBS
You'll get worse quality. Widevine doesn't let you play 4K content on unapproved systems. It's also way less convenient. Obviously, pirates are not affected because they can just download Star.Wars.XII.Galactic.Boogaloo.WEBRIP.4K-DarkNaruto69.mkv, it's only an issue if you try to watch content legally for some reason.
There absolutely needs to be a law that forces companies to make this abundantly clear and make the usage of "buy" illegal in those cases. It should be "rent" or "purchase temporary license."
Yuuup. It's basic consumer protection. Imagine if a car dealership were allowed to do what we let media companies get away with. You go to the dealership, sign a contract that you didn't fully read, and then ten years later Toyota shows up to steal your car because clause 78 of section G(4) says that the manufacturer reserves the right to repossess anything they made at any time. They wouldn't be able to finish stealing that car before a thousand hungry lawyers ate them alive. Why do we let media companies do that?
They wouldn’t be able to finish stealing that car before a thousand hungry lawyers ate them alive. Why do we let media companies do that?
They would probably actually have a decent shot at getting away with it, at least at first.
And to answer your question, it's because the anger that companies generate by doing this shit ends up turning into piracy. Why would you try to punish a corp for doing this (likely wasting your time) when a cheap VPN and basic tech literacy gets you what you want?
The effort ratios are way out of wack when it comes to digital products. It's easy to get around digital bullshitery, not so much in the real world where we are all car dependant.
There should almost be a "buy a license to..." distinction like how some games are free versus free to play.
Both https://rentry.co/megathread and https://fmhy.net/ are both great indexes for piracy sites and more, on the vpn side proton, mullvad(they disabled port forwarding so seeding torrents is much slower so they aren't recommended as much), and air vpn are all decent.
This kind of shitfuckery has been going on for as long as DRM has been around and yet people still fall for the scam.
Buying it illegally is what some people do. I wish I could find the article I read, but pirate cable is definitely a thing in some places
Stealing legally is what the cops do when they commit robbery civil asset forfeiture
Every house on my street gets pirate cable. When I found out my ancient neighbor was paying for cable with her social security I was like check this out. Disconnect cable box connect TV straight into coax. Saved her a lot of money when she cancelled cable.
Any time you move to a new house or apartment just plug the coax into a TV, you might be surprised.
You all weren't buying even before that. Stop rationalizing. You're poor and that's why you pirate.
Maybe that used to be the case but now its legitimately impossible to own content any other way.
You’re poor and that’s why you pirate
I'm supporting multiple indie game devs on Patreon.
I bought the Ultimate Edition of Baldurs Gate 3 after my first playthrough on the pirated version.
I made an one-time donation of $60 to the devs of Enderal (a free Skyrim mod, I can highly recommend it).
Give me what's on the package with no intrusive DRM, microtransactions, and stuff and I'll happily throw my money at you.
I was buying in a way that couldn't be simply taken away.
Do you have a favorite leather polish to lick up?
LOL, I only pay for things I can own, most of of them are much more expensive than subscription.
Admit it, only poor peasants choose subscription.
I mean I live in the most expensive region of the US and live pretty comfortably, but go off paying to see ads and have content taken from you I guess.