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Steal This Comic
(xkcd.com)
When purchasing isn't ownership, then piracy isn't theft.
PSA: Download all your kindle books. Even if you don't plan on cracking their DRM, you'll have the option to in the future should you want to.
Though do it before the end of the month! (Edit: the 26th) Amazon is taking that option away
Wednesday the 26th, not the end of the month. If anyone is thinking they'll get to it later, you have three days from this post
Based xkcd
I have all of his books in physical format. Would recommend.
Now that the US is run by literal criminals, any moral objection to something here on the grounds that it's illegal has no weight whatsoever.
And that's why Bandcamp exists. No DRM, whatever format you like and you support the artist.
Oh man. One time, at band camp…🐈⬛ 🪈
Let's hope the new owners won't destroy it.
There are probably some teenagers pirating stuff right now who weren't even alive when this comic was drawn. I'm old.
As far as music goes, Qobuz is DRM-free.
bandcamp too.
and 7digital which somehow still exists lol
Ok, what next?
I'll give you $5 for it.
xkcd comics are available under a CC-By-NC 2.5 licence, so you've successfully pirated by not including attribution (as long as people can't tell at a glance that it's xkcd from the art style or comment thread you posted it to), but to seal the deal, it'd be a crime to sell it.
I couldn't tell at glance this was from xkcd and am willing to testify to a jury, when's the court date?
First, someone has to email licensing@xkcd.com to tell Randal Munroe that there's a potential licence violation so he can file a suit.
Whaaaat? This has to go through reporting to count?
Maaaan, pirating things is so complex these days. I long for the days of napster and emule.
I tried, but I can't, since it's Creative Commons
Technically you can: if you distribute the comic but don't give the attribution, you are breaking the terms of the license which is just about the closest thing to "pirating" it that you can do.
But "breach of license" is so much more lame than "piracy!"*
*Yes, a lot of piracy is itself breach of license, hush
Small note: iTunes doesn’t have DRM anymore (since 2009)
Apple Music (the subscription) has DRM though, but you should never have a collection on a subscription service, because it can go away at any time
Yes, exactly. The comic was published on October 13, 2008, according to Explain XKCD, that's probably why iTunes is in it.
I'd pay for it once to support the creators. Once and once only.
Here is my idea: Everyone makes a private key. When they buy a song they receive the file and a digital signature by the label saying they sold it to your ~~private~~public key. When you are caught with a bunch of songs, you have to prove ownership using your key. Tadaa provable ownership, no blockchain, You loose the file, but still have the signature? You can download it again and all is good.
EDIT: Of course, they would sign the public key, sorry.
Wait, isn't that just nfts?
I don't think so. There nothing non fungible in my idea and nfts require a blockchain.
A digital signature from the label would be created with their private key.
What would they be signing? Your public key plus the ID of the song? They can't sign your private key, it's private.
What stops you sharing your private key and a song with a friend. Then when either of you need to provide proof, you can both show that you have the private key that matches the signed file?
Well they would sign my public key plus ID of the song. I can prove, it is my public key and everyone can verify the song belongs to me.
You are right, to ensure noone can "share login" so to say, it needs to be tied to you personally. That would deny privacy sadly.
EDIT: Didn't notice I wrote the wrong thing, thanks for notifying me.
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Support creators though. Especially if the thing you pirate isn’t from a soulless corporation. This is why creators should always have something like a ko-fi or Patreon page. So I can pay them directly if I enjoyed their work.
I buy a ton of XKCD merch for this very purpose. I support others on Patreon, by buying from their advertisers and by buying their audiobooks on Libro.fm or a physical copy.
Amazon and other middlemen add nothing, they simply take a cut off the top. They maintain DRM solely to extract an maximum profits and lock in their customers and sellers. It is extortion and should be illegal.
Feel like it's too arduous to pirate music these days
edit: Thank you guys for all the suggestions
Qobuz and Bandcamp exist. You can buy drm free music from there. Head over to !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com for free options. It's not that hard.
Try Soulseek, it has just about everything.
Arduous?! Why you little...
In the AOL days, I got on newsgroups and hunted songs. Good luck finding what you wanted. Then I'd download 6-12 pieces and use software to tack those pieces into a single MP3. At 56K. (Really 53K, at best, and that was with tweaking modem strings and whatnot.)
I repeat: Why you little...
I just rip my songs from Spotify. It's not the highest quality, but it's easy to find stuff and I wrote a little script to quickly download lists of tracks and albums so it's pretty convenient.
I rip them from youtube, that way I don't have to log into anything first.
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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
131 points (99.2% liked)
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