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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
(pluralistic.net)
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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What brought this quote into the limelight most recently is Louis Rossmann's coverage of Sony pulling all Discovery channel content not just from their storefront, but also from people's libraries.
Sony essentially stole content from people's libraries that they'd already paid for, not just rented content. Sony argued against this that you only had a licence to the content, you didn't own what you bought, hence the quote's meaning...
If buying isn't owning [because it's all just a copy of their content], then piracy isn't stealing [because it's also just a copy of their content].
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Louis Rossmann's coverage
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This seems like it's very specific to that one incident. But people try to use it on all digital products.
It's not just Sony. All the digital library providers have done this. Apple, Amazon, and Google have all had similar instances that resolved the same way; the consumer got fucked.
Ohh yeah, Microsoft. I own Forza 7 Motorsport. It's installed on my hard drive. Microsoft killed the servers so I can't even play single player because the tracks weren't included in the game. You have to download the track every time you play single player or multiplayer.
What's with the hundreds of thousands of other media that is shared?
What about them. I'm not talking about freely shared media, I'm talking about media companies repeatedly removing access to media that we paid for. It is a pattern of behavior from these "people" and if they won't stop stealing from us, then I propose we nuke their headquarters.
That is not the same thing. You still own the game, whether or not it is playable is not the same as not owning. Legal bs but that's how most Western societies are built.
Whenever a game or program or goes unplayable you can not go and fix it, despite "owning it".
Removal of any kind of DRM, even if for personal, even in products you've bought, is illegal.
And there's no lower-limit on how "secure" DRM has to be: even if the client-server communication is not encrypted in any way, doesn't include any identifying information, and you can perfectly re-implement server-side software, tricking the program into itself into talking to your server, instead of the original, is, at best, legally grey area.
I'm not sure what your point is? We're taking about ownership, not whether you can reverse engineer sine DRM.
Being able to do things to your property is one of the basic concepts of, well, property.
Let's say your car's manufacturer fixed the wheels using security bolts and they're the only people who have the sockets.
With actual cars it would be, at most, annoying. You'd still be able to undo the bolts, either by buying or making a fitting socket, or just smacking a regular one until it fits.
In the digital world, however, just because it's called a "security" socket, you're forbidden, by law, from tampering with it. And if the licensed services stop servicing the model of your car one day... You're fucked. Because, even though you "own" the car, you are legally forbidden from doing basic maintenance required to use it.