Reason studios demonstrates why piracy is completely justified by disabling paid, lifetime licenses

[@hollo0o583]

well, then you don‘t own the money I gave you 15 years ago and didn‘t have the right to spend it and I am fully justified to search for your companies bank acount and transfere the fee, including the price of all the work I put into it to a diffrent account. How does that sound?

[@marcofanti9405]

As Cory Doctorow said in his article today: If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing

[@binaryp69]

I looked up the article and its very good, but what he actually said was 'As Tyler James Hill wrote: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing":' This is like that Micheal Scott Wayne Gretzky bit lol

[@andljoy]

100% right .

[@sylvainfrancoeur5905]

Wow, amasing... no one ever pirated apple so far!!!! :D

[@joizz5932]

@@sylvainfrancoeur5905 yeah they have? Search up a hackintosh

[@FireFox64000000]

The way I see it is if you bought the software it's not piracy.

[@nodajo]

Also, the "we can't delete your personal data, only transfer it to a new license" is a clear violation of GDPR if they have customers in the EU

[@JamesTDG]

You know for a fact they do.

[@docjoesweeney]

@@JamesTDG Report and fine. I will also be asking them to remove my data.

[@JohnThelin]

They're in Sweden, so they're also subject to Swedish data retention laws which at least used to be some of the most restrictive in the EU, rivaled only be Germany AFAIK. GDPR may have superseded this, however.

[@EdgyNumber1]

​@@JohnThelinGDPR sets the baseline level, Sweden can choose to be much stricter if they'd like.

[@GeometricPidgeon]

@@EdgyNumber1 correct, EU law cannot just interfere with national law, EU works very well for setting a good baseline. This is a misconception lots of people have, even those in the EU.

[@danburgs]

"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates." - Gabe Newell, Valve

[@trentvlak]

True, I guess. When it comes to video media, I don't think it's possible to provide something better.

[@dadudeme]

​@@trentvlakbut providing a better service is definitely possible. Make it easy to buy and install and people will pay at least a small amount of money for it.

[@73_65]

@@trentvlak Oh but it is, all it takes is making a streaming service that doesnt screw with people for no reason and if users can download the video, dont add anything to interfere with the user's viewing of the video. The average user doesnt want or need anything particularly fancy, just a service that works reliably, without screwing with them, without making things needlessly complicated, and without being an eye-sore. If KZbin didn't needlessly screw over content creators and viewers for no valid reason, instead focusing on making their platform the best platform it could possibly be, I would actually consider disabling the ad blockers I use since I can't afford to pay for ad free viewing.

[@sfcoawol6273]

from the person that implemented a drm system into their steam api, single handedly destroyed physical media for gaming and makes a family sharing system that is completely useless as an actual game family share. he says one thing and does something completely different and apparently people will still worship the ground he walks on.

[@73_65]

@@sfcoawol6273 On one hand I agree with you, on the other I wonder how much power he really has anymore.

[@Sonicstillpoint83]

He doesn’t sound salty, he sounds like a rational human being.

[@uNiels_Heart]

He may sound salty, but in a very justified way. At least I know I'd be salty, too.

[@Lemendeer]

We are at a point where not being angry is the unreasonable decision. Be angry they Fuck us over at every front.

[@InteriorMirrors]

I recently tried to reinstall my Waves Gold plugins purchased in 2016 only to be told that the product I paid full price for was now under a subscription model and if I wanted to use my plugins I would have to pay for a subscription. Feels shit.

[@TherealTenmanI]

I misread the message due to not reaching that point in the video. I assumed you were sarcastic. I offer my apologies. Now I just think you are wrong.

[@m4rcyonstation93]

​@@TherealTenmanIlmao

[@Snake900]

Modern companies not fucking over the customer challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

[@cookies23z]

hahaha

[@bemusedlist9242]

This is the comment i realized they removed dislikes from youtube comments i use youtube pro

[@CRANEREVIEWS]

@@bemusedlist9242 comments had dislikes?

[@GaffsNotLaffs]

@@bemusedlist9242dislikes on comments have been outright non-functional for over a decade now

[@elevatorz89]

@@CRANEREVIEWSThey did, once upon a time.

[@trustavidity]

If a company can revoke your "purchase," you did not "purchase" it. You rented it with a TBD due date. They should be prohibited from marketing such transactions as you "buying" or "purchasing" and instead be required to label it as a perpetual or conditional rental.

[@username7763]

Purchasing something with the rights to use it at their pleasure is purchasing no rights at all.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@username7763 it's not a purchase

[@irrelevant_noob]

Not perpetual, that was the whole issue. ;-)

[@LRM12o8]

Exactly. "Purchase" or "Buy" should mean permanent ownership always! These software/tech companies need to be held criminally liable for their theft!

[@kaden-sd6vb]

they *technically* do tell you.... just in the form of a 700 page EULA in legalese incomprehensible to the average person. just one of the ways corps ignore/skirt around the law.

[@Stant123]

I don't call it piracy, I call it privateering since it's basically industry sponsored piracy at this point.

[@annelisemeier283]

I like the way you think

[@BQD_Central]

I steal that, that's great :) Sorry, I mean "seize that" for my privateering endevaours.

[@smugfrog8111]

Based. My PC identifies as a Corsair (basically a legal pirate ship, not the brand of PC parts).

[@l979corvette]

I call it preservation lol

[@McDudes]

​@@BQD_Centralprivateering endeavors is now my favorite phrase

[@javaman2883]

"Piracy will continue to exist as long as companies continue to act in anti-consumer garbage ways" I completely agree with that. I've been burned a few times over the years by perpetual licenses that were later expired, features were taken away, or restrcted from normal usage.

[@BritishKingdomtigers.]

Stand up against piracy!!!,piracy is a crime just like bootlegging is a crime!!!!!,never commit piracy!!!!!!!!,I am not pirating stuff anymore!!!,and I am NOT using pirated software anymore

[@BritishKingdomtigers.]

I hate piracy!!!

[@knox7945]

I used to be against piracy. But ever since these companies show their true colors, I am all for it.

[@ReySchultz121]

I'd like to hear your story. Sounds interesting despite my lack of context or understanding of it.

[@knox7945]

@@ReySchultz121 there's not much too say honestly. I just thought that back then, these companies may not care for you, but at least they are willing to produce quality games. That is until recently that these companies are spitting at the fans, the ones who gave them money, time, love, and care for their products, only to be robbed despite paying and somewhat loyal to their business. That is it, pirate them all the way, and those who are with these companies working on their games, prepare for collateral damage. They may not be involved in their business schemes, but they will taste the ire from the consumers as well because anger from the people takes no side but for themselves.

[@leoanpereira]

@@knox7945 what changed? companies have always spitted on their customers. of course, capitalism is always getting worse and worse for us, but i wonder what made you realize there was something wrong.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

Been sailing the high see since the 90's!

[@penguinjay]

They had me broken of piracy, after I was Sailing HARD on the xbox 360 for years, I was buying games for cheap on Steam, and there were only 2 paid streaming services, while hulu was free w ads. Life was good and entertainment quality was too, companies weren't universally scumbags, and it seemed like a fair deal to pay for their content. Now, they couldn't pay me to steal their content, and I don't have a problem not giving money to companies w poor consumer practices even if they put out something I would maybe like, I just pass it over. If there were a piece of content that I actually wanted to watch (1 in 1000), I would be far more inclined to stream it online or pirate it, than pay a subscription or use a free trial. Most companies in the digital age are awful and they are steering the potential customers back toward piracy like it's a race to the bottom. An honest business trying to remain is probably becoming slimier just trying to keep up w all the fuchheads out there.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

Piracy isn't just justified, it's become a moral imperative for preservation.

[@silentlyjudgingyou]

seconded

[@nahtesalinas1917]

*THIS*

[@furiousdestroyah9999]

For real, giving anything to companies is immoral af

[@TheBenSanders]

Piracy of Linux ISOs, right? ;)

[@aj.j5833]

@@TheBenSanders Linux is open source and many UI people now charge for were stolen from those who originally made them to be free to anyone who wanted to download and use them and try to improve it and/or give feed back to those that are how to and where to improve.

[@DominicGreene72]

the problem i have with "do your research" is that I don't know how much research is enough. How do I research the things that I don't even know that I need to research? The only way to even come close to that is to read through every single support page, FAQ, and announcement they've ever made and see what questions it raises, and even then it's not a guarantee that it's enough research, but you'd certainly hope it would be, but that's an absurdly unreasonable ask of the average customer

[@l33tninja1]

At that point they should be paying you lol.

[@kosmosXcannon]

Not to mention they way they word their shit is meant to make it harder to understand.

[@rossmanngroup]

Call me stupid but I didn't realize I had to research that. 1) The product page made no indication of there being arbitrary limitations that would kick me to 720p when upselling me on 4k. 2) I figured 400 mbps downstream, RTX2080, threadripper 2950, NVMe SSD & 32 GB of RAM was enough, because.... 3) every other 4k high bitrate video I've ever played in my life on this machine, even 50-100 mbps+, didn't even make the fans turn on, much less slow it down... you make a good point with not knowing when you have to do research. i would never know to research that because i do not assume that every single person will try to fuck me on every single transaction. living life like a stressed out porcupine is no way to live life. who does that?

[@Nerobyrne]

Also, unless they changed it very recently, this stuff just works in Germany. Funny how when the law requires it, suddenly all these garbage anti-consumer tactics stop being necessary. EDIT: Ah crap I just realized that I never actually bought the 4k upgrade, so that might not apply. But, this kind of change based on region has been very prominent in other types of licensing, for instance in Windows keys. Also, Steam has a special section that doesn't apply within the EU, so my original point still has some merit.

[@AdamB5000]

We all know damn well that everyone who said, "You didn't do enough research," didn't do any research themselves. They just like armchair quarterbacking.

[@nothingtoseehere62357]

I stopped pirating games when I got a job and Steam made buying and updating them easy. Now I'm highly considering restarting piracy thanks to Denuvo and "AAA" publishers. I stopped pirating movies when Netflix became an easy way to watch pretty much everything. Now the movies and shows are on 15 different platforms behind arbitrary geolocking so it's almost as if they're actively trying to get me to start pirating movies and shows again... Almost as if GabeN was right when he said "Piracy is a service issue, not price"

[@rainbowsnek]

honestly i would just stop considering and do it. most AAA slop is definitely NOT worth their price. Jesus christ, starfield is $120 in my country- and it brings literally nothing new, innovative, or interesting to the genre for that extra cost. It actually does LESS than some older $10-20 indie games do- and it even does them worse. that's the same story for most of these "big" games. it's so ridiculous that the prices just keep going up yet somehow the quality keeps going down

[@christopherheathcote7039]

I Agree 1000000000000000%

[@Kurochana]

Oh man when you mentioned Denuvo it brought back some cursed memories to mind. I had bought Monster Hunter Rise back when it first came out and had to deal with a slew of issues like freezing frames, crashing, losing save files... the whole 9 yards as they would say. When the DLC expansion "Sunbreak" came out, I wisened up and pirated the game instead, it runs like a dream and runs much better because it doesn't have anti-piracy built in. A little long winded, maybe no one cares but whatever, similar thing with Armored Core 6 (and maybe Elden Ring). I have access to both of these titles legitimately on steam, decided to download AC6 via steam and ER via the high seas. ER runs great, smooth, I don't get full 60 fps all the time but that's on my hardware spec, don't remember any crashes or frozen frames. AC6? sometimes it ran okay, sometimes I froze for 4s or so every 10s or so. I turned off EAC by spoofing the .exe, which bricks online play but that is irrelevant to me. Turning off EAC increased the stability by a magnitude, but I still get frozen frames once in a while. If I didn't have limited monthly data due to my current irl situation, I would definitely pirate it instead for a superior product.

[@Sleepy_Sleepy]

​@@Kurochana luckily it's pretty easy to disable ER anti-piracy software. In the game's executable folder rename the "start_protected_game" application, then make a copy of the Elden Ring exe and rename it to "start_protected_game". You won't get multiplayer, sadly, but it's still useful nonetheless

[@sean8102]

Couldn't agree more about the movie and shows things. The $10 a month for the VPN service I use WAY more than pays for its self every month.

