If buying isn’t owning, then pirating cannot be stealing. These corporations are literally herding people back onto the seas. I need to go get myself a new flag with a skull and bones, since I tied my boat to the pier about fifteen-twenty years ago.
“Pirating” isn’t stealing regardless of anything. It is unsanctioned copying.
And not removing the product from anyone.
I’m stealing this.
Pirating is not and never has been stealing. You do not deprive anyone of anything when you make a copy of something.
Copyright is a dumb as shit system of artificial scarcity and always has been.
Its kinda true. I like to think of gog and gog-games. One is a storefront. One is a clean ui with all the games downloadable for free.
I think many would still use the free one vs paid. Myself, there’s something about owning it.
I pirated doom eternal back in the day. I was enjoying it so much I just bought it instead. 🤷
I get what you’re saying with “copying” vs “stealing”, which is true. But if you could clone your friends car for free you don’t need to buy a car and the business loses a sale.
The business loses a sale of what though? A copy they never created or had possession of in the first place?
If I go home and build a PC, can Dell claim that I deprived them of a sale of a copy of one of their computers?
doom eternal
back in the day
Oofff, I felt that
Yeah me too lol. I’m also old enough to say back in the day for OG doom too…
So sad that gog-games will be shutting down soon. Are there any plans for forks?
That’s the other part of it. How will you pirate when they no longer sell hardware to us?
Their whole idea is for the production of technology to be exclusive to them and their “AI” datacenters. Besides being used to spy on us and everything we do, think, create, and opine - they will force us into walled gardens on locked down tablets and we will use their software they way they intend for the time they allow us, only.
It’s a prison.
No worries we will always have the hardware. It may not look shiny or new, but we can go to scrape yards and another places to find what we need. And we will build our internet. It be true cyberpunk. Hell with 2 dollar saw blade I can gather some materials needed.
That’s just it with most of these services - you never bought 'em. You pay a subscription fee each month to use their service.
That is not buying, nor is it ownership.
I mean that’s fair, an actual subscription is different to buying. Nobody is suggesting you “own” the games you get with PS Plus Premium, or the movies you watch on Netflix.
But if I buy a movie on Amazon Video for £9.99, it should be mine. And when I’m bored of it, or find myself suddenly owing £10,000 to a local gangster due to a hilarious mix-up during a backstreet game of high-stakes poker, I should be able to sell it on to somebody else like I can with a disc.
So presumably the problem here is that DRM in the video is causing it to behave like a subscription rather than a purchase?
It sounds to me like you still only rented it (but I’ve never used amazon video stuff - I did get a movie from apple/iTunes once and that was very clear on the time -based limitations).
I searched amazon video and its quite clearly pitching itself as another shitty subscription service.
I think once again this comes down to false expectations (and possibly shitty marketing?)
Amazon is both a subscription and purchasing platform. There’s no option to download them, only stream. Purchases are not tied to a subscription.
So your complaint is that they use the terms ‘buy’ but it’s basically the same as renting, right?
It’s always been hypocrisy. The media companies only say what part you actually own based whatever is most profitable to them.
Technically, back in the day, when you bought any music wether it be 8-track, LP, cassette, or CD, you were purchasing a single-user license for the music and the media was just how the record companies delivered it to you. That’s why Napster and all the piracy that followed it was/is illegal, because you don’t own a license when you copy the digital file.
HOWEVER… Over the many decades I’ve been alive I’ve scratched, twisted, demagnetized, or just plain old lost hundreds of LPs, cassettes, and CDs. Do you think if I requested a new copy of the music that the record companies would send me a replacement?
No, they would not. So I obtained digital replacements by…other means.
Now that we’re all used to digital copies, suddenly that’s been the important part all along.
Beyond the obvious problem of paying but not owning, it’s impossible to watch/listen without that data being stored on a massive corporation’s server and likely sold to hundreds of advertisers. Last I saw Spotify had over 300 venders they share data with. I’ve seen sites with over 1000.
So you’re not only paying for something you don’t own, but you’re also paying to have a larger profile in the surveillance capitalism machine.
yeah, this is the part that really worries me. Ads are fine IMO, psychological profiling not so much. I used to hear “if you’re not paying, you’re the product,” but now you’re the product even if you are paying.
By the way, are any of the other streaming services better than Spotify for not having your data sold to third parties?
RE “If you’re not paying, you’re the product,” also doesn’t always apply when it comes to not paying EG: Linux and other FOSS products.
