I'd add that if you paid a price similar to buying a physical copy then it's a stronger case. And most of these digital 'buy' prices have literally no discount compared to a Blu-ray, which is shameless.
Correct. Copyright infringement is... infringement. Not piracy or stealing.
People treat infringement with more of a Robin Hood mentality than normal stealing since you're copying rather than taking, and because big Intellectual Property Owners all happen to be tax cheats who all do fraudulent accounting to claim their profits all come from their Irish subsidiary yet feel entitled to government enforced monopolies on intellectual property.
You generally get sympathy if you're poor and infringing or being infringed, and don't if you're rich.
It’s never been about whether piracy was stealing or not. It’s about what the courts have to say on the matter. Find yourself on the wrong end of a big copyright case and your life gets ruined, regardless of what word you use to describe it.
Devil's advocate: you can purchase a license. The law uses terms like "purchase" and "ownership" in reference to temporary/conditional delegated ownership all the time. The legalese in contracts usually looks something like "purchasing a temporary use-right over X."
Perhaps the leasehold model is interesting. With the PlayStation example, they can withdraw access to the content at any time, whereas a leasehold gives you restricted ownership for a fixed period of time.
Then selling it was fraud, surely. I'm not a lawyer, but I've never understood how these online storefronts haven't been sued out of existence for claiming that you can "buy" something when they clearly mean something more akin to "leasing access to it until they feel like it".
You don't actually "purchase" physical media. It's still licensed. The question for digital purchases is how perpetual the license is. This is different from Spotify and Netflix where you clearly are renting it, and there's no confusion over that.
Is the purchase of physical media actually license?
Clearly there are restrictions to what you can do with it (duplication, public performance, and so forth), but those restrictions are defined by copyright law. The notable exception is software, but it could be argued that licenses were a product of the need to duplicate software (e.g. install it to a hard drive). That said, modern software licenses do go far beyond that.
Then again, I may be misinterpreting the meaning of license. I have always views them as modifications to the rights granted by copyright law.
Buying a book is just that a purchase. Copyright only applies when a copy is being made, thus no license is needed or implied. You can read it and then sell the physical book because you’re not making physical copies, but you can’t read it to a large audience because that requires a specific license.
Buying a physical CD or an action figure of some copyrighted character follows that same principle, the wishes of the original publisher becomes irrelevant until copyright applies. So you can for example take family photos of your kid holding that Barbie without issue, even make copies of it and back it up to the cloud with no problem.
TLDR; To say a license exists implies some additional privilege, but that’s simply not the case here.
You can do whatever you want to with physical media, license be damned. Most people won't go further than making a physical copy to load on to their NAS. This is a license violation, but there won't be any enforcement because mass distribution via torrents is a much bigger threat.
They're not stealing anything. People should read the legal contracts they sign or to which they otherwise agree. Streaming services typically include a clause about the right to remove content for any reason and regardless of who has purchased it. This is exactly why their courtesy notice doesn't include a word about refunds and a perfect example of the serious societal problem of people having a knee-jerk reaction to something merely because they haven't been paying attention and didn't do much (if any) research prior to venting their frustrations to the world.
Lawyers and judges themselves don’t read the fine print and it would take an inordinate amount of time for people to read the fine print of every service they were offered. Nobody has time to do such things.
Which is precisely why the courts tend to view misleadingly offering something for sale in the advertisement, and then adding contradictory conditions to that sale in the fine print, as just defrauding their customers. This blame the consumer mentality is impractical, unworkable, and legally wrong.
I’ve noticed something strange on my iTunes account recently - missing tv shows I absolutely remember buying at one point, but nowhere to be seen now.
One I remember is “Adventure Time”. Just now searched my email and found receipts from iTunes Store for “Adventure Time Vol 1” dated 22 Nov 2013. I see receipts for the other seasons of the show too, they were not rentals as far as I’m aware. Then sometime in last few years the content disappeared from my account and devices. In fact I just opened up iTunes Store now, found the Adventure Time series still available on iTunes, but it’s asking to pay and saying I don’t have. This is exactly same AppleID I used 10 years ago to buy this content ugh.
Piracy is a complex topic, no need to reduce it into black/white trivial one.
Say you grew up as poor (90% of the world easily) and buying 1 original music CD equals to a week of net salary of your hard working parents just routed to that. This was the situation of me and all my peers when I was growing up. There was simply not an option to buy it legally, unless you accepted to go few days in full hunger mode (which folks think is easy until you are actually there and would literally kill people for food, our mind is really interesting and often very rational place).
So you either pirate or have nothing. Nothing was stolen with creating a copy since those money would never go to copyright owners. Now imagine computer game would require 2 or 3 weeks of similar sacrifice. Again, my choldhood/teenage years. On top of the fact you sometimes can't even buy it legally unless you commit to serious travel.
Yeah, I could go on for a very long time, just my own experiences, not even involving the simple fact that in many places including my current one downloading is completely legal and laws are very much OK with that. If I ever wanted to support artists I would send them money directly, there is always a way if one is serious enough.