[@tonyoallie]

This is why Open source software like Blender, Gimp and other tools are very important. They allow you to keep your rights and you can continue to use the software.

[@davidaustin5622]

This is why the EU is moving on regulation (Cyber Resilience Act). First regard free software as a paid product. Next comes tax or mandatory expense forcing free software to become paid content. Brace for it.

[@feral_orc]

@@davidaustin5622 that'd be pretty scary if you weren't just making up everything you said about it lol

[@jugganutz]

Agree. But many open source project goals are to go commercial. Or you have other screwy scenarios where someone wants to use the open source community for free developers. Or you have other mega corps fork and steal open source like cloud providers do. But at the heart it is super important for sure.

[@Debilinside]

@@davidaustin5622 You are pulling bs out of your backside.

[@DJRYGAR1]

Years ago, in Poland, tax office was fining companies for using free software, and they explained that free software is tax avoidance scheme. Because if you bought Windows instead of installing Linux, you would pay VAT. So installing Linux is tax avoidance. True story.

[@NikolaNevenov86]

As someone who lived on the high seas for years when I was young, it was a badge of honor when I was finally able to buy the stuff I used. Now a days I wonder if it's a badge of honor or a badge of shame...

[@silentlyjudgingyou]

Agreed I was so happy when I could start paying for what I wanted now it's back to the high seas because that way is safer.

[@furiousdestroyah9999]

You guys are making me not look forward to the days I can set foot outside my ship 😂

[@Moe_Posting_Chad]

@@furiousdestroyah9999 Fuck that. Don't. Deny the system every bit of the money you can deny them. It hurts them in ways you can not comprehend. Yeah it really is as simple as washing your car yourself instead of going to the car wash. Deny every transaction possible.

[@curious2882]

Yep this is it. When I got my life together and started buying videogames I was really proud of my game library. I even bought every game I had pirated in the past because I thought "I enjoyed this game so I should give the money even if I wont play it again" which was the morally correct thing to do. I was proud to have enough money to finally support what I loved. Now? Lmao. If your game doesn't have a demo I am going to find my own demo. If your game has anti-consumer anti-piracy I'm not playing it. I won'tgive my money to these scumbags unless I know exactly what I am buying because they abused my trust and my moral compass. There is no punishment for falsely advertising videogames. Exaggeration aka LYING is not illegal. I can't trust them with my money until after I've seen what they have to offer and it's their fault.

[@leonro]

As a fellow notorious navigator of the high seas, I just pirate things that I would feel screwed over if I were to purchase. If I feel bad for using software for free, I will buy it.

[@potaterjim]

The best part is, DRM doesn't hurt pirates. It _only_ hurts honest, paying customers, aka suckers. They're not trying to protect themselves from pirates, they're just trying to scare regular customers and keep them in line.

[@Have_some_plasma]

Yes, because pirates have enough experience of dealing with DRM (usually deactivating/removing it) to just deal with it once, upload it onto the high seas and now everyone can use it freely meanwhile the actual... target demographic is stuck with this pos software that only slows your PC.

[@handlethisD69style]

Funny enough, that same argument can go for gun rights, but people really think making laws to restrict your right to defend yourself/owning a gun, that'll suddenly stop the criminals from shooting you in a land where 550 million guns are laying around somewhere. it *only* hurts, honest, law abiding citizens that believe cops can show up at your house under 10 minutes, aka suckers.

[@darrenmn]

Not really true, I used to pirate things years ago until DRM made ot a bit more annoying to work around so I stopped. Maybe I’m an outlier but if it was just there and free and easy to get, maybe I wouldn’t pay.

[@PompaTG]

@@midgame6418 and conversely, I have pirated games only to buy them afterwards because I loved them.

[@Linguae_Music]

@@midgame6418 I bought a guitar amp simulation from Aurora DSP... and after buying it i found out that it only works when connected to the internet... and at the time i only had 5gigs of mobile hotspot per month xD So i immediately went and got the pirated version like 10 minutes after i bought the real one lmao

[@Milkman76]

Glad to see you cover this. A decade ago, at the start of the chromecast/fire stick/apple TV wars, Intel and Microsoft worked together to force AFTER MARKET, post production changes into compatible motherhoard BIOS, which had the immediate effect of blocking any 4k+HDR content from running normally on your desktop computer, even if you had paid for a premium PowerDVD license. This was related to Intel Secure Guard Extensions, or SGX, and brought 'enclave' computing to DESKTOPS and destroyed the ability of the vast majority of people to play their UHD content, streamed or from disk, on their PCs. You know, to protect the big brands from us knowing what exactly they were doing in that secure compute space. Since then, TPMs and etc are all the rage on all modern motherboards, streaming video looks like shit INTENTIONALLY and was a long game played on us, and then at the same time any GPU that could do 4k was suddenly up-priced as a premium product even though the tech was over 10 years old in 2017. Cut to today-- companies are talking about ending physical media. The country of Australia is going to be the first western country where NO PHYSICAL MEDIA is sold. Consider this, as we suffer under a late stage economy that is trying to take more and more from us nearly every day. And this has had what effect on piracy?? Zero. In fact it helped certain piracy workflows, as SGX was broken a month after it was released, but those corporate tech companies don't care.

[@fluffskunk]

I wouldn't call it "disregard" for the customer, I'd call it "contempt." There's very much an attitude of "We know you have the money because you bought it once, but you haven't given us MORE (haven't tipped us!) to continue using the product you paid for in full, so we hate you more than the pirates who never gave us money in the first place." Rent seeking economy.

[@jonibravo9004]

« Your last purchase from us was in 2011. As such we consider that you’re not worth respect. You peasant. »

[@kacperkonieczny7333]

That explains some things. The American tipping culture for me is an anathema

[@Fakeslimshady]

Even tips are a one time transaction. This is squeezing revenue.

[@Silvreina]

Yeah, that is why they want to make everything into a subscription. It's what they've been doing to the housing market, forcing millions to be renters so that they can be plundered of their hard-earned money for literal decades. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, and the companies know what they're doing here.

[@wolf1066]

They don't say "If your system is compatible with what we demand from you, you could pay extra to get 4K" they say "pay this much to get 4K". If you pay that and *_don't_* get 4K, they lied to you. No ifs, buts or maybes.

[@TheyCallMeIce]

Weeeeell, they PROBABLY did put some legal jargon on page 103 of their EULA. Are you going to check it before you watch a show? They know you won't. That's why I've said it once and I'll say it as many times as it takes; information on the ""purchase""/signup/subscription page being contradictory to the EULA info should be illegal. One's only there to deceive, and the other's only to excuse their nonsense. I honestly very much agree with Louise when he calls these types of mentalities "rapist mentalities", because that's the same exact line of thinking; that you're entitled to do whatever you want to a person, and they shouldn't be able to object.

[@wolf1066]

@@TheyCallMeIce That'd be the EULA written in ALL CAPS with no paragraph indents and couched in overly wordy terms that's designed to be harder to read than a Tolstoy novel, right? "Rapist mentalities" is a good term. Seems like it applies equally to landlords and politicians.

[@occamraiser]

and you deserve your money back. It is not blanket permission to steal from everyone including me!

[@wolf1066]

@@occamraiser Where did I say "therefore steal from people"? Stop putting words in other people's mouths. Since when did I steal from you, for that matter? Sounds to me like you've got a bit of a bee in your bonnet. Is it because you routinely rip people off and are feeling a bit "targetted" by this thread?

[@delphicdescant]

@@occamraiser Torrenting movies is not theft. The law recognizes this clearly. Nothing is being taken from anyone. There is no such thing as "a potential sale." Nobody owns or has any right to "a potential sale." Stop shilling for corpos. They don't consider you human. They look at you the same way you look at firewood.

[@VigilanceTech]

At my first software job, my boss said "make it too cheap to steal!" In other words, provide such good documentation and support that the CHEAPEST way to own it was to pay for it.

[@marckyle5895]

Yep, looking thru BBSs and later USENET for a warez copy of a game which included the users manual with the passcodes printed on random pages (during the dialup era) and then printing out that manual VS just buying the thing for $9.99 or $14.99. No brainer. I still have 'Myst' somewhere in a box.

[@Ghost101]

Smart boss.

[@Roxor128]

Sounds like your boss was cut from the same cloth as Gabe Newell of Valve.

[@raizan5946]

I want to understand this. But that didn't make sense to me, what does that actually mean?

[@a9ball1]

This is true. I was a pirate decades ago and the main reason why us pirates would buy it is to get the manual! I myself purchased software that I had a pirated copy of to get the manual. But after I bought a legit copy I used the pirate version because it loaded faster, because it didn't have all the copyright protection in it. Many pirates I knew did the same thing in using the copy instead of the original.

[@fred40587]

This happened at my old job. A 2015 version of 5 axis cam software had its activation ability removed. It cost $13,000.

[@MP-qn1jw]

Sue the bastards!! A few hundred is one thing, but $13k? You could put out 2 hits on the CEO for that money.

[@xninja2369]

WTF that costed more then our old house which we sold 🤐

[@isthisnametaken978]

If these companies don't respect our right of ownership, why should we respect theirs?

[@caffeinesippingman]

Sounds like farmer talk to me. Keep them seeds alive.

[@aiodensghost8645]

Exactly why I don't respect them

[@vendetta.02]

​@@caffeinesippingmani keep em seeds alive and thriving! my my i always make sure they are fed quite well!

[@TurboLoveTrain]

It's not that they don't respect your right of ownership: they don't respect YOU and never have. People are just now noticing what was always true.

[@jiaan100]

They don't own ideas. Nobody does.

[@armorclasshero2103]

I suspect they're gonna find out that perpetual liscences are legally enforceable. Also, failure to delete personal information when requested is a felony.

[@Charles.Foster.Offdensen]

exactly this. contracts go both ways. seems companies just keep thinking they can get away with pulling ridiculous illegal shit like this and people put up with it.

[@alexanderleonardi3625]

the law doesnt decide the law. the rich do.

[@armorclasshero2103]

@@alexanderleonardi3625 patently false. Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman Fried fafo'd. Any attempt to attack contract law would result in mutually assured destruction.

[@CVE42287]

​@@alexanderleonardi3625No they don't, but you're probably not going to come out on top without money of your own

[@WillockFlame]

​@@CVE42287class action

[@LocalAitch]

Cracking and pirating software is now more important than ever. It's not about "getting free shit", it's about putting the screws to the companies that steal from their customers.

[@_P_M_]

Bullshit. Piracy has always been about getting free shit. And onerous copy protection is a pain in everyone's ass because if they don't use it people will just steel it. So the problem is not the evil companies trying to get an ROI but pirates who crack software and redistribute it for kicks. Let one of them go work their ass off at a real job for free and see how they feel about piracy.

[@7graylands]

Years ago I bought a copy of Gigasampler for the studio. For whatever reason I could never install the copy I bought. It would install, but there was something wonkey with the registration of it. Their support system was a joke and we couldn't get it working. I couldn't return it because of course I'd already opened it. Even though I paid full price (around $600 at the time) I had to resort to downloading a cracked version. Now, before I buy a piece of software that requires online registration, I see if it's something I can download with a crack. If I can, then I'm more inclined to buy that software and download the crack as a backup. The cracked version gives me freedom the software company can't guarantee.

[@Dave102693]

So much of those cracks are filled with all types of malware

[@LocalAitch]

@@Dave102693 far fewer of them are than the anti-piracy crowd likes to say. I've been pirating most of my life and I have gotten exactly one virus back in the Windows 95/98 days (KakWorm).

[@thewallsspeaktome3507]

@@Dave102693 I've been pirating for years and have barely ever run into malware. Just find proper trackers and always scan your downloads. This is downloading 101.

[@jugganutz]

As I've been on the side of perpetual software that quit working I agree with you. However perpetual software is slowly becoming less of a thing due to "shareholder value" that is in favor of forever subscriptions, which I freaking hate.

[@DKboy001]

I'm reminded of Valve's approach with Steam by making it easier than piracy. Gabe himself said that piracy is almost always a service problem, not a price problem.