Not that I know of, unless self-hosting. I’ve gone back to ripping CDs and sometimes buying DRM-free HQ audio. Probably getting my purchases profiled, but at least I can download it and no one else has to know when, what, & how much I’m listening to.
For easier access I have a Jellyfin server on my home network. I plan to switch to navidrome or similar for a better, dedicated music experience as well as setting up secure access over the internet for me and my friends and family.
Listen, me hearties…
Aarrggh matey!
Gahhh! You two barnacles best be keeping quiet about the high seas, or it’s the plank for yee!!
We are pirates, yar har fiddle me dee
I do, raise the black flag and you can too.
I saved all my DVDs because the pawn/sale price wasnt worth it… So glad I did.
Films are still physical in my home. PC games are only digital, preferably bought at gog so I can download and store them. Music is also digital since I don’t have any cd player. But I will continue to my films as blu ray discs as long as my blu ray player works and the films are released. Well, there needs to be stores that sell the films as well, that looks like the first thing to fall.
I love gog too, but I’m a sucker for classic/retro games. Playing Star Flight atm, forgot how hard these older games are!
I do still have a shit ton of CD’s. I actually forgot about them until you mentioned it. Yet nothing to play them on lol. The rest is .MP3 or ripped from my CD’s
I do have an old whatever the other version of blue ray player was. They were giving them away and they can play DVDs so I grabbed on as that format failed.
Got VHS and a deck, also got an Hi8 deck but thats more for vacation movies\4 wheeling when I was a kid.
I do have a bunch of laser disc’s but never bought a player. I need to as I have all the original Star Wars and others waiting to be played :)
GAH now I remember: “HD DVD”
I have no fear that Amazon will come to my house and remove the books I bought. If they were DRMed ebooks, on the other hand, that would be something to worry about.
I was always more angry about them editing digital publications after the fact. That’s some Grade A “Ministry of Truth” BS right there. Dead Tree Media forever.
I mean, a Kobo + Anna’s Archive also works without dead trees.
Only way I feel I can push back is by also saving it locally 🏴☠️
It’s high time laws protected us from this. Yes, even from High Lord Gaben.
If we buy it, we own it. We can transfer them to other account. Any stores selling stuff must have a plan in place for what happens when the store closes, whether that’s transferring ownership to another store, or something involving making files publicly downloadable…
We got frog boiled in the 2010s to accept renting out media. Me and my sandisk Sansa clip still go for walks listening to mp3s. I wonder if devices like this will see a resurgence under the idea that owning it gives you control of your media.
Its a thing already.
Companies like fiio, shanling etc make old skool style players.
E.g.:
If Amazon sales of “MP3 players” are indicative it’s simmering; I see a handful with over 1-2K sales per month (assuming we can trust those numbers, it is Amazon after all). I imagine it’s going to be a bit muted for a while due to the memory and storage price gouging and that may push more people towards CD’s, which are already seeing a resurgence.
I have an mp3 player that I occasionally use, but much more frequently I’m streaming my music to my phone from my Plex server.
We thought we were signing up for libraries. We forgot the “Public” part of how libraries work.
This hasn’t bothered me at all. I’ve been _Arr_chiving a lot lately.
That’s what I’ve been saying for years. If you’ve bought digital multimedia like movies, TV shows, software, etc from large corpos, you don’t own it and you are at their mercy. Contracts can expire and licenses can be revoked. Corps want you to own nothing and be grateful for them allowing you the privilege of paying them for a product or service they can rescind at any time for any reason, because fuck you, that’s why.
I do! I own CDs and vinyls. I collect mainly CDs because they are smaller and need less storage.
Do you just collect the CDs or do you also play them with a CD player? I feel like it’s not even worth the hassle of getting a system set up to play CDs compared to a record player because the quality won’t be as good.
I’ve got a good couple dozen of CDs I bought over the years when I hadn’t used Spotify yet - moved to self-hosting now - and I was always wondering if I should work on actually playing CDs instead of just burning them
Beyond the “experience”. If you rip the CD into something lossless, it should be audibly the same. Vinyl versus CD. People claim “warmth” difference.
I listen to them on a Sony discman! At the moment I have an old computer speakers with subwoofer, and I don’t care much for the quality. I also use iems which is much better.
The thing I adore is that I pop any cd I like and start cooking without ads. It can be jazz, a funky house cd mix, pop and goes on.