But rich western kids want to do visible poses on trivialized topics and 'statements' to their peers even though its long term in vain and zero sum game, not wonder about deeper stuff and actually act upon it (with respect to exceptions).
This is what a lot of anti-piracy outfits do not understand. There is content I as an Indian can either not access because it is geographically limited or because it is just not within my means. Granted, lately the second problem has vanished.
If I hadn't pirated games as a kid, I would not have bought my PS5 or my Nintendo Switch or the Steam Deck. My Steam account has, like everyone else's, a few hundred games now and it's also full of games I once pirated. Funnily enough I haven't played them after purchasing them. But I bought these so I can install them easily. I'm still mad that I cannot find a legal copy of TMNT Out of the Shadows so I have to resort to using piracy for it but that doesn't work on the deck and I need to maintain a Windows PC if I want to play it.
I recently cancelled my Netflix Subscription and bought 6 8TB drives to build a NAS. I haven't gotten around to it yet but I've been downloading a couple of shows I've watched previously and miss, some of which can't be found on OTT in India.
If in 2023 you are telling me I cannot watch something because I am in India or because the production company simply didn't put it on a streaming platform, that gives me impetus to pirate it.
And if you have a show but without either certain episodes for the sake of censorship or if you're missing entire seasons even though it's been a year or more, that is definitely grounds for piracy.
It's even worse with manga and comics. I cannot legally gain access to some manga because they're not sold here and because I can't find them online. Tachiyomi exists and I love it.
Don't even get me started on how ebooks are fleecing us all. I switched to a Boox from a Kindle and I love my decision.
If I buy a book, I own that book. I can burn it, I can lend or give it to a friend, I can read it as many times as I like, and nobody can legally come and take it away from me.
They wrote "previously purchased Discovery content". Should I believe you or Sony's official statement? ;)
Anyway, never buy content you can't crack (make it drm-free) or even better, buy drm-free stuff from the start, but if you really want the best service with the highest quality that has the best portability go ask a pirate, it's been the same since 1600.
> Anyway, never buy content you can't crack (make it drm-free) or even better, buy drm-free stuff from the start
I agree entirely (in principle), but this isn't an option for certain platforms like the iOS App Store, or download-only games consoles (and I've been burned myself: most notably by EA removing their older games from the iOS App Store: not just them removing the ability to purchase old games, but even for people who had already paid for them to reinstall them (and who actually saves their IPA files? Is it even possible to install IPA files from a PC now that iTunes is dead?)
This is something that can only be done by law or something - IIRC, the recent pro-consumer legislation coming from the EU doesn't address "getting-to-keep-what-we-paid-for" - I'm hoping they'll get around to that soon, along with getting protections for data-sovereignty: it's kinda shocking how many popular Apps/SaaS services out there still don't let you export your data.
Pretty sure they are going to have to refund everyone. That has happened with these kind of B2B disagreements in the past, google stadia was the last one I think.
Is this not also true with, say, a VHS tape? In what sense do you "own" it? You aren't legally allowed to copy it or whatever. It's still just a license.
Why can't you do both? I own several DVD sets of TV shows I like because I want to support what little physical media is being released these days. I don't subscribe to any streaming service whatsoever, so I can use that money to only support what I want.
It's not, WTH are you on about. My old Blu-Rays, will still play in my old Blu-Ray player 50 years from now. Those keys are burned in the DVD and in the player's chip and can't be remotely revoked because they run on physics, not magic.
This and things like inheritance when someone passes away are things that will have to be regulated since we can’t trust these companies to do the right thing.
Allowing people to download what they purchased and allowing account transfers to your kids when you pass away should become legal rights.
Readit News
Content you purchased. Their wording. Not content you rented, not license you paid for.
They are effectively stealing the content you purchased.
(shamelessly copied from the top comment on /r/piracy on this very subject)
People treat infringement with more of a Robin Hood mentality than normal stealing since you're copying rather than taking, and because big Intellectual Property Owners all happen to be tax cheats who all do fraudulent accounting to claim their profits all come from their Irish subsidiary yet feel entitled to government enforced monopolies on intellectual property.
You generally get sympathy if you're poor and infringing or being infringed, and don't if you're rich.
I'm stealing that (no pun intended).
For a good — and centuries-old — example, a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leasehold_estate is something that's "owned"... but only for a certain number of years.
Saved [0], for whatever it's worth.
[0] https://archive.is/3qOGV
Clearly there are restrictions to what you can do with it (duplication, public performance, and so forth), but those restrictions are defined by copyright law. The notable exception is software, but it could be argued that licenses were a product of the need to duplicate software (e.g. install it to a hard drive). That said, modern software licenses do go far beyond that.
Then again, I may be misinterpreting the meaning of license. I have always views them as modifications to the rights granted by copyright law.
Buying a physical CD or an action figure of some copyrighted character follows that same principle, the wishes of the original publisher becomes irrelevant until copyright applies. So you can for example take family photos of your kid holding that Barbie without issue, even make copies of it and back it up to the cloud with no problem.