[@username7763]

Yet I've moved 100% over to GoG. No DRM is always more valuable than DRM software.

[@ThatAnnoyingGuyOnTheInternet]

Speaking of Steam, any news about them ending Windows 7 support in 2024? Will they provide a way to access our library? Will they provide a way to play older games on newer operating systems? Is there some kind of open source solution/alternative?

[@ZakMon1]

what happpen when gabe steps down. i have very little games on steam i don’t trust that drm infested platform

[@FluffySylveonBoi]

It is a service problem. I don't like steam and never did, so yes there you go, I would rather go to GoG or pirate than use that shit.

[@ordinaryhuman5645]

@@ThatAnnoyingGuyOnTheInternetAnyone who still insists on using Windows 7 instead of upgrading to a supported version or switching to Linux has had a very long time to make offline backups on their own hard drives for offline Windows 7 use. Linux often handles older games better than newer versions of Windows... and that is probably even better now that Steam has developed Proton. And when they decide to ditch Windows 7 and use a supported operating system, their Steam library will still be there for them to use. There's no open source solution that I'm aware of. The alternatives to just using Steam like a normal person with a supported OS are (1) acquiring the games from Steam before it's too late and storing them yourself, or (2) acquiring the games from some other source (e.g. sailing the seven seas). More generally, I want to point out that it's silly to expect a 3rd party company to continue to support an OS long abandoned by the company that produced it, especially when they're continually updating their own products in ways that cannot be backwards compatible with the long abandoned OS. I do website work, and at some point I decided it wasn't worthwhile to care about making sure that websites worked on the default Windows XP browser or Windows 7 browser that basically no one uses anymore. So I stopped supporting them. If someone insists on trying to make it work, that's on them.

[@Zanthum]

It amazes me to no end that companies have reversed course on this so fast. Things were getting better in 2010ish as far as less motivation to pirate. Now, they are almost forcing their would be customers to because they refuse to make a functional product with the advertized features for a reasonable price

[@DUKEzors]

At the risk of sounding conspiratorial, WEF.

[@bottlethrower1544]

What happened to Disney that rendered them unable to great product also happened to Big Tech

[@zombiecat7799]

Similar situation with PC games - even couple of years ago people in third world countries had lower prices, called "regional prices", that were more or less tied to зurchasing power parity. And that, in addition with user-friendly interface of Steam, helped to promote actually buying games, in a countries with widespread piracy. Nowadays, for example, game costs in Steam 70 USD for US, and 60 USD for Ukraine - I mean, realistically, even before the war, economical situation in such eastern-Europe country was not only 15% worse than in US. Next thing you know, corporations will start to lobby even more surveillance to track piracy, and harsher penalties for pirating digital products.

[@laserak9887]

Streaming is a prime example. It used to be an upgrade to cable. Now it's worse.

[@Moe_Posting_Chad]

Its very easy. In 2010 they moved too fast thinking everyone was incompetent and stupid. Now. They know this is the case. So now, they push again.

[@the48thronin97]

I think the biggest grift of our time is the people that decided digital products should be treated any differently than physical products, especially when those digital products are duplicating physical products.

[@DelightfullyMADD]

You shall own nothing and be happy you mindless sheep! Now get back in your pod and eat your bugs... vote for me~ 😉

[@thealgerian3285]

It's actually that it should be treated both differently or no differently, depending on which one benefits the big companies that profit from either type of narrative. For instance, piracy is stealing, just like it would be for a physical product.

[@realityshotgun]

Well now physical products are being treated the same as services, things will stop working if you don't subscribe. That's 1000x worse.

[@endxofxeternity]

@@realityshotgunyeah HP is batshit crazy

[@blackdandelion5549]

Oh, I still have CD's of products I have bought from video games to software and no one has ever come to take them away from me and I OWN them. It should be the same when I can simply download the product from online and if I PURCHASED IT then it is MINE. Companies should stay the frick out of my house because invading my computer or Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo/Etc. is no different than coming into my home and stealing from me. If not then be clear that I am Leasing or Renting this software from the company and I will have an informed decision on whether I pay for such a thing. Informed Consent*

[@metronohm808_6]

I am a reason owner and did love it, but now I've changed my mind! - Louis, I am absolutely amazed that you continue to speak for so many people on so many important points on so many topics. We need more people like you.

[@adaire451]

I'm a music producer who has seriously considered getting Reason when I had the money. I really liked the idea of their rack working in other DAWs. I would have bought the full version and everything. If you're hearing this Reason, your response to that one customer's lost you at least $500 in sales. Could have upgraded that person to Reason 8 for pennies, but now it's costing you more (but you probably already know that).

[@radimvybiral105]

I will fix the last line for you and use their words here: "although I suspect you likely realise this". lol

[@adaire451]

@@radimvybiral105 Haha fair. I should I relooked at that part of the video

[@okachobired5856]

I pay a little over $20 a month for Reason plus and I'd recommend that to most people. That guy needed to upgrade to save himself the hassle. I've also been a Reason user for the past 20 years.

[@mr_sn4k3s]

@@okachobired5856 nope he will rightly pirate the software he is owed, even if it was discovered he pirated it, he would not be liable to pay for the software again in a court of law

[@raifthemad]

@@okachobired5856 You are the exact kind of sheep that makes companies act like this, because they know that they'll get away with it.

[@KurtHugoSchneider]

As a music producer who works on a 10+ year old desktop, I relate so much to this video... you are so right about the crazy number of music producers who work on old setups with very old versions of software

[@MrElemonator]

Music producer who presses buttons? The real music producer is the conductor of the symphony.

[@ToyKeeper]

I ended up buying an Akai Force so that I wouldn't have to deal with a computer at all for music purposes. It was a small price to pay to keep all those headaches away.

[@jpennel25]

@@MrElemonatorNo one listens to that genre

[@xxkichaxx636]

​@@jpennel25you'll be very very surprised 😂. Go check prices and booked out places for many many classical concerts. Even famous Hans Zimmer, which music you listen in very big movies is so called modern classical music. Anyway, go educate yourself, not everyone listens to pop, or maybe poop music

[@AyoKeito]

Same on TV

[@Malinoric]

I've been proud for years of the fact that none of the content I consume was pirated... That ended with e-books, when I realized I had to purchase books multiple times to read them on both pc and e-reader. That ended with old tv series, when some of my favourite classic shows were completely unavailable to purchase. That ended with games, when Ubisoft and EA both forbade me installing and playing the games I paid for. At this point, I'm beginning to question why anyone is willing to give these companies money anymore. I used to feel ashamed that I couldn't afford to pay for content when I was younger. Now, I'm hesitant to purchase anything for the fear that some faceless corporation is going to change the terms and take away the content I paid for. The "you will own nothing and be happy" culture needed to die 10 years ago. Looking back at the old classic piracy commercial, "You wouldn't steal a car" ...Yes, I absolutely would pirate the software in a car at this point.

[@NaoyaYami]

I feel like you've read my past as well. I guess there are many like us. Nowadays I've bought plenty of those old games I used to pirate when I was a poor kid. Sure, many of them are listed as unplayed or with just few minutes of playtime, but that's okay. I feel satisfaction about finally being able to pay back (even a bit) for stuff that I enjoyed in the past, while at the same time voting with my wallet for good old games (in contrast to modern shovelware marketed as AAA games)

[@nerdicusdorkum2923]

Not only would I be more then fine copy and pasting a brand new car, but I would even go so far out of my way as to willing to PAY A PIRATE to proceed to gut out all of that damned DRM spyware crap. Only input my car should ever be receiving is me physically touching stuff, and radio stations. On the other end, no one outside my vehicle should receive any data output. Same for all the anime pirate sites I actually use. If I could legally pay them, I would gladly give them $20 a month for no exclusivity contract bullshit, an actual halfway decent job at translation, unlike some of the crap 'localizers' have been pulling, and when possible, no censorship.

[@ABaumstumpf]

I got an e-reader - and hardly ever use it. i got a decent collection of books and thought it would be more convenient to have them digitally - always available on a single small device. Turns out that the digital copies of the books cost just the same as the actual physical book, yet i would be limited on the device i could read it on. And as if that wasn't bad enough for some of the series they only had a few of the books and several entries missing, for others they just removed the older books from the digital store. Like WTF is wrong with you guys? Digital books are like the absolute best goldmine they could have: Charge as much money as for physical books but they don't need to print anything, no need for storage-space, they don't have to pay staff to sell the book, they don't need to even bother with a store. And yet they make it such a worthless experience that i rather go to the next book-store and order the book cause there i know i will have it in a few days and then that book is mine for as long as i want, i can lend it to others or, if nothing else, use it to light a fire.

[@Wrublos212]

​@ABaumstumpf All the big companies love to talk about their ecological approach like "we are saving planet, not cutting the trees" etc. Then they make customer to actually choose physical book which need to be manufactured, stored, delivered and generating carbon footprint.

[@mcul3474]

​@@ABaumstumpfDRM your ebook. Problem solved.

[@sadarax4405]

"I don't do research when I'm paying you for a service." --> Perfect summary.

[@DJUwU]

What if the thing you are trying to do requires a piece of software like Reason...and a perfectly working software no longer works because of an update? Also...if anyone is willing to find all the Reason's customers and do a class action law suit...its likely Reason would lose big time...but since not a lot of people are affected...its hard to get all the customers of Reason7 together in one courtroom...and thats what they are relying on. They are breaching a contract...but no one will sue because the court costs would be higher than the worth of the product...

[@DJUwU]

That is unless...somehow...a sizable portion of the Reason 7 users get together in court...and do a class action law suit...and pool their money and time together to go against Reason and their corporate lawyers...but yeah...sadly won't happen due to reasons I stated in the previous comment...

[@tito9107]

Not really...

[@kylearane]

He wasn't being salty. Back in 1992 I bought small plotter from Canon for printing on C size (17x22) paper. It cost $1,000. I couldn't get it to print on 4 1/2" of the paper no matter what I tried. Contacted Canon for an updated driver and was told it was a mechanical issue and there was nothing that could be done. They claimed that they hadn't lied, that it would plot on that sheet size, but that they never said you could plot on the entire sheet. They wouldn't take it back, so ever since then anyone who's asked about printers, plotters, cameras, etc. I've warned to stay away from Canon. Maybe they've changed; maybe they haven't. I don't care. I don't support liars and thieves once they've shown their true colors.

[@Vinni-2K]

also stay away from hp i own an epson ecotank now its been perfect for now

[@drachefly]

He was justifiaby salty?

[@eggman9713]

I've worked as an engineer for over 15 years, using various AutoDesk products. AutoCAD being one of them. I started learning AutoCAD in high school back in 2001. Over 20 years I've been using this software. It is extremely expensive, it costs my employer many thousands of dollars per year to license. And in those over 20 years I've been using AutoCAD, I can count on one hand the number of new features that they have added that I actually care about. I could use an old version from 20 years ago, from the high seas, and have a very similar experience to the current versions we have today. They don't justify the many thousands of dollars their product costs, and keep putting out new versions and retiring old versions so they won't work anymore. Therefore piracy is completely justified.

[@prezlamen7906]

You forgot to mention just how much better pirated autodesk product work than legit ones.

[@isadora-6th]

You forgot to mention, that gpu capable of 2k 90fps Doom Ethernal (1050ti mobile) is somehow not enough to draw lines without lag between inputs before setting it as "basic" in settings (AutoCAD 2019 and later).

[@emily1]

I’ve always found those companies funny. Adobe and all else, especially the 3d modelling market like maya and sketchup costing loads for a license. I’ve found maya easier than crap like Blender though so, still wouldn’t pay whack for it when I make nothing back from what I do.

[@Cypher321]

SolidWorks and Dassault is more or less the same thing. I was using SolidWorks 2011 recently and realized pretty quickly that the companies I've worked for have been paying thousands upon thousands for patches and MAYBE a single expansion pack for at least the past 15 years when it comes to SolidWorks.

[@TheExileFox]

AutoCAD 2023 still ships the fbx exporter that is practically useless. Why it's not getting swapped out for the good one, I have no idea, but it means that we have to use worse formats for converting old files into a format that can be processed by Blender.

