Sony Steals Customers' Purchased Content - Piracy is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED!

[@Time2paw]

The worst thing a person can experience is regret for doing the right thing, this is how monsters appear.

[@timecage]

THAT.

[@andrewvella7829]

Can I quote this in a superhero story. It's just perfect. Seriously. Genuinely. Thanks!

[@zeriel9148]

Seems like a definitional problem to me. If it doesn't have a good outcome, was it really the right thing to do?

[@re_negado]

(identifies)

[@bearclaus2676]

"Bitches be witches" is also a good one.

[@ThatDeadGuy]

If buying isnt owning, piracy isnt stealing

[@yeetdabeans3883]

Hey this was one of the highest comments on another video wasn't it

[@ThatDeadGuy]

@@yeetdabeans3883 maybe. it's still true though

[@Dmiliunas]

Technically you no longer buying console. U renting.

[@itrytobeanonymoustoo5289]

Piracy was never stealing. Stealing implies taking physical possession away from the legitimate owner. Piracy has never involved depriving the owner of possession. Piracy was always about depriving profit from a business.

[@serventofallah1426]

Aye aye captain🏴‍☠️

[@westernwarden8758]

What sony is doing here is objectively WORSE than piracy, sure you can still argue that piracy is stealing, but you do not steal a copy FROM the intelecual rights holder. You did not pay, but you did not steal any copies from Sony. Sony explicitely is taking away a copy from your electronic devices without permision.

[@rossmanngroup]

This is orders of magnitudes morally worse than downloading a copy of something. Because when you download a copy of something, you are not taking the copy away from the original owner of the file. Here, they are taking away the copy of the file that you bought and paid, while providing no obvious indication that this would be possible after you purchased it.

[@rc-fannl7364]

@@rossmanngroup Well said, forcefully taking back something a customer paid for, without any acceptable compensation, is beyond shameless, regardless of EULA bs. When Sony says "Don't steal" they clearly mean "Do as we say, not as we do"

[@Damadchef]

​@@rossmanngroupwhat's your take on Tesla truck .. as in you can't sell it for a year or they brick it?

[@MrFoxYodotter]

not to mention all the examples where u cant properly give money to the ppl who actually made the thing, like old games from ebay, none of the money goes to the developers. i just make a digital copy and no one loses money

[@jstefa2]

piracy is akin to watching the show at your friends house for free. albeit at a higher scale. (many friends in 1 house) and piracy is not malicious. piracy is result of being unable to buy. either its not available where you live or you cant afford it. in either case you do 0 damage to the company since they would not receive money from you anyways.

[@IANDURBECK]

The longer I dive into what these companies are doing, the more I realize this isn't a "Lets provide for our costumer" but rather a "Lets see how much we can get away with". And its honestly sad and concerning. The worst part is, there's people out there defending it and consuming it, thinkin its "the right thing" without realizing they are being manipulated like sheep.

[@namenotfound2456]

It's all a game of choosing the less evil company. Wether you want it or not, we all consume from at least one evil company. The only thing we can do, Is choose the less evil one or try change things.

[@lspcrash]

@@namenotfound2456 And changing things by controlling what he can--his actions and his business model--is precisely what Mr. Rossmann is doing. He then took it up a step by using this platform to share his position. Freedom of speech brings with it freedom to disagree. Freedom not to listen. If you don't like the message, go listen to a different message. Just like if you don't like the service, go somewhere else for the service, or do it yourself. Freedom of speech does not bring with it freedom not to be offended. If your rights end where mine begin, so I have to curb my speed so as not to offend you, then consider myself offended by you pointing out that you're offended by my speech, which by your own argument, means you can't tell anyone that you are offended, freeing me to speak again in the first place. In a similar vein, if you disagree with Mr. Rossmann, by all means, disagree. Use the resources at your disposal to take action different than his. If it matters enough to you to do so, that is. To paraphrase Larry Winget (whose book I bought) - "If it were truly a priority, you'd treat it like one." Application here: If it bothers you enough, do something different.