I also have like the feeling of finding hidden gems in record stores. I will spend 2 hours there, searching, doing previews on my phone and then rush home to spin them.\That’s really cool, and I love that you found a new way to enjoy music.
In my case, I just have the CDs in a shelf and don’t ever touch them anymore which is kinda sad. Been thinking about getting a disc drive to digitise the CDs and put the music on my server, but I can get music digitally anyway, so what’s the point is what I’m thinking.
A disc man sounds cool in theory, but in practise I’m not sure I’d like the hassle of changing CDs and using wired headphones. How long did it take you to adjust?
Just to clarify some things: Since Spotify blocked cracked apps, my main goal was to have free music along with my CD collection(which grows slowly). So now days, one day it could be couple CD’s, and the other music from the internet Youtube(FreeTube and NewPiPe), BandCamp, SoundCloud and Qobuz(wink wink). I listen my CD’s at home(sometimes when I commute to work), outside I use my smartphones, which they have MP3’s and HiFi flacc files.
It didn’t took me long, maybe couple months until my collection did actually grow and I would actually listen more frequently.Also regarding hassle changing, it’s less hassle than changing a vinyl! and it has more music in it. 1 hour+.
I would suggest try and see what works best for you! There is nothing wrong ripping and storing them, many people do it. If you end buying a cd player, you could only spin on weekends. It’s up to you! I’m just a romantic guy who likes do stuff the old way, because I don’t really fit on the new world lol.
Thanks for the detailed write-up and the “Qobuz” link - hadn’t heard of that before. Looking forward to them adding API access so I can add the site as an app to my server more easily.
Also I imagine it’s really cool to have that, literal, physical connection to your music. Makes it more tangible and more substantial since you curate what you listen to more so than just via downloads.
I’ll think about what I’ll do with my CDs!
I still buy new and used movies, games, and all sorts of media. I think with vhs, dvd and Blu-ray combined we’re around 1700 now and still growing. I’ve kept a lot of physical games and systems since I was kid so I’ve had a collection for a bit but with movies it started with not being able to watch Young Frankenstein anywhere. No place to rent or watch even though I had like 4-5 services at the time. I bought the dvd for it and 2 days later it was on Amazon. No more lol
I hit up thrift stores to buy movies on disk. I think it’s more than 1200 now.
They get ripped and added to my media server, then I store the disks just in case I need them.
While I don’t condemn anyone for pirating media, my personal ethics don’t allow me to. So, I need to have the purchased, physical copy to keep it on my server.
Last weekend I unpacked them all with a plan to put them in alphabetical order:
Buying used I occasionally get one that’s unplayable. When that happens, I borrow a copy from the library to rip.
OK hear me out though. If you are just purchasing used movies at discount prices, the of creator never gets that money anyway, so pirating has 0 effect on that. However I can understand owning the physical media , and some stuff is getting harder to find torrents of. But I just wanted to make the point.
And if youre buying from artists anyway, everyone is better off if you pirate it then privately send them money as a donation. Or buy from bandcamp.
If you are just purchasing used movies at discount prices, the of creator never gets that money anyway, so pirating has 0 effect on that.
Unless the people before you purchased them rather than pirated, as they also expected re-sale value.
Sure it benefits the reseller, I suppose. But it isnt helping the creator. Not that it matters a whole lot for big box movies
I have similar thoughts on buying media and not use pirating. Where do you stand on pirating films that you see on TV? In the past it was possible to record it and keep it, but today it is often not possible. My personal ethic allows me to pirate a film that I see on a TV channel. I’m more sceptical to pirate 4k or 1080p films for films that I own on dvd, any thoughts on that?
I’m ok with recording a movie or show from TV. That was commonly accepted in the VCR days, so I see no reason it shouldn’t be acceptable today. I have a couple things in my media server that were transferred from a Tivo years ago.
However, I generally prefer to rip movies from DVD or Blu-ray to avoid the breaks, strange edits, and channel logos that get put on broadcasts.
I can only think of one thing I really pirated, and that was Song of the South. The only way to get a copy was Pirate Bay. Disney won’t release it and won’t go after anyone who pirates it, because they want to pretend it doesn’t exist. However, it was an important movie historically for it’s early integration of animation with live action.
The suggestion that slaves freed after the Civil War were happy to remain in a position of subservience to the plantation owners is distasteful to say the least. Apart from that, the writing and acting in the live action sequences is so terrible that it’s not worth keeping. I wanted to see it once, but I discarded it after.
🏴☠️