[@thesilentobserver93]

Being a Linux desktop user makes me a masochist? That explains a few things.

[@rossmanngroup]

Masochist for 20 years now.

[@harriet-x.x]

17 years i have been one then 😅😶

[@4crafters597]

Customising Plasma only to rely on a buggy tool from years ago that is discontinued for a year now kinda does seem like masochism

[@callisoncaffrey]

You're all children until you switch to OpenBSD. Then you will experience real pain.

[@eyesofnova]

Manjaro Plasma. I love it and find my experience to be better than on Windows 10 and 11.

[@anthonygranziol7957]

For context, forrmer telephone service CSR here. Do you remember when 5G came along and 3G was mothballed? I do, because I worked with customers who had to upgrade from the older phones to newer ones. Most common complaint? "I bought a new phone like I was supposed to and now I can't use my phone because I can't get service." My employer's answer to this? We cannot guarantee service due to the transitioning nature of the network. Please stand by while we try to improve things. Paraphrased: "Sucks ta suck, pal! Keep payin' for the service ya can't use and maybe it'll get better someday!" It's why so many sellers of goods want to change to service providers; they get an ongoing revenue stream instead of ebbing and flowing sales coupled with the ability to change things as they want to improve their experience, not that of their customers.

[@alexandercatterson223]

That's funny because in my country we still have 3G. We have 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G we never got rid of the old networks. Basically it means that I can grab a phone from 09 and it'll still connect and work because quite frankly my country is just better. *On most things but in what I say next they made a massive blunder* Sure it has some downsides (all countries do) like letting in vastly too many foreigners literally overflowing the country and screwing up the housing market because "muh refugees need housing" but just nevermind the homeless or the poor that need bigger homes because they'll be a family of 5 living in a 2 bedroom house or flat.

[@ghostsquadme]

This is not an entirely accurate analogy. I could go into some technical details about how wireless technology works, bandwidth limitations, radio frequencies, etc. The point is, hardware != software. Hardware, once shipped, has all the capabilities (and limitations) it started with. When there's 2 different parties interacting with each other, e.g. a phone and a radio tower, they both need to share the same capabilities. Sometimes (many times), it's either very expensive or technically impossible to support multiple capabilities at once. It's also beneficial as a society to continue to march forward. Now, with all that said, could companies have special promotions to help subsidize the cost of upgrading a phone? Yes, the can, and many times do that very thing. Though, I also don't like the bait & switch tactics that companies use.

[@PKirkham1]

Back in the day, I never understood why someone would dedicate so much time and effort into pirating software only to provide it for free to anyone who wanted to use it, I now know why. When companies are willing to behave so poorly to consumers that they are willing to dedicate huge amounts of time and effort just to give them the middle finger, how can they complain when people pirate it?

[@re_negado]

All hail Ocean of Games and Get Into PC.

[@niemand7811]

With today's gloabl networks it is easy to lose sight on all your programms running online. You may have even updated anything to version 3.0 when an idiot calls in and wants his outdated 2.0 version reactivated instead of it being updated. Yeah that is a thing to. People hate updates somuch they want to use their current programms foran eternity and then cry foul when the software can't be reactivated anymore. "Oh if I can't get my win OS 3.1 from 1990 to work properly anymore I guess it is justified to pirate this new Windows 11 instead."

[@theunknowman12]

@@niemand7811 well when the updated version really sucks and very inconvenient to use (*cough* abode *cough*) its no suprise why some people would not update the software

[@talesofgore9424]

Yeah literally no one is making that argument.@@niemand7811

[@joooja]

​@@niemand7811update =/= better. Tech companies focus on acquiring customers first, then monetizing/milking their product. That involves making the user experience worse, either by forcing ads, in-app purchases or switching to a subscription model. It's just common sense to download the earlier versions that haven't been handicapped. You only need an update if it has online connectivity when you use it to avoid viruses.

[@WBCHelpSaint]

Had this exact experience when working for a school district and Adobe turned off activation servers for older products. The school paid for licenses, but it couldnt activate anymore because they were pushing cloud. So yup, I reached out to Adobe and got basically this same response. I wrote them back and ended the email with "And you wonder why people pirate your software"

[@jamesphillips2285]

I would suggest teaching students how to use Free Open Source Software instead. Used to be that companies loved it if schools used their software. When I was in post-secondary I had access to free "student" versions of software if I was interested. I opted not to use it: Because I was not entirely sure I did not want to start a business based on one of my projects (was for "educational use only").

[@docjoesweeney]

This is EXACTLY why I ported all of my Adobe files over to Affinity and Open Source tools. There ARE alternatives, if you are prepared to look for them.

[@theunknowman12]

@@jamesphillips2285 or just teach the student on how to pirate. No joke my high school teacher straight up just tell us to download the "free" version or copy it from his flashdisk

[@overseastom]

​@@jamesphillips2285maybe teach them how to pirate stuff too :P It's helpful to know what links are likely to be malware, and what are the real deal, and how to apply crackz. Hell, even opening the nfo for the instructions is often confusing for people, since by default Windows DOESN'T use notepad for it, but the system info app iirc.

[@ALmaN11223344]

@@jamesphillips2285 You shouldn't need to watch bootleg Finding Nemo when Pixar decides to break into everyone's homes (metaphorically) and take back the version of Finding Nemo they paid for. FOSS is great, but it doesn't replace high end software that is used almost universally in creative industries.

[@larrymcardle]

Thanks to your platform, I went from someone who never heard of Reason software yesterday to someone who will never purchase Reason software today. It doesn't really matter if I ever would have been in their market - due to their malfeasance, I will actively discourage anyone from considering them in the future.

[@OfficialDJSoru]

Truth be told, point them in the direction of any other DAW. It can be Cubase, Logic, Ableton, FL Studio, Reaper, LMMS, any of those. They have far more sensible workflows than Reason

[@AiMR]

@@OfficialDJSoru I abandoned Reason a long time ago when I put on my big boy pants and got Cubase. Now I use Reaper and it is worth every cent.

[@stephaniefairey8633]

I do this with Volkswagen. People - don't buy one. They're lying manipulative schemers that prefer to prioritise money over human health.

[@MaddieM4]

I'm a lifelong Renoise girl. When Louis talks about people with a stable setup that lets them be in the zone, me and Renoise qualify. It's an excellent modern tracker with an extremely generous demo version. You can make amazing things with it. It's not everyone's cup of tea - I like to say, tongue in cheek, that it's music software by and for people with autism. But I think it deserves a hat in the ring if you're shopping around.

[@mattshelton7423]

Yup! I’ve heard Reason recommended once or twice, didn’t say anything because I didn’t know anything about them. Now I’ll be sure to step in and actively discourage them if it ever comes back up.

[@solanumtuberosa]

Me as a child: I'll stop pirating when I earn. Guess I was ahead of the curve back then.

[@TheZerocrossings]

I've worked in large studios. Keeping the studio computers offline is an extremely common practice. Primarily to stop artists work from being hacked, but also for consistency. It only takes one instance of having a group of musicians have to wait (on time they paid for) for a windows update to realize that offline is truly superior. Wanting offline authorization for DAWs is not a tiny use case in the industry.

[@BaddBadger]

I'm just an amateur producer, but I am already finding this out. If anything it's nice to have my thoughts confirmed by someone more advanced so I know I'm not just being stupid.

[@Abakato]

If a studio is charging you while you wait for a software or system update, ask for your money back and leave.

[@James-eg3nf]

I own a studio and do production and audio engineering as well, and this is absolutely critical. I don’t personally keep my systems offline, but I very rarely update them because things tend to break. A friend who also runs a studio maintains completely offline systems as his hardware is at least 15 years old.

[@aonodensetsu]

​@@Abakatoyou work somewhere, your pc is getting a windows update, you're still *at work* and get paid

[@USSRDragon]

Just had a HMI try to update itself on a Robotic palletizer at where I work this week, because its now running Windows 10. Just what?! Why is the HMI running a full W10 install, its always been Corporate Embedded, because HMIs are almost never attached to the internet, just either machine locals, or plant intranet. Just absolutely insane…

[@belgiumball2308]

Obligatory reminder that pirating adobe software is a moral obligation Edit: Changed to moral obligation

[@SotiCoto]

I just learned to use GIMP. I got so sick and tired of jumping through all the hoops to use paid paint software like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop that I decided I'd just give GIMP a try. And while it isn't AS good, the differences seem to be shrinking all the time.

[@MaticTheProto]

Bro with how much they charge it’s the only option 💀

[@belgiumball2308]

@@MaticTheProto Yeah, exactly

[@orangeboi4082]

Nah it’s a moral virtue to pirate adobe software

[@knightsonofjack]

They wouldn't let me cancel without talking to customer service for 2 hours, they kept gaslighting me about stuff and would btw let me cancel

[@cavedon.felipe]

Back then, subscription services and digital licenses were the answer against piracy as it would allow people to have access, updates and stuff easier than calling some reseller or going to a retailer. Piracy could have been about getting stuff for free and I understand that. But now, pirated content is more reliable than the actual stuff and this is FAR from getting for free.

[@Dragoonsoul7878]

It never was about getting it for free, it took more time and effort to pirate then just buying it. Region locked games was a big part of this, many games are released in country X and never come to country Y. The only option was to pirate as buy the console and other things wouldn't be compatible with your devices paying 1,000s to get something that costs less then 100.

[@ScottFioreAP]

⁠@@Dragoonsoul7878took a lot more time and effort so not a convenience thing, music and movies were the most downloaded so wasn’t about location based games, I feel like we could process of elimination this thing down to it being about not having to pay any money…

[@ABaumstumpf]

​@@ScottFioreAP "music and movies were the most downloaded so wasn’t about location based games" And that changes nothing cause movies often were altered or censored in other countries and as many studies had shown: People would then later still go and pay for the original but due to pirating earlier the knew if it was worth it and ended up recommending it to others.

[@jc_art_]

Something else thats dumb about it all is that internet based content has theoretically infinite supply, unlike books or dvds in a library, yet that infinite supply is limited by those who sell it. They dont gain anything by giving you unlimited access to something for free, nor do they lose anything. They always will have more supply to replace the stuff they gave to you. The only reason they dont give us everything for free is that they want money, but no one is going to spend money on something that there is infinite of, as high supply means low demand, so the sellers just artificially put a limit on the amount of digital products they can sell, or make it only available in specific places or at specific times, for the sole purpose of making that product cost more. I know all of this is obvious, but i just feel like pointing out how dumb all of it is anyway. If it werent for capitalistic greed, the seller would only make the product cost money until they make back how much it cost to make the product in the first place, making everything be cheap until its made the cost back, then its free, but nooo we need to make as much money off of it as possible, so lets tie the cost to meaningless stuff like brand name or product name, so people pay big prices for super cheap to produce items! Its all so fucking dumb

[@ABaumstumpf]

@@jc_art_ "pointing out how dumb all of it is anyway. If it werent for capitalistic greed" No - there simply would be nearly nothing.

[@ConsciousRobot]

I've been a Reason user for a long time. I currently pay for a Reason subscription, mainly because it has extra tools and instruments that I really like. I also own a perpetual license of the most recent version in 2024 in case I want to stop paying the subscription. I shouldn't have to fear that at some point I may not be able to quit my subscription and still have a perpetual license to fall back on, but seems like that is a very real possibility for the future. I may have to start thinking about what DAW I'm going to choose when Reason stabs me in the back.

[@jeffjefferson5095]

Setting piracy aside, this is just an actual beach of contract, and anybody who had their perpetual license stolen from them has grounds to sue.

[@marckyle5895]

Take them on your It's A Small World After All ride thru your state's small claims court system. Except your IASWAA includes being reimbursed for the software you bought or the cost of replacing that software with something similarly functional in 2023 from another company minus what your paid for your 2005 perpetual license version. Be creative. Pad the claim up to the state SCC limit with things like time used to cope with their malfeasance and $$ lost from lost work. Small claims court findings for fault will ding them a little and you'll get more $$ doing than than a CA.