[@lspcrash]

@namenotfound2456 This was not meant to be a dig at you. When I hit reply, it added your name automatically, and I didn't notice nor remove it. Apologies for not paying closer attention.

[@namenotfound2456]

@@lspcrash no worries mate

[@zeriel9148]

I think all of this stuff stems from the same issue: moral rot. It used to be that people would (mostly) avoid doing this because it was wrong. A lot of people will blame the "actually, the only thing that matters is increasing shareholder profit, even if that causes damage and misery to the consumer and employee" movement that started in the 1970s, but if you think about it, this wasn't the problem. The problem was a society that could accept that premise in the first place. We're so far along the track that we're blaming the axe, not the hand wielding the axe, but still, I think it's important to apportion blame properly. Greed is not a freefloating independent entity; it comes from within us.

[@deni4l164]

Gabe Newell said years ago, 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.

[@bylescx]

when netflix and the others became good enough quality and easy to use on the tv without a computer I stopped pirating stuff. Amazon prime video stopped working on my Roku.. guess what I did then.

[@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket]

Gabe knows his stuff. I used to pirate games exclusively, now I own far more games from Steam then I'm proud to admit. It's not worth the hassle of cracks, malware, etc when Steam works so well and the prices are competitive enough to say "alright I'll just buy it". I own about 139 games and it keeps increasing.

[@zybch]

And that worked did it... Yeah, didn't think so.

[@qrowthebird7496]

​@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket You can still lose all those on Steam. Since it's all digital and Steam has to remove games when the IP holder tells them to.

[@JustSomeWeirdo]

@@zybchit worked for steam

[@BillyBobDingledorf]

30+ years ago I worked for a small software company. Our software had a lot of value to a small audience and they paid a lot for it. The VP tasked me with implementing software protection to prevent piracy. I asked him how big a problem piracy was with our software. He admitted it was nonexistent. I then told him that when the day comes that people are actively pirating our software, we've hit the big time. He re-tasked me with working on product improvement.

[@0num4]

Smart man, listening to his experts and making informed decisions that don't waste labor on useless features.

[@junjiexie]

This anecdote proves smart VPs existed 30 years ago

[@BillyBobDingledorf]

@@junjiexieHe was a good man. I'm lucky to have worked with him.

[@dredgewalker]

​@@junjiexieA lot of gaming companies had smart execs when they began, so they got big because of their decisions. But soon they retired and were replaced by people who only had making money as a passion. These new people have no issues sinking the company as long as they get a generous pay out of it. These execs make stupid decisions because they aren't really punished for effing up and are still paid tons of money in the end. If there were financial repercussions in their decisions they would actually try to make all their customers happy.

[@phonyalias7574]

Sometimes it's also an insurance thing. Just to say you've made an attempt to stop piracy, if for no other reason than you want to measure it and show you made an effort (proactively or reactively) to stop it.

[@Chillypuwn]

This CANNOT be legal by EU laws. I wonder if lawsuits and huge fines are inbound.

[@apveening]

I expect some serious lawsuits from European (ex-)customers. And while European courts don't go in for excessive fines, some of that content might be declared copyright free for this reason.

[@LeoAzzakaGoile]

You are allowed to download and own any Digital Copy of Music or Software you legally bought/own. You are NOT allowed to share said media. This was an argument used in court by someone who was caught using P2P software to download software. They were aquited as the courts could not prove they were 'sharing' the media, only downloading a copy of the media.

[@znail4675]

EULA also doesn't count as a contract in most of Europe meaning that putting something in there does not give the right to do theft.

[@ChronoSquare]

​@@znail4675that's an interesting tidbit, wonder what the ramifications of that are...

[@ultimatebo3noob710]

Ive never even seen the discovery in my ps before

[@alexs6746]

Imagine paying for a car, then 10 years down the line it gets towed off of your driveway because the dealership stopped supporting the music player and recalled every car.