TLDR; To say a license exists implies some additional privilege, but that’s simply not the case here.
Which is precisely why the courts tend to view misleadingly offering something for sale in the advertisement, and then adding contradictory conditions to that sale in the fine print, as just defrauding their customers. This blame the consumer mentality is impractical, unworkable, and legally wrong.
One I remember is “Adventure Time”. Just now searched my email and found receipts from iTunes Store for “Adventure Time Vol 1” dated 22 Nov 2013. I see receipts for the other seasons of the show too, they were not rentals as far as I’m aware. Then sometime in last few years the content disappeared from my account and devices. In fact I just opened up iTunes Store now, found the Adventure Time series still available on iTunes, but it’s asking to pay and saying I don’t have. This is exactly same AppleID I used 10 years ago to buy this content ugh.
Say you grew up as poor (90% of the world easily) and buying 1 original music CD equals to a week of net salary of your hard working parents just routed to that. This was the situation of me and all my peers when I was growing up. There was simply not an option to buy it legally, unless you accepted to go few days in full hunger mode (which folks think is easy until you are actually there and would literally kill people for food, our mind is really interesting and often very rational place).
So you either pirate or have nothing. Nothing was stolen with creating a copy since those money would never go to copyright owners. Now imagine computer game would require 2 or 3 weeks of similar sacrifice. Again, my choldhood/teenage years. On top of the fact you sometimes can't even buy it legally unless you commit to serious travel.
Yeah, I could go on for a very long time, just my own experiences, not even involving the simple fact that in many places including my current one downloading is completely legal and laws are very much OK with that. If I ever wanted to support artists I would send them money directly, there is always a way if one is serious enough.
But rich western kids want to do visible poses on trivialized topics and 'statements' to their peers even though its long term in vain and zero sum game, not wonder about deeper stuff and actually act upon it (with respect to exceptions).
If I hadn't pirated games as a kid, I would not have bought my PS5 or my Nintendo Switch or the Steam Deck. My Steam account has, like everyone else's, a few hundred games now and it's also full of games I once pirated. Funnily enough I haven't played them after purchasing them. But I bought these so I can install them easily. I'm still mad that I cannot find a legal copy of TMNT Out of the Shadows so I have to resort to using piracy for it but that doesn't work on the deck and I need to maintain a Windows PC if I want to play it.
I recently cancelled my Netflix Subscription and bought 6 8TB drives to build a NAS. I haven't gotten around to it yet but I've been downloading a couple of shows I've watched previously and miss, some of which can't be found on OTT in India.
If in 2023 you are telling me I cannot watch something because I am in India or because the production company simply didn't put it on a streaming platform, that gives me impetus to pirate it.
And if you have a show but without either certain episodes for the sake of censorship or if you're missing entire seasons even though it's been a year or more, that is definitely grounds for piracy.
It's even worse with manga and comics. I cannot legally gain access to some manga because they're not sold here and because I can't find them online. Tachiyomi exists and I love it.
Don't even get me started on how ebooks are fleecing us all. I switched to a Boox from a Kindle and I love my decision.
Which is basically what revoking a license to a digital only piece of content is.
Words do matter. I sense possible legal grounds for reimbursments if it wasn't crystal clear to the layman.
Anyway, never buy content you can't crack (make it drm-free) or even better, buy drm-free stuff from the start, but if you really want the best service with the highest quality that has the best portability go ask a pirate, it's been the same since 1600.
I agree entirely (in principle), but this isn't an option for certain platforms like the iOS App Store, or download-only games consoles (and I've been burned myself: most notably by EA removing their older games from the iOS App Store: not just them removing the ability to purchase old games, but even for people who had already paid for them to reinstall them (and who actually saves their IPA files? Is it even possible to install IPA files from a PC now that iTunes is dead?)
This is something that can only be done by law or something - IIRC, the recent pro-consumer legislation coming from the EU doesn't address "getting-to-keep-what-we-paid-for" - I'm hoping they'll get around to that soon, along with getting protections for data-sovereignty: it's kinda shocking how many popular Apps/SaaS services out there still don't let you export your data.
You should believe that Sony is trying to scam you. :-)
https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-your-google-stadia-re...
Although there is probably plenty of others.
> Google is taking the unprecedented step of paying back users for all the games they bought on its cloud gaming platform.
Google _voluntarily_ refunded their customers. It's unheard of and was, frankly, extremely unexpected. Good for Google and good for Stadia customers.
You still own the physical tape itself, and you have a perpetual right to play, copy, and modify the tape as much as you like, for personal use.
Or, at very least stop spreading misinformation.
I'll stop when my rights are respected, promise.
Why not just buy physical media where available, and abstain where an acceptable legal option is not provided?
Even physical media has DRM.
Stop giving companies money when they abuse you. It’s a vote for more abuse.
Even better stop supporting / participating in DRMd walled gardens.
Allowing people to download what they purchased and allowing account transfers to your kids when you pass away should become legal rights.