[@choosetolivefree]

Hahahaha. You're funny. Nobody going to sue. Relax, you're a little too uptight

[@MyTv-]

Who can afford that? Just treat it legally what it is really is! THEFT!

[@LinwoodBlackmore]

@@MyTv-where I live it costs $100 to file in small claims court.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

@@LinwoodBlackmore Realistically, the cost of a company like Sony to even appear at small claims court is larger than the judgement and they'd likely just pay it.

[@Ferrochrome12]

My mom has been as a content director in various media companies for over 2 decades now, and throughout all of that, she still uses a copy of Photoshop 3.0 that she purchased back in the 90s. Being a program from the 90s, it has no DRM, she's been able to freely install it on every machine she's ever used since 2000, and there's no way adobe can ever take it from her. She's noted myriad times that she's NEVER going to upgrade- why should she?

[@keomg4718]

except adobe can, she tecnically can't use any of the fonts included, or the pantone colors, etc. Is just piracy in the end of the day, and justified

[@jeroid123]

@@keomg4718 wrong the version of these tools that were bought at the time are owned by the buyer in perpetuity, after buying became licensing you would be correct but if the product was bought before these products were licensed then it is by every legal definition and perspective not piracy, I still 100% agree with piracy but just cause I agree with it doesn't mean every good thing needs to be called piracy, we should be prioritizing ownership over piracy or licensing but piracy is definitely the better option than licensing

[@ChaosSwissroIl]

@@keomg4718 Pantone is a scam. It's literally just RGB with DRM.

[@MAGAMAN]

What is funny is that if you compare the old version and the latest version, there have very little meaningful changes to it.

[@ChaosSwissroIl]

@@keomg4718 Apologies, I forgot this was CensorTube where every single post that mentions the four letter word starting with S for a duplicitous unfair exchange is hidden from view. Almost like governments commit that act and CensorTube doesn't want attention brought to it when they do... Pantone is a [_cam]. It's literally just RGB with DRM.

[@Frogf1sh]

After years of pirating digital keyboard sounds I finally was in the position where I felt I could justify buying a good vst. Payed like 80 euros or something. Not only did it download slower than a torrent, I needed at least an hour to figure out which additional programs were needed to satisfy their DRM systems and to make accounts on their websites. I just wanted to make some music and be fair to the people who created the software. Did not feel so sympathetic anymore after that experience

[@iAmRaska]

you mean the plague called Ilok? xD

[@benjaminshropshire2900]

I wonder how many people buy the product and then run the pirated version without ever even trying to install the "legit" version? (I've considered making an app with free/pay version where the only difference is one has a frowning face and the other a smiley face. "I want to to pay me because you value the product, not because you are forced to.")

[@C2O4]

That's a brilliant way to attract the right crowd to your product

[@vladsandu9713]

You get used to it.. every industry has its form of idiocy. In audio it's copy protections

[@Frogf1sh]

@@iAmRaska spot on. What a nightmare

[@arcadeuk]

This argument reminds me of early UK DVD's If you bought a legitimate retail DVD, you were forced to watch a 3 minute long un-skipable video telling you how bad you were for pirating DVDs If you downloaded a pirate copy of the DVD and burnt it to a disc, then you didn't get the un-skipable anti-piracy advert. The legitimate version was WORSE than the pirate version

[@therealcouchpotato9560]

My employer purchased CAD software about ten years ago. Fast forward to about three months ago and the engineer that was using said software had his Windows installation brake. No problem I think, just reload the OS, and that worked until I got to the CAD program in question. They require you to call them to reactivate the software, and when I did, they told me the version that we paid the perpetual license for was no longer supported and that they were not going to reactivate the software. So not to only did this company steal our money, but they stole that engineer’s time by forcing him to convert his models over to a slightly less sh*t CAD program.

[@coleeto2]

That sounds like breach of contract, no? Did anyone let legal council know about this?

[@therealcouchpotato9560]

@@coleeto2 if it is a breach of contract, it would be more expensive to take them to court than just convert the CAD models.

[@criszn504]

@@therealcouchpotato9560 " it would be more expensive to take them to court than just convert the CAD models." And that right there is why these companies outright steal from costumers because there is no tangible consumer protection policy that can make them accountable for their shit-antics, and they know that the consumer would find easier or lest costly solutions than going alone through the path of making them accountable.

[@treelineresearch3387]

I have a license for Solidworks Maker. It's a completely fair deal for $99/yr and overall I just like how the SW workflow goes and it has pretty much every feature I ever need. Despite this I've been tempted to Jack Sparrow a copy that's been cracked to actually use, because their web license/launcher thing is SUCH DOG SH IT. I have to reinstall the whole app, all 20 whatever gigs of it, about twice a year because the stupid DRM launcher forgets how to connect to my browser, or a forced update just requires a full delete and reinstall. It's not that it uses an online license check that really grinds my gears, it's that it's done in such an ass-backward, irritating, and user-hostile way.

[@BurnerJones]

You're talking about rhino, aren't you?

[@MushmouthJoe]

I love the response you got. It shows just how evil these people are. As if it's completely out of the question to offer basic customer service. How dare you expect such treatment.

[@RaveSault]

"How dare you not pay like i did and lick the boots of the corporations I paid for!! HERESY!!"

[@gfimadcat]

Also known as the "we got your money, so fuck off" response

[@MushmouthJoe]

@@gfimadcat Most definitely.

[@chaos.corner]

A shitty thing is they didn't even pop up a message saying "Can not stream in 4K on this device". They just left you to happily keep going. Presumably there are people who won't notice and just keep paying for something they're not getting.

[@KristopherBel]

This is a disgusting and unfortunately common tactic, years ago when AOL went free I was visiting my grandmother, and she had gotten a bill for AOL, so after I quizzed her a little bit to see if she had maybe bought something through them or whatever I find out that no, she is paying for the free service and had been for almost a year I called up AOL and very politely asked them what the hell they thought was appropriate about this? And they said if people wanted to choose to continue to pay for a free service they didn't want to interfere with their choices. Lesson learned, never trust these corps. They were found to be doing this to tons of people absolutely disgusting.

[@Emily_M81]

I know I wouldn't notice at first. I would assume nEtWoRk PrObLeMs when it was grainy.

[@ADDisAOK]

Violation of RSC 1985 c. C-34 in Canada to do that.

[@ThePopo543]

I know I wouldn't. I'm blind as a bat and I'm used to watching everything in 480p throughout my life.

[@chaos.corner]

@@ThePopo543A crisp 480p is often perfectly adequate.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

The ORIGINAL Copyright Act of 1790 established for "encouragement of learning," securing authors the "sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" the copies of their "maps, charts, and books" for a term of 14 years. So, Under the ORIGINAL copyright law, everything created from Before 2010 is in the Public Domain.

[@jiaan100]

Copyright has been about protecting the rich and keeping the poor poor since it's conception.

[@Snakemasterepic]

What rights holders need to consider is that they can compete with piracy. In the early days of Netflix, movie and TV show piracy dropped significantly. It layer rebounded as Netflix started declining in quality and content started getting chopped up and spread across many platforms. Piracy has a limited level of convenience; For movies and TV shows, it requires downloading the entire file before you can start watching. And download speeds are also unpredictable. There's also a delay from when something gets released to when it is leaked for pirates. For software piracy, getting updates can be tricky at times. With games, you have to make sure you install the correct updates in the correct order, and sometimes large updates make you have to reinstall the game. Also, even though the risk of getting busted is extremely low, it still exists, and having this threat is enough to convince some pirates to take extra steps such as setting up a VPN while other people just get scared off entirely. If a legal option exists and provides a high enough quality experience, then people won't pirate. We saw that with the early days of Netflix. If rights holders can provide a high-quality experience, then people will pay.

[@yewtewbstew547]

With games the service aspect is actually a big part of the reason I pirate them to begin with. It is true that buying a game usually presents a better service experience, but that's often only true when the game is a) broken and in need of updates and/or b) designed to not be playable offline. To me neither of those things are desirable to begin with, so I won't pay for that even when the service is superior (which as you say, it almost always is). Instead I'll just wait 6-12 months until it's available cracked with all of the updates pre-applied, then pirate it. Ironically the games that are easiest to pirate are the ones I'm least inclined to pirate. The "service" I value when it comes to gaming is a game that releases with no major problems on day one and is playable offline. In other words, no/minimal service. Obviously with multiplayer centric games that doesn't entirely apply, they need online functionality for that component, but otherwise I have a pretty "anti service" attitude towards games lol.

[@archaex]

People will pay for quality, then one day someone decides that the company should extract more value, and it becomes enshittified. Or the company gets acquired and the new parent company wants to extract more value, and it becomes enshittified. Or it gets acquired, and they straight out kill the product because it competes with the acquirer's other products, which are already enshittified.

[@zigmar2]

If you use torrents, some clients have an option to download in sequential order, so if the download speed is higher than the bitrate of the video, you can start watching it in just a minute or two.

[@penguinjay]

Preach! Netflix and Amazon were the only two paid streamers, hulu was free with ads, and Steam was selling games very cheap on their sales within a year of release, mostly complete games too! Back in like 2012-2014 things were great. I was a hardcore pirate, and even I stopped. Crazy, right? This crap only incentivizes people like me to pick up where we left off damn near a decade ago, but fortunately, they couldn't pay me enough to steal their hot garbage 99% of the time, so I don't. As for games, I just wait until the whole game is actually finished, and then buy it for like 20 bucks a year or 2 after release if the company hasn't pulled a scumbag move, if they have like w your Metro Exodus or your Cyberpunk, then those games might as well not even exist to me. And since I'm talking about that, I will point out that any game from EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda, Nintendo, Epic, and Rockstar already don't exist to me. I mean FFS, Sony is treating PC gamers better than PC game publishers. People chasing the shiny new thing plus their spending habits while doing so are wreaking havoc on our entertainment quality, while enabling the exact kind of corporate theft and poor consumer practices we are looking at spreading nearly universally. Close your Wallets! Close your Wallets! Close your Wallets!

[@nexusrising2047]

I remember those years during Netflix's domination. It got super hard to find pirate content for their shows on public trackers. Then companies started removing their content and splintered the content. After that I was able to download the shows again. Got a bit dicey there though.

[@UndyingZombie]

Programmer here.. and I have fixed things that have been abandoned by others for one reason or another. ( Like games, mods, and other programs. ) I have also worked on a lot of other things. I honestly agree with you here. Companies are very detached in my opinion with things and when they step over the line ( something that the vast majority of these companies do ) I see no issue with people wanting to sail the high seas in order to get something they already payed for.

[@gosonegr]

In my country that is just legal, if you pay for a digital product, or physical for that matter, you can't access for whatever reason and decide to get it on the seas you're downloading a safety copy of your software

[@aldecotan]

@@gosonegr And what's the name of your country?

[@Naetrox]

Programmer here too. It's piss-easy to remove DRM when you have source access, but companies LOVE money and don't care about morals.

[@gosonegr]

@@aldecotan Spain

[@johnmetzakis2910]

Corpos only look at spreadsheets and graphs, and to them consumers are an obstacle between them and their money (what's in your bank account). and that do whatever they can to take it from you. better yet develop an environment where you give it to them willingly

[@SaintMatthieuSimard]

Piracy is not piracy anymore but rescuing broken products, to that extent

[@besticouldget]

Same with old games you can't buy anywhere anymore.

[@Infinite_Falcon]

Piracy and preservation are pretty much 2 sides of the same coin at this day and age.

[@starproxer6937]

I swear, whenever I stumble upon your videos I am getting so enraged haha. It reminds me just of the typical online Stigma and current state of everything related Modern world. Then again I love your voice, your work and your extreme insight into your domain it's so goddamn conflicting. all the love and keep doing up your good work

[@economicalgamer8187]

Am I missing something? Why aren't these software companies (who cancel perpetual licenses) taken to court by a class action lawsuit? This is a clear breach of contract/agreement Company agreed for a unlimited usage period

[@_DATA_EXPUNGED_]

Because the 'murican legal system is only accessible to those with lots of capital, who also don't care about what they pay for their software. This is not the case in the EU (at least far less), but those corporations typically aren't incorporated there, so they're free to ignore it.