[@Martarts]

​@@grabble7605L opinion

[@RusticRonnie]

@@grabble7605I have terrible news if you live in the United States.

[@wayneberry3453]

​@Martarts it's in terms. Lol how is it L?

[@DKannji]

@@wayneberry3453 Because the terms are 3 novels long and have wording so obtuse, that you can't understand the terms unless you have a law degree. When you buy a car you're given 6 documents you must sign with clear language.

[@wolf1066]

@@grabble7605 Never once seen a car - or anything else - advertised as "buy this today and we'll take it off you in ten years." If they're going to redefine "purchase" without *making it clear at the outset* what they mean by it, then I think it completely fair to redefine "thank" to mean "punch repeatedly in the face", bury that in the midst of a ninety-page document, and then go and personally "thank" them numerous times...

[@m0lDaViA]

Back when Netflix was launched, video piracy was declining year after year. And why? Because Netflix gave people what they wanted: a place where you could watch (basically) anything for a reasonable price without having to worry about tons of things. Then everyone had the idea to start their own streaming service and you could see video piracy increasing again almost every month.

[@TheYear2525]

"(basically) anything" Did they have more stuff at that point? Because when I look at streaming sites like these, I don't actually find what I want to see. There is only new and hipp mainstream stuff on there. They don't have a comprehensive library of even half of what I would expect. Not even a tenth.

[@jamesericdunphey]

Yeah. Early Netflix had quite a lot of stuff on it. Heck the originally started through shipping out DVDs. @@TheYear2525 Early on it was a centralized place with access to a lot more range than today. Mainly because other companies saw the profit and decided they'd imitate, and it only hurt the whole market as a whole as it removed the whole reason Netflix was popular: centralization and ease of access.

[@jackwilliams2673]

@@TheYear2525 Netflix used to have a LOT more content back in the day- legitimately good content too. Then they lost the ability to host a ton of stuff and went down the drain... Now they're grabbing whatever's the most hyped and trying to make as many "Netflix Originals" as they can to force people to buy their service if they wanna see any of it.

[@Jesse110]

Netflix used to have a ton of movies and shows until other companies saw their success and wanted a piece of that pie, so companies started pulling all their content from Netflix so they could sell it to you on their own streaming platform.

[@FranzoOnLine]

​@@alexander97there already IS a monopoly, on each individual show or movie, and piracy is the only competition. Every streaming service should be able to license every show and then they should compete on who has a better video player, or better subtitles and dubs for foreign shows and all that.

[@ailivac]

Obviously what happened is that Discovery realized they could make more money if people had to pay for their own streaming service every month instead of letting you buy permanent copies through a third party distributor. And because first-sale doctrine basically got completely stripped away with electronic copies those purchased copies can just go away at any time. That's the problem now - 10 years ago there was just Netflix and Hulu, and a few other shows on Amazon (which everyone was already paying for). And a cable subscription with DVR would take care of the rest. Now Disney has their own service, HBO has theirs, NBC has one, Paramount has their own (oh and nothing good on Amazon is included with basic Prime membership anymore)... to go the legal way you have to pay 6 or 8 different monthly subscriptions that mostly have one show on each of them. Just like music did 25 years ago, the TV industry has gradually made piracy the economical way to consume their product.

[@martinclarkson6081]

Not just the economical way to consume the product - also the more convenient way. Like, it isn't just the cost of having 8 different streaming services. It's also the time and effort of having that many different websites that you need to browse through whenever you want to find something to watch.

[@buddylee19082]

This^^^... You really articulated that well and you're spot on. I refuse to pay for 10 different streaming services just for the ONE show that each of them offers, that's actually worth watching. So now I just pirate those exclusive shows/movies AND I get to watch them in whatever quality I choose. And I feel like they've "forced my hand" to do so. At the end of the day when I BUY something I expect that I then OWN that something, until I, MYSELF, deem it otherwise. And I don't want a subscription to a streaming service that offers 100 or a 1000 shows/films, that I have zero interest in, just to be able to watch the 1 show that I am intertested in!? That's foolish. I can only assume that if these big services don't switch their model up soon there'll be more ppl that feel the same way and begin pirating too.