[@MiD218]

@@_DATA_EXPUNGED_ It just so happens that Reason is Swedish:)

[@outhouse.wholesaler]

Probably put some specific loophole wording in the licensing agreement

[@MyName-tb9oz]

Yeah, @@_DATA_EXPUNGED_, but there a pretty significant difference between a company incorporated in the EU and some fly-by-night junk peddler from China. And when a company has screwed over thousands of users for hundreds or thousands per user it gets a lot easier to convince a lawyer to start a class action.

[@ramshaka]

The software would still work in perpetuity. It's the DRM that is being dropped, so it's kind of a legal grey area. The honest thing for the company to do would be to drop any DRM requisite for installation, but in order to do that, they'd essentially be making it free-ware. And the reason they don't want to do that, is because the old software is really just as good as their new stuff, at least for 99% of anyone who wants to use it. You might be able to win in a legal battle. But, it'd take a lot of people, time, and money to get there. So what the company has done is simply wait until such a time that the chances of someone putting together those resources is slim to nil, before pulling the rug out from under the software... So... Unless you've got a massive amount of money, plenty of free time, and are hung up on the principle... Well there's really only one sane course of action.

[@purplespark8]

What I don't understand is why no company (I'm assuming) has been sued successfully for this, or why it is not unlawful for them to do this

[@fusrosandvich3738]

Sueing costs money, and most people dont have tens of thousands to throw around or more to try and force a company to follow the law.

[@purplespark8]

@@fusrosandvich3738 Yes I agree, but since such things may also impact some businesses, you'd think a few would have tried to go the legal route

[@BeastOfSoda]

Bro should start a class action and see where it goes from there.

[@penguinjay]

because only the lawyers get rich. You can get a class action going and get like 9 bucks out of it, or you can make better purchasing decisions and reconsider how you obtain your software. No company gets sued because the justice system is corrupt, and pirates provide a much more simple, eloquent, dignified solution compared to going and whining and crying for years in court about toothpaste that can't go back in the tube. Just learn and do better, don't sue, make better decisions with the money you acquire, you are spending a piece of your life on a tool, and they are stealing that piece of your life from you later so they can hopefully get you to pay them a new piece of your life every year instead. They are stealing so they can extract more of your life from you for the same thing you already paid them for. Artificial point of pain, meant to drive sales. Hit em where it hurts, the wallet. It's the only language that scumbags understand other than violence. You don't even have to wonder why companies don't get sued for this, I just explained it. I mean, how much did purdue pharma pay for the opioid epidemic? 1/1,000,000th of what they made lying to doctors and keeling people? No, less! Did anyone go to jail? No. Wake up and smell the coffee.

[@Cross_Malaki]

​@@fusrosandvich3738 And that is why I'm of the mind that criminal charges should be filed first.

[@jimichan7649]

You're totally right! I've always found that buying a good tool that will last, even though they might be expensive, is cheaper in the long run. Buy once cry once. I refuse to buy into this notion of "software as a service." The cloud is a scam. Distributed storage and processing is where it's at. Storage and processing power are getting cheaper and better.

[@PandemoniumLord]

I remember worrying that video game companies could one day come to my home and take my game, because I would read the paper EULAs as a child and realized immediately that I wasn’t purchasing the game, but rather a license to play the game which could be revoked. This shit is so stupid for sure.

[@troybaxter]

You mean like a certain company did with a streamer 8 months ago with a certain nefarious detective group.

[@koolin3613]

​@@troybaxterWhat streamer are you talking about?

[@troybaxter]

@@koolin3613 I don't remember the exact streamer, but I am talking about the incident where Hasbro sicked the Pinkertons on the guy's house just so they can get some cards back that they accidentally sent to him.

[@koolin3613]

@@troybaxter Oh wow that sounds bad, i hope the person is okay

[@BecomeMachine]

General rule of thumb, if you wouldn't say it to your customer in person, don't do it to them in a snobby email. I reckon I'd get hurt if I treated a customer like that after they gave me $500.

[@audiofreq]

Agreed!

[@LifeWithMatthew]

The monthly/yearly subscription fee for software is one of the biggest scams companies came up with. For the promise of "future compatibility" they suckered people into giving up the ability to actually own what they put on their personal computer.

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

I own one piece of software that comes with a one year subscription for upgrades, but I can always download the latest version that was within one year after payment. That's a pretty reasonable business model.

[@niky00045]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 until you can't anymore. as the vid showed.

[@Nifylau]

*cough cough* adobe

[@LifeWithMatthew]

@@Nifylau 100%

[@LifeWithMatthew]

@@thewhitefalcon8539 If it doesn't offer a perpetual license that's a scam as you will never own what you are paying for. If you are choosing to purchase a yearly support license, that's can be an argument to be made for companies to go for that, but the fact of the matter is I have RARELY seen a single piece of software that changed enough after a year to warrant me purchasing an upgrade that quickly or had the OS change so rapidly that my software needed an upgrade to remain compatible. The yearly license model is a complete scam that gets you paying well over the cost of buying a new license anytime a new feature was released that you just couldn't live without.

[@CoffeeKitty.]

i resonated with your comment about being 12, i grew up cracking things because i was poor and a kid, there existed a really short time where i grew up, had money, started buying things, but in recent years its gotten so bad i've gone back to it - now as an adult i have a policy that i buy things but then strip out everything that makes them bad, denuvo bricking one of my hard drives was the last straw for me. it's acutally fucking farcical that i can consistently replicate this across dozens of games, play the legit copy with denuvo in it, 60-80 fps, remove denuvo, 120+ fps with the same settings. WHY. WHY ARE YOU MAKING THE GAME THAT I PAY FOR WORSE THAN THE VERSION I DONT - I WANT TO BE ETHICAL AND SUPPORT YOUR DEVELOPMENT BUT YOU MAKE IT **IMPOSSIBLE** IN MANY CASES. nintendo nuking roms for my favorite childhood games off the internet while refusing to sell them is another example. it makes about as much cents as it does sense. just... why

[@PkGam]

I indeed just go open-source when possible. I got so tired of dealing with activation licenses, keys, online checks, forced updates, "customer support", etc... that I switched away from them as much as I could. One thing I like to say is it's not the tool, it's the creator. People can make great stuff using all sorts of things, it's just a matter of getting the hang of them.

[@dfloper]

Reason and other will have their Blender moment at some point like Autodesk did

[@limppeacesign]

Your previous pirate video also hit me too. I recently signed up for EA play on steam to play The Sims 3 and when I downloaded it it would not launch and apparently this is a common problem ever since Windows 10. So they are knowingly selling a game that does not work on a Windows 10 or 11 computer using an alder lake processor. I instantly canceled and pirated the game and then used patches from the community to get the game running.

[@moonasha]

had that happen with bullet storm too. It had games for windows live (lol) and so is currently broken. They had the audacity to release a "remake" which does nothing but make the game work again, and charge full price for it, instead of updating the freaking game that paying customers paid for. I happily pirated it, and I will happily do so with all of their future releases. Also, anything with Denuvo should be pirated, because it basically makes it so you can't even mod your own game that you paid for.

[@polarvortex6601]

@@moonasha that's so scummy. wow these devs are getting away with theft

[@HarakiriRock]

I'll never give money to EA again. Recently got Alice: Madness Returns on Steam since it was dirt cheap and I've wanted to play it for years. It's a really lazy port. Locked to 30 fps by default, but you can simply open an ini file and change the framerate limit. EA can't be bothered to change it themselves or add an option in the menu. The game is also unplayable with PhysX on anything higher than the lowest setting (can't be turned off completely). I wish I would have saved my 2 bucks and just emulated one of the console versions. Good game but fuck EA.

[@quademasters249]

None of my EA games though steam work any more. No clue why. I'll just never buy another EA game.

[@quademasters249]

@@HarakiriRock It's a really old game...

[@Yomush]

If pirating something gives you a superior service it really leaves you thinking... What are we even paying for at this point?

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

To reward the few who are better and to get early access to the not yet pirateable and for the rest either sheer ignorance or moral standards we don't ourselves see as agreeable.

[@whiskizyo2067]

The CEO's fourth house

[@yeetdabeans3883]

to get the pirated copies out faster

[@godsamongmen8003]

You're paying for actors, editors, cinemetographers, set designers, programmers and sound engineers to do the hard work of making a show you enjoy. Or you're stealing.

[@Yomush]

@@godsamongmen8003 All of these people you mentioned already got paid by the hour :)

[@Handcannon77]

I dont really have any experience with software like this, but the sentiment basically applies to all types of things today. Im not exactly sure when this more notable shift occurred, but sometime in the last 10-15 years a large shift started(note: these business practices have always existed at some level I know, but im speaking about a more widespread, and more blatant abuse of consumers which didnt always exist) where big business' just threw the idea of even somewhat ethical business practices, and venerable customer service out of the window, completely. Exec's today simply think that they are not only allowed to scam and abuse customers at will, but they act as if its standard operating procedure, and isnt even wrong to practice. They think they are ENTITLED to your money as a customer no matter what, and that since its THEIR product(regardless of if you PURCHASE it with your own money) they also reserve the right to do whatever they want, including essentially "stealing" or scamming you out of the product you have purchased and now "own". And the worst part is, and what keeps them acting in this way, is that they are largely ALLOWED to operate this way, both in the way that laws have been being passed that favor their practicing business in the way they are, and because they know even if they are "wrong" that no governmental agency is coming after them for practicing business in this way. And they know that at worst only a small percentage of customers will completely leave(for another product, or like you mention, swap to the "high seas" as a means of using their product), and taking legal action is basically not even an option even if it SHOULD be a viable and rightful option for the consumer. In my mind, theyve painted themselves into this corner where customers are better off on the high seas, and generally I think any, and everyone SHOULD choose that option for any company who wants to practice business like this...I mean, if you "purchasing" something doesnt make you "own" it, and deserve the support you paid for said product, then the high seas isnt "stealing" either. The only "stealing" going on, is the form of "stealing" that these companies perform onto paying(often loyal, long time) customers.

[@raeyner]

Everytime FL studio updates and honors my persistant license, I shed a tear of joy. Thankfully, not all of the decent software teams are dead.

[@ratlinggull2223]

Their stance on piracy is still kind of iffy though. Even though I bought FL, they detected some remnants of an old pirated installation, and decided to suspend me until I reached out to clarify. If they didn't give it back to me, then try imagine losing an account right after buying.

[@uaQt]

@@ratlinggull2223 "You finally decided to acquire our software legally???? well now you can only usit illigally!" am i missing something

[@ratlinggull2223]

@@uaQt yeah, half of it pretty much. they giving me a 'last chance' when they should've not had the anti-piracy measures enabled knowing I have spent money on a real licence.

[@supernenechi]

I have completely and utterly lost faith in of these sorts of companies a while ago. I honestly never buy movies or series, never get a streaming service, will never purchase any software ever again. The only purchasing of software I will EVER do is donating to open source projects. Because that is ACTUALLY paying for a product fairly

[@Jacob-yb6bv]

Same. I’ve made exactly the same decision and do most projects with freeware software now. I have no subscriptions to anything. Have to say that I predicted all this years ago. Can’t believe people put up with it. If everyone stopped using a service or software when this happened the companies would soon have to change.

[@jeremiahsbeast5560]

It’s difficult for the Sony situation because they are the people who’s names are smack dab on the Blu-Ray releases, say you wanted to legally buy and keep the movies you would be streaming. Most competition in the dvd field got stomped out pretty fast too.

[@supernenechi]

@@Jacob-yb6bv It's infuriating people put up with it. Everyone is so dumb, sometimes that NPC meme is so right.

[@MAGAMAN]

@@supernenechi Most people will only believe what they want to believe. That is why places like CNN and MSNBC still exist (Although their audiences are getting extremely small).

[@supernenechi]

@@MAGAMAN Your minor skill issue is not what I mean, get the fuck away with your politics. I'm not American and I don't fucking care about your bullshit. Fuck off, we're talking about something different

[@Sulfuron41]

I'm glad to see so much resistance against these movements towards "renting" over "owning". There is so much software out there now that demand a monthly fee because... reasons...

[@penguinjay]

because they tested the consumer and the paying customers failed the test. They stuck their thumb up everyone's butt just to see how far they could go until everyone complained. Some people are still sitting there oblivious to it, stupidly smiling with a 👍sticking out the top of their gaping mouths. Switch gamers are some of the worst, but there are so many more, basically every company has simpleton addicts (mindless consumers w sunk cost fallacy) now defending terrible business practices. Stockholm syndrome.

[@coachpotato7353]

If its peddled as renting it should be acceptable, problem is when its labeled as a "purchase", but turns out to be renting in actuality. Things like Geforce NOW where you rent access to a gaming PC are cool as they offer convenience and savings in particular scenarios - you can always build a gaming PC, but it might be unfeasible for spatial or economic reasons. Cloud services like OneDrive and MEGA save you the trouble of managing sync - you can build a home server to run NextCloud, but that takes money, space and expertise to run. Renting per se is fine. Abuse in asymmetric relationship between a company and random Joe - where company gets to have its way and Joe has to bend over - is not.

[@RokasSondaras]

been a long time follower, inspired me to do micro soldering and yt, but I been following your philosophy much more nowadays, right to repair etc. wish you the best and I agree 100 percent. BTW, I live in a country with 2 mil of people in total, and all people who are in tech knows your channel here. I'm glad when they do, you are an inspiration to all of us young ones.

[@linusgustafsson2629]

Few companies realize their anti-piracy measures is the biggest reasons to not buy their products and rather pirate them. If they didn't have anti-piracy, they could easily sell them to anyone who has the cash to be honest.

[@jamesphillips2285]

Pirating was only morally imperative in this case because they were already a paying customer. IMO, it is more grey if you just don't like the anti-piracy measures of something you have not purchased yet. But pirating you still give them mind-share. For software: you still give them a user-base. This may make people and businesses just *assume* you have access or experience with said software. On the other hand: it is bullshit that you need to pay money and jump though hoops to experience culturally-significant works. Copyright terms outlast the mediums that the works are fixed on these days. Piracy is actually required for preservation purposes.

[@niemand7811]

What? Is that even considered logic? If they had less anti piracy measures people would pirate less? Nope. You are clearly in the idiocy if you believe that nonsense. That's as if you said that if cars had less security measures people would steal less cars. No. They would steal even more because lack of security measures means nobody cares. Right? Fucking hilarious how your melting brains can still formulate working sentences.

[@AndreasA.S.]

post hurricane katrina, i wanted to play halflife 2 while in evac. , i thought, hey, ill go legit. not only was the legit version unplayable with out it getting registered, but i couldnt play it until it was updated via the net for some reason. on dialup. out came the pirated and very playable copy.

[@watcher206]

This reminds me a lot of the spore controversy and that happened 16 years ago. At this point I don't think those companies are ever going to learn. Edit: For those that aren't familiar, spore released around 2007 under EA. Due to EA's draconian DRM measures implemented in the game it ended up being the most pirated game in history, because it was easier to just do that than to deal with EA's bs trying to play the game the legal way.

[@pauldwalker]

it’s not pirating if you’ve already paid for the perpetual license.

[@nordstram2854]

Honestly, people should sue. I know it's not in their financial interests, but companies get away with this until someone teaches them a lesson. The High Seas come with other risks.

[@xRawPower]

Imo this issue is more about our responsibility as consumers to vote with our dollar more responsibly. We really have a problem where people are very comfortable setting aside their ideals in the name of convenience to the most minute degree you could possibly imagine. Paying crazy prices for iPhones without an AUX input so their texts show up a certain colour, forking over hundreds of dollars a month to their cable provider to see 70/82 of their local teams' games cause they have an explicit monopoly and don't give a fuck about the consumer experience, and even going in to serious debt to get degrees in pseudo-intellectualism that leads to zero career opportunity. Humans do crazy fucking things to themselves, all the time, and no lawyer is ever going to stop that. They would just extract as much wealth as they could, and find a way to make it happen more often - they're never the solution. We all need to solve this as a culture by voting with our dollars. Stop putting up with legal monopolies, stop supporting malpractice, stop supporting anti consumerism in its many forms, period. Until we do, this issue will persist. This is all a symptom of the lack of integrity in the world's economics, and the fact everybody knows about it at this point, but that's another can of worms...

[@MorlockTrxsh]

@@xRawPower ALL of the things you list are not a product of like natural human impulses and desires that overdetermine our existence. We build the world we live in. They're the product of billions of dollars, and millions of man-hours spent building and maintaining a consumerist culture and economic infrastructure. And this is done purposefully on an emergent basis to the benefit of a couple thousand dudes and the detriment of everyone else, but you make it sound like some tragic reality of the human condition. You're the biggest sheep here. You're literally saying in one sentence we must "vote with our dollars," a consumerist ethical practice if there ever was one, calling this "anti consumerism" I mean wtf bro lmao. Accept that major pieces of infrastructure, like for instance telecommunications networks (ie TV "providers") don't have to be one guy's little piggy bank fiefdom, they can be run for the public good by the public instead of being run for the private good of one cokehead jerk (the literal cause of every problem that you list). Building and maintaining a strong nationalized media platform that doesn't manipulate children and lonely adults into forking over their (or their parent's) credit cards and doing the cultural work of ensuring it is safeguarded from corruption is LITERALLY the same amount of work as what you propose by us all having a responsible consumerism come to jesus moment except it's better and more likely to work because there isn't a reptile lizard man fighting against you to maximize his ROI. Dream bigger ffs liberal.

[@RumplestillSkin99]

Get to it

[@luceatlux7087]

@jool7793 yeah same here (and irc before that)... Maybe he's talking about viruses? Back in the day, I recall some of those sites sometimes being annoying with all those popups or false files/downloads having stuff embedded in them, etc. I rememeber using a script program and I enabled scripts one by one unti i had what access I needed to cracks and downloads. then i'd just scan the software w a cracked Norton, lol. but who knows if that always worked. I haven't done this kind of thing for a while. Do you still know how it works these days? Are those prate bay sites still up? i recall LOVING one from like 2001 called andr or something. i remember it was just like four letters and it had every piece of software one could ever want. i had a hard time frinding 'Zone Alarm Pro' software firewall subscription crack and they had it. fun times.

[@dougtriplett]

Isn't 500.00 small claims court. You can pay to play there most states for a couple of hundred dollarS.

[@The.Crawling.Chaos.]

Gabe Newell - CEO of Valve Software once said "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

[@hachi1337]

And oh boy, was he right. Once I started working I basically stopped pirating games that are on steam. Steam is just so simple, and it works. Their DRM protection is child's play to hack (unless game is using 3rd party DRM) so I'm not afraid of loosing access to my installed games. Their launcher is quite good, and supports neat features like lan play and workshop. Offline mode is basically infinite today. So yeah, I agree. Piracy is def a service problem.

[@sid6645]

​@@hachi1337oh and they also give a cloud back up, and offer great servers for co op games. Real good shit man.

[@pawepiat6170]

yes, but steam also can revoke your licence for games. They are actively ensuring you can still play old games, developing proton and stuff, but its a choice they could change at any moment.

[@therasco400]

I would say that the service issue has developed from a monopoly issue. Every game, Show, Movie is its own monopoly if being show though one service. The problems develop as service providers stop competing for providing the best service instead they compete for restrictive content so you have to pay to view it.

[@crazyabe4571]

@@pawepiat6170 and unlike the Epic Games store- it is a choice they will never have any reason to take, because Steam is privately owned, by a private company, with 0 outside investors pushing for them to further monetize their service and commit commercial suicide for the sake of higher profits, even if their choices cause Valve to make 'less money' they won't suddenly tell you that you need to pay $4.99 weekly if you want to collect achievements on your games- because they don't have to worry about investors.

[@Jaminux]

you're so real for using davinci resolve, i use the free version because i'm broke and it works great on my computer that was definitely not made to handle it LOL (also leaving this comment for the algorithm because i want more people to see this)

[@ianthewright]

Yep. And when you're not poor anymore... guess what software you're most likely to buy?

[@gjcarpe]

The same can be applied to games that have Denuvo. They screw over the paying customers with reduced framerates to "delay" (not to avoid) piracy.

[@vvitch-mist20]

And then these companies will cry about how they are losing money from piracy. The call is coming from inside the house.lol.

[@musickid43]

And some don't remove it after the pirated version has been out for a while.

[@BriBCG]

Delaying piracy by even a week or two is a big deal, FOMO is real. Just look at how many people are willing to pay extra for a few days early access.

[@Rofel_Wodring]

@@BriBCG Justifying a bad thing with another isn't great imo. Companies abusing people's psyche like that should be banned.

[@Henk717]

​@@BriBCGAnd I dont mind DRM for that purpose, but as soon as a cracked version exists I want my legal DRM free copy.

[@rossmanngroup]

00:00 - Intro , skip to 04 45 to skip recaps 00:08 - Piracy video #1 recap 01:07 - #1 protest reason: arbitrary limitations for no purpose other than control 01:52 - #1 - The simp's rebuttal 02:28 - We'll give that one to the simps. 02:35 - Piracy video #2 recap 02:55 - Mr. Clinton protests 03:08 - #2 protest reason - you called it a purchase, and then took it away 04:04 - #2 - The simp's rebuttal 04:10 - We'll give that to the simps as well. 04:45 - Piracy reason #3 - perpetual licenses that no longer work 06:13 - Louis reads a salty email, with reasonable consumer expectations 07:20 - Reason's F U reply 08:39 - This is a salty customer. 08:47 - He is as salty as I would be, if I were robbed 09:10 - The high seas would have provided him a version that is still installable today. 09:55 - Producers frequently use very obsolete software. 12:54 - A high seas copy of this software would still work. 13:20 - As long as people are treated worse, piracy will thrive. 14:05 - I am not asking companies to compete with free 14:15 - Stop INTENTIONALLY making the experience worse for paying customers 16:30 - Random ranting

[@Madasin_Paine]

A form of throttling is in play ALSO. Basically THEY degrade the most fundamental features so you'll upgrade to increase profits, increase surveillance and basically to increase overall frustration and apathy of "consumers" or the exploited caste of austerity and NO. IMHO. Thus, no matter how new and top of the line your cool devices are used online, planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence will be KNOWN and EXPERIENCED until obeisance or fall out is achieved until further notice. Thank goodness for this host and R. Braxman.

[@TheJcris87]

The cat interrupting should be timestamped.

[@killatortilla8276]

@@TheJcris87mr Clinton protests at 2:55 lol it’s there

[@james-ch]

Congrats for 2m subs

[@TheJcris87]

@@killatortilla8276 perfect 👌

[@stevenwolfe591]

As a programmer, I 100% agree with you. It's already malicious enough to have content gatekept. To also arbitrarily reject perpetual licenses not only sounds pointlessly greedy/evil, but downright illegal. It's time for these giants to fail and go out of business. It baffles me that some haven't yet. How can I convince people to leave these abusive relationships?

[@JM-vp8zc]

You can’t. People wake up when they wake up.

[@spamhr782]

@@JM-vp8zc We are all led to the truth for which we are ready.

[@milanstevic8424]

Similarly how do you convince people to not be abusive?

[@adisca2k]

@@milanstevic8424 You don't. You let them convince themselves after making abuse detrimental for the abuser.

[@SkyboxMonster]

if Linux would stop being a completely bare bone empty foundation and turn into a functional OS with as many features of win9x then that requirement would be met.

[@donknotts3548]

Your evaluation of the importance of a reliable workflow in the creative process, regardless of the age of the hardware/software at play, is absolutely spot on.

[@TooManyCatsRyan]

I appreciate seeing this. After being certain that Reason is taking part in this type of anti-consumerism, I as a musician have no problem going to the high seas to pirate their software and I will be doing just that. 👊🏻

[@davyprendergast82]

Where exactly does one find the high seas?

[@sirsancti5504]

Out of *EEZ's, "International waters". *Exclusiva Economic Zone

[@Emily_M81]

@@sirsancti5504LMAO

[@davyprendergast82]

@sirsancti5504 lol what's it mean

[@irencsak]

Maybe they shouldn't legally be able to say "Purchase (title)" for such things? Perhaps they need to advertise such purchases as "Purchase limited access license for (title)".