[@James_Bee]

Ah, the good 'ol days of CDs selling for $20 regardless of how many tracks were on an album or how long those tracks were. Punk bands got good and fleeced by the biz! I used to get my discs from BMG. Get a whole bunch of CDs for cheap and then cancel the service until they gave you the same offer to rejoin months later. Then I just stole discs from Block Buster Music because it was easy and then Napster.

[@bladeoflucatiel]

they're going full circle LMAO

[@BeansMcGriddle]

It's Disney at the end of the day

[@rpgarchaeology6049]

They get away with this garbage by saying "You aren't buying the content, you're buying a license to view the content on our platform (for as long as it's available)" and yet they choose to make it sound as if it's the content itself you're purchasing so you won't think about it. This is why I still buy DVD/BluRay.

[@mandelstamm]

And starting next year most large studios are going to stop releasing new movies on disc! Got to love this bullshit!

[@alistairblaire6001]

It's all technically "buying the rights to watch" but they can't take your Bluray disc away!

[@mandelstamm]

@@alistairblaire6001 But if they stop selling them, which they're about to do............. What then?........

[@atygr]

@@mandelstamm Remember bootlegs?

[@mandelstamm]

@@atygr Yep, today is called torrent piracy.

[@_ghr0_]

This deserves a class action lawsuit because no normal user is going to read an 80+ page TOS. Unless they had a pop-up or some warning underneath the buy button then they have no right to remove it.

[@grabble7605]

'I couldn't be bothered to read 1/8th of a Harry Potter book.' is not, in fact, great grounds for a lawsuit. And they have every right to remove it. You GAVE THEM that right when you agreed to the terms. It's entirely your fault if you can't read. Clown.

[@TheyCallMeIce]

Moreover, they explicitly used the word "Purchase", implying that it was permanent. The information you get on the ""purchase"" page and the information in the EULA/ToS being contradictory should 1,000% be illegal.

[@xtwmx]

'Thank you for supporting us.' is a nice touch at end of the announcement. Didn't realise Sony is a corporation that needs supporters now instead of customers.

[@roflBeck]

Yes, I can get behind that. I support you Sony, but I won't give you any money. Hope that's ok.

[@ramy8700]

Exactly, my support is with PlayStation but my money will remain in my pocket.

[@BetaBuild]

When you leave a toxic relationship or have kids with someone, the monetary compensation is called support. When you donate to P.B.S or a restaurant closes down and writes a letter on it's door both thank their patrons for years of support from the community. There's a long list of too big to fail corporations that tainted their goodwill and became irrelevant. Sears was the first Amazon, people used to fix their cars, order guns, food, clothes and order even prefabed housesand they're gone for all extensive purposes. After dealing with their horrible customer service over a pair of XM4 were I was called a liar because fedex delivered to the wrong house. Even after filing a police report and still having zero recourse, Valve will be getting my money from now on. I supported them through all the playstations, portables and every other accessory besides the cd Walkmans and other various electronics. You can simp for them but there must be some reason they getting lunch taken from them over last twenty years by the rest of Asia. * *(Yes! I know there's other economic factor like aging workforce, tariffs and weakening yen...but fuck'em it's been almost a year and I'm glad every time they get hacked now)

[@VincentVonDudler]

I recently attempted to redownload songs into my new phone that I legitimately purchased off Amazon Music and found the error, "Previously downloaded music is unavailable!". Wtf?! Can't help but fully agree with this videos title.

[@ambiarock590]

One time I was going on a bike ride and wanted to cue up some Spotify music on my phone to listen to while riding and Spotify decided to delete all the music from my phone because I downloaded music on one too many devices so I had to fall back on my CDs which I'm glad I keep on my phone. Would have been nice to know that the latest device I downloaded to told me that this was the last device I could store music on before downloading it

[@a.m.4154]

You've got to be kidding... "can't redownload"? Who signed off on this policy at Amazon?

[@jer1776]

Another reason I refuse to buy a phone without an SD card slot. Its just too easy to transfer my stuff to a new one.

[@lukasegeling5205]

@@jer1776 Mine contains a 512 GB card full of FLAC ripped from CDs. My phone also has a headphone jack to listen to it through. Ironically, it's a Sony phone because no other brand's flagships at the time had a headphone jack and SD slot.

[@VincentVonDudler]

There are several songs that this has applied to in my Purchased library. But the one song that sticks out in my mind is Buckethead - Soothsayer. It's the song that I was trying to listen to that led me to discover the problem. I have not been able to get Amazon Music to play this song in *any* way and I legitimately purchased it! Infuriating. This also happens with Deadmau5 - Strobe, The Midnight - Vampires, Eric Prydz - Call on Me, Kelly Clarkson - Already Gone, I've gotta check my purchase history now for any that just refuse to show up, as opposed to show up but refuse to download.

[@spud3607]

It's no wonder people are getting paranoid about big corporations.

[@catsozen]

This should've been true 4 decades ago. Never trust big corpos, ever. They use honeyed words to make it seem like they're on your side, but always pull idiotic moves like these when you least expect it.

[@Diamura]

People morals disappear as soon as they get a check.

[@devforfun5618]

but the red scare made talking bad about corporations anti american

[@bartbasil3704]

It's not paranoia when they're actually out to get you

[@gigaprime5799]

@@devforfun5618the Cold War sorta ruined America, in my opinion

[@holdenbell1630]

Adding to the "excuses" part in the EULA, the "you should have seen the powder I put into your drink" is a wonderful metaphor for the EULA. The EULA's may be followed better if they weren't 50 pages long at 0.08pt font and requires a PHD-level understanding of law to actually be understood. It's damn hard to see the powder when the lights are dimmed, the powder is clear, and the powder was put in the drink in a backroom of the bar.

[@StonedHunter]

That is a scarily good metaphor.

[@grabble7605]

So...Your excuse is a poor attention span? Fifty pages is like 1/12th of a Harry Potter book, font can be magnified and none of it requires a phD to understand.

[@holdenbell1630]

@@grabble7605 You're actually defending reading the driest, most bland word usage that can and should be summarized for the general public? Harry Potter is also at least well-written and entertaining, EULAs are not. When I purchase a $2000 computer, I don't want to read 7 different terms and services and EULA pages to make sure that I am following all 3000 rules of each product and service involved with the machine (Let's remember, there is an EULA for your PC itself, your windows operating system, any program you install, your graphics card, processor, etc). Also, going with Louis' other metaphor, when I go to a steakhouse, I don't want a 40 page paper describing to me the dangers of eating steak and how the restaurant is not liable for you choking to death on your food. I want to enjoy the product that I purchased.

[@Breadstin]

@@grabble7605 theres a difference, one is a cool story and the other is boring and no one really even reads

[@lucass8119]

@@grabble7605 Right, then you multiply that across a ton of services and suddenly, it literally takes less time and research to just pirate. I'd rather read a forum or two over a 50 page EULA just to watch a show. Hence, the big idea. If the service is high quality and accessible, anyone would pay. But its not, so you're losing twice. Money, and convenience/time.

[@QruisS]

Valve: *Gets Anime and movies on steam* Also Valve: Due to lack of sales, we will stop selling these products, HOWEVER EVERYTHING YOU ALREADY PAID FOR IS STILL AVAILABLE IN YOUR ACCOUNT.

[@videovagrancy8526]

That is the way it should be. Plain and simple.

[@re_negado]

*VIVALVE.*

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

Valve would be well aware that theiving from the customer like Sony has done, would end Valve, and they will also be aware that making the customer feel like they're getting better service, keeps the customer loyal and spending.