[@Astahoe1]

Should be just legally called "Borrow"

[@Arkhanno]

So... Renting?

[@irencsak]

@@Arkhanno as they say, you will own nothing, and you will be 'happy'

[@beetheimmortal]

I support this. They shouldn't be able to call it "purchase", or "buy" for that matter.

[@Datacorrupter234]

and you will only be “happy” because if you arent there are consequences for that to

[@spidalack]

We need to have a way to get back at compagnies that pull this kind of stuff that's better than "I will never buy from you again" As they are very quick to remind us about piracy, theft is theft. Should apply both ways.

[@captainfuture2882]

We need to create GoFundMe's for developers, who develop another product. THen slowly move to pay the developers directly via GoFundMes rather than have companies fuck us over. The programs have to be open source. So for further development we pay them.

[@Moe_Posting_Chad]

Violence. *Violence absolutely works.*

[@73rmin8r]

​@@Moe_Posting_Chadbased

[@luckygozer]

Class action lawsuits I guess....

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@luckygozer that's a great way to get 10$ some 5 years later. But for a corpo, that's merely the cost of doing businness

[@Michael_Galgano]

I like what Gabe Newell said about piracy. "Piracy is a service issue."

[@richmond1997]

So this is a true story. This just happened to me yesterday. I love audiobooks and have been using audible for a while. They have a credit policy where for every month you pay for membership, you get one free credit. You can buy any book from the library for a credit. Earlier this year, I bought a one month membership and spent the credit on "purchasing" a particular book. I went back yesterday to download it and found that although it was still showing up in my library, there was a small lock button next to it. I opened the title page of the book and was greeted by the message "Title not for sale in this country/region". There was no option left for me to download a book that I had supposedly "purchased". I am NEVER paying audible again.

[@SheyD78]

Not that it helps much, but you could try reaching out to them to find out why it's no longer available in your country, and whether they'll refund you. It could be due to government censorship or something like that. (or they might just be douches). Another option might be a vpn if you have/can afford one, so you can change your country to somewhere it IS available. Best of luck, and at worst, better luck next time.

[@coldnova1037]

librivox has free downloadable audio books only public domain but lots of classics and history books

[@richmond1997]

@@SheyD78 I have sent a mail to support, waiting to hear back, thanks for the suggestions. Personally I believe, if I'm paying for something and then then it disappears (for clearly no fault of mine), and I have to do these extra steps to figure out what happened, maybe it is not worth it. As for the book being censored in my region, I do not think that is the case. I will try using the VPN and see if that works.

[@jimdavis6833]

Why did you not download it when purchased?

[@Throefly]

@@richmond1997 They're probably just douches.

[@Jimulacrum]

Any company that sells perpetual licenses and tries to withdraw, block, or otherwise interfere with them later should be charged with fraud.

[@MarkArnoldMusic]

You'll probably find no licence is perpetual, by virtue of it being a licence. However being misleading, or not transparent around online DRM that can brick a game if no longer supported online is pretty crap (especially if it's not an online game).

[@Hamachingo]

I like when small software developers are like “I can’t maintain this anymore, so heres the ultimate license key and the source code. Thanks for supporting me all these years and keep this thing alive if you can.”

[@snooks5607]

they should not be allowed to call it "purchasing", it's renting

[@SneakyJoeRu]

When companies do this shit, I just believe a customer is justified to use whatever version they want that's cracked, pirated and works better than a license even without requiring of constant activations.

[@fly_8659]

19:06 -- Da Vinci Resolve is one of the few products I have no regrets purchasing, alongside FL Studio ... I saw an interview with Grant Petty that convinced me to go all in on a Black Magic Cinema Camera. He feels like the Australian Gabe Newell, but for the AV club. He just wanted to kids to feel the same joy that he first felt when he walked into a television studio and was allowed to touch their editing and colour correction console. As long as he's at the helm, I can see them going from strength to strength.

[@zzzzxxxx1802]

Can't agree more with the sentiment of "you're morally obligated to go to the high seas for a copy that works". The point you made about people getting a better experience when pirating a copy versus buying from a company like Reason was very poignant too. Great video Louis 👍

[@NorthernKitty]

Netflix throttling video based on your hardware is like McDonald's giving you fewer or more fries depending on what type of vehicle you arrive in at their drive-thru. It's completely arbitrary and has nothing to do with your ability to access their service/product.

[@docjoesweeney]

I dropped Netflix a while back too. Just can't be assed watching the same plots over and over again. Tubi at least has some *terrible* plot lines. :-P and its free.

[@thisislag]

Long time Reason user here. I've released plenty of (techno) records using this software and make a living off of DJing. For a long time I've been telling people to buy Reason as it was a great, stable product made by great people. Then they switched to a subscription service and Reason is now so full of bugs that I breakdown on a daily level. I'm not even making new music in it, just trying to finish and export existing projects. There are so many new bugs that it's not even funny and I don't see them fixing the stuff from 2 years ago, let alone new things I've encountered. A few days I wrote a public post telling people not to buy Reason and someone linked my favorite pro-customer person on the internet who is talking about this very company and the way they do business. Thank you for talking about this Louis. This was the last year I will pay for a subscription. I am switching to Ableton. I might use Reason as a VST in Ableton, I might not. If I'm paying for a product I want to not feel like an absolute ass.

[@TimboCanada]

I’ve had Reason since 1.0. The subscription stuff is bs.

[@tomaszmazurek64]

I've used Reason since Reason 5, I've paid for most intermediate updates till 12 and bought a ton of Rack Extensions for it back when they haven't yet supported the VST format. Around the time they've announced Reason+ subscription, it so happens that I was working on finishing a song that was the first song where I've used a lot of VSTs inside Reason. Then one day Reason stopped opening the project file. From what I've figured it was some out of memory problem and I admit, the computer I ran it on was old. However Reason didn't display any errors that would help me identify the problem or help me figure out which vst was the culprit, it just hung up on startup. I've started painstakingly restoring the file by opening it in emergency mode, disabling all the plugins except for one tracks which I supposed was the heaviest, opening it again in normal mode, bouncing the track to audio and hoping this will save enough memory to allow me to keep working. Worst of all, every few days it would get worse and I had to emergency-bounce another track. Anyway, after that experience, I've started thinking that if Reason isn't treating data loss seriously and maybe an 8 track project is too much for it to handle, then I probably need to switch DAWs. Announcement of Reason+ was adding an insult to injury, especially since it looked like the company was pivoting towards being some kind of cloud based sound bank, so I decided to jump ships. Anyway, after that I've quite often wondered if I made the right decision. Because unfortunately switching to a completely new DAW and plugin set has hindered my creativity for about a year or more - and after all, I thought, perhaps they have improved Reason with the extra money from the subscriptions and now it handles the VSTs better? Reading your comment that the stability is still terrible and the bugs have multiplied really saddens me, but also provides a sense of closure for that question. Maybe in 10 years when the company is run into the ground somebody will come around to pickup the pieces.

[@BenCaesar]

@@tomaszmazurek64crazy story man , I’ve used reason, Ableton now I’m using Cubase. A bit of an unpopular opinion but I think acclimating with different DAWS is good. They each have their strengths and fun surprises and learning curves but I think it’s worth it in the end. Busy professionals however simply don’t have the time so become super proficient with one and go off the grid 😅 it’s a different position to be in.

[@marcforrester7738]

Sounds like the creatives cashed out by selling the business to an acquisitions company.

[@arturskrutainis]

Thanx for the video. What reason have done is sickening. Reason studious literally robbed me!!! There is no other way to put it!!!

[@io4439]

Similar happened in Australia with MYOB accounting software. They turned off their validation (anti piracy) servers and expected those users to 'upgrade' to their monthly fee based cloud subscription service.

[@simonmcneilly55]

I still remember when it was cheaper to fly from Sydney to LA buy a physical copy of adobe and fly back, than it was to buy it online in Australia

[@paulthetexan]

Rosetta Stone did the exact same thing. When they went subscription-only, they closed down the authentication servers for old versions. Versions that sold for hundreds of dollars for 'perpetual' licenses. I hope they went out of business.

[@leglessinoz]

They didn't.

[@ianthewright]

Narrator: They did not.

[@notthere83]

I wonder whether they could be sued over breaking their contract. Because even if they advertised a perpetual license and some weird loophole is buried in the terms somewhere, a court might rule that that's not acceptable.

[@graywolf2694]

You could try but they got more lawyers and money then you.

[@Das_Unterstrich]

Well you said it, ..some weird loophole buried somewhere. In court they will just say "well the user agreed to our terms, their fault that they didn't read it properly".

[@ev25zv]

Every EULA has some language that states they can change the specifics of the EULA with or without notice to the consumer and that you agree to that if you click I Agree.

[@Utrilus]

@@ev25zv EULA's are not legally binding. The only thing that matters is that the company said it's a perpetual license and now it's not a perpetual license. EULAS become binding only if there is a witness who saw the person read it and agreed to it.

[@simpson6700]

the problem here really is the license. you're allowed to use the product. if the product no longer exists you're technically still allowed to use it, even though you can't.

[@timgalivan2846]

I recently filed an insurance claim for a broken phone with AT&T. I had done the process a year and a half before with the same model phone so I (thought I) knew what to expect. When i filed my claim they wanted a $275 even though it was $200 the last time. I went round and round with them trying to get someone to answer how this could have changed arbitrarily without me signing a new contract at any point. They basically told me tough titty. But i am stubborn and it wasn't about the money, so 3 hours and 6 people later they finally gave me a $75 credit to offset the cost. Had been told 100 times there was nothing to be done before suddenly it could be done. I also wasn't even talking to AT&T half the time. Instead I was speaking with Assurion, who claim to have no points of contact with AT&T even though I pay the monthly insurance AND the deductible to AT&T so go figure. As soon as I pay off my device I'm switching providors, can't stand being treated like that.

[@louisax4058]

As long as people are fine with the "you'll own nothing and will be be happy" scheme, nothing will change.

[@jerryspann8713]

Most people are a bunch of lazy cowards that will except anything. That's the problem with this country. The government could charge a monthly fee for air and the fucking sheeple would pay it.

[@cyberdragon1000]

Heh that probably has to start with the NFT crowds

[@whitehavencpu6813]

People really need austrian economics in their lives. People need to realize that they are consumers and that consumers have massive power to control the market.

[@Henk717]

Louis even before this series you have already changed my views on ownership, not exclusively but you were definitely a contributing factor. Ownership to me is now: Can I keep it and do I have control over it? Not: Did I pay for it? Because most of the time the things I paid for I don't actually own, and pirated software I do. As a result I stopped paying for stuff I can't own unless it makes sense to do so, such as renting a server.

[@Moe_Posting_Chad]

Deny the system every penny you can. The slower the velocity of money the worse it hurts the system. We don't get out of all this evil and idiocy without bringing it all down first. There is no "working within the system." Stop being an atomized individual. Everyone around you feels just as angry and frustrated as you do.

[@presolargrains2423]

I had a bad experience with reason studios in 2011. They had the same snarky attitude back then too. Same as the dude in this video, I'll never give them money for anything ever again. I must say though, my experience with Renoise (totally different company) has been absolutely fantastic. Their support and obvious commitment to happy customers means I'll happily shout their name from the rooftops.

[@audiofreq]

Dude, same for me! I bet all of us had the same exact guy. Initials C W.

[@OfficialDJSoru]

Bro you went from a snobby DAW whose workflow only appeals to modular synth fanboys and delved right into Tracker software. Not only I respect you for going into a mildly complicated kind of workflow compared to the conventional DAWs, but you got into a community I can only respect from afar but lack the skill to join in. Trackerbros are awesome people.

[@MaddieM4]

I literally just recommended this on another thread in this video! Renoise fans unite!

[@useddentalfloss2484]

In the U.S. perpetual license breach in contracts are million dollar lawsuits. It's happened time and time again, so if the client is in the U.S.? I'd lawyer up. Their greed will cost them millions.