[@steinscamus8037]

Holy based

[@sodapopcowboy8620]

Wait... That happened?!?!

[@reecephillips2003]

When Google Play Music shutdown, they had a download service setup for a while so you could download music you had purchased. Sony should absolutely be taken to court over this if they're not providing a similar service. If you aren't given a clear time frame for how long this content is available to you, it should be assumed that it is accessible for your lifetime. And to reiterate what you said, making it clear does not mean burying it within a 90 page legal document. What an awful business practice!

[@reezlaw]

The other day I stumbled upon a website that had a pirated version of a certain music production software. They had removed anti-piracy protections and found out that now the software ran measurably faster using less RAM. Even if you buy the stuff you're better off using the hacked version. See how crazy that is? Anti-piracy protections becoming incentives for piracy themselves? This is insane and dystopian

[@mohitkumar0283]

Can you tell me the website

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

There's a couple of video production apps that seems to suffer the same - ones that had physical USB dongles to allow the applications to start, that now need an online connection, which if you care about your client-side security, you do not want your content creation PC's online! Use the crack versions that don't require constant connection to the company servers, air-gap the PC from the 'net, shut off all the security services that aren't needed for machine not connected,.. and suddenly the PC screams along because it's not wasting clock cycles on things you don't need running. Blackmagic Design went the opposite way with DaVinci Resolve - after they bought DaVinci, they started bundling full license copies of the software with activation dongle in their hardware - buy a camera, get full version of the Resolve 'Studio' software free. Then they released a version without all the high end features, still full featured compared to other NLE's and fully functional that is a FREE download from their website. And while the regular version of Resolve is free, the Studio version can also be bought seperately for around half the cost of the nearest competitor,..... Blackmagic sells a ton of the control surfaces that match the software, plus a range of video and cinema hardware, that's where they make their money, so providing the software in this way just earn loyalty from customers, who keep going back for more.

[@aatreybhatt1999]

​@@mohitkumar0283r2r I guess

[@jayclarke777]

I believe it's to work in cahoots with OS vendors, and OEM computer manufacturers-to drive customers to upgrade hardware. It's also very odd that Windows 11 was announced during the peak of the pandemic, AND a semiconductor shortage.

[@reezlaw]

@@mohitkumar0283 a website that hosts audio tools with an indian domain you mean? I don't know of anything like that

[@chaoslord8918]

I'm rolling my eyes so hard at anyone who tries to tell the guy who does microsurgery on "unfixable" Apple products that it's a "skill issue".

[@wayneberry3453]

Nah. But understanding how things work, might be a benefit. He out of anyone should know things change. Unexpected things happen. Just because you're married, does that mean they won't have an affair? Just because you go through a green traffic light, does that mean someone on the other side won't run a red light? 😂 Expect the unexpected 😂😂😂

[@billy65bob]

For all of Google's faults, they at least refunded everything for everyone when they discontinued Stadia. Sony needs to either do the Google thing (full refunds for all) or the Steam thing (no new sales, existing owners retain full access). But from what I've heard, Sony are just taking these away from you with no recompense: that is straight up theft, and should get them into serious trouble in any serious country.

[@suuslime3908]

The "Steam thing" doesn't exist. Because doing so would be illegal for Valve to do.

[@flyingturret208thecannon5]

@suuslime3908 I still have the original GTA San Andreas on Steam, and not the definitive edition. It’s not illegal. I purchased the game, ergo I keep the game.

[@lemonemmi]

@@suuslime3908 My pretty much day 1 library very much disagrees. I have more than half a dozen games that are no longer available for purchase, ready to be downloaded and played. The only games that have completely vanished, have been online free to play games which don't have servers anymore.

[@andrasfischer3778]

@@suuslime3908 i have at lest 3 game in my Steam Libari no longer sold on the store so yes steam defentely let you kepp and download un listed games ...

[@macskasbogre133]

​@@suuslime3908What part of it would be illegal?

[@Na7ure]

Louis, wanted you to know that I adopted your business model here in Hawaii In 2016 and now have a thriving company on Oahu. We also won top rated tech company of the state in 2019 and it’s all because of being open with our knowledge, not making people feel stupid and most of all just being plain understanding. Thank you for your hard work in our community.

[@GordLamb]

Should be an open and shut class action lawsuit. Frankly the award should be in the billions to send a very clear message that criminal theft will not be tolerated.

[@ryanamendt8363]

Ever read the contract? I'm sure there is some language relating to this that makes it legal. Doesn't mean it can't be fought but not open and shut.

[@GordLamb]

@@ryanamendt8363 first sale doctrine would almost certainly apply.

[@mahe4]

@@ryanamendt8363 only in third world countries like the USA. in other countries there are certain contract laws, that basically void any clause that nobody would ever expect in a contract. and this is the perfect example for such laws.

[@ryanamendt8363]

@@mahe4 Certainly! Corporations in the US can contribute unlimited funds to corrupt representatives to achieve whatever legal protection they please.

[@johngelnaw1243]

@@mahe4 Copyright laws, however, are generally exempt, due to massive lobbying efforts by companies like Sony and orgs like the RIAA / MPAA. I would suspect you're not nearly as well protected as you think you are. You are aware that Sony isn't an American company, yes?

[@namelessdude207]

I heard once that the Anti-Piracy Software of a certain game (if not all) slowed down that game, while pirated versions removed it, thus increasing the FPS-rate. This resulted in many more people pirating that particular game. Still funny to this day!

[@FUG_GOOGL]

True! Don't recall what game it was but I've read about it. When piracy actually is better... Funny AF 😂 Edit: doing some research actually shows many games running better when pirated. It makes sense though. Anti-piracy code can slow down a game because it has to check more things, decrypt stuff on the fly, etc. This uses more resources (CPU power for example) then when those things are removed by crackers.

[@mystrallsnowlight]

ah yes, the classic Denuvo DRM 😂

[@Graciashauf]

The fact that some people defend Netflix, tells you what you need to know as to how they got so big and how people are fine with not owning anything and pissing money away. In short, evil people thrive off these kinds of idiots and take their money

[@Teixas666]

the only real shame about netflix's model is that i'm not the one raking the money in from it.

[@Lovesausage269]

@@Teixas666I made 28k when their stock price went down 🤷

[@Graciashauf]

@timm2199 I was gonna say you can make money off Netflix via stocks lol nice bag

[@Graciashauf]

@@Teixas666 stocks.

[@youtubeenjoyer1743]

Why are they evil? Is capitalizing on stupidity evil? Maybe we won’t have any stupid people in the future, because their ancestors would have perished in poverty.

[@JohnSpo]

I really wish we could go back to the days of buying software in a box off a shelf in a store and install it from a disc without the internet getting involved.

[@stevenjohns1322]

Ahhhh the good old days I remember them well, I still have a number of old games that I love to play from time to time and I also have an old PC that’s not connected to the internet and using an old operating system

[@ApolloT-vp5dn]

You can still do that with movies and TV series. And most console games currently.

[@jasonanderson5034]

u really wish we could litter more and produce more waste to fk up the planet nice why dont u get off the internet since u hate how it makes things easier

[@jgood005]

But how are they gonna send you a dozen mandatory, unskippable software updates in the first month?!

[@jasonanderson5034]

@@ApolloT-vp5dn why are u ssupporting it ar eu that much of a tool we dont need to waste mor eplastic dumbass we can all operate digitally but of course none of give a fk about some xtra waste

[@rossmanngroup]

Have you ever paid full price and been treated worse than those who sail the high seas? What was it? I am curious.

[@WhatWillYouFind]

Over a decade ago I paid for HOMM5. Single player, offline game authentication servers went down for 2 full days and since that day I've never bought a service or game like it. NO server DRM. No Denuvo. No devices that need to phone home to work. No printers with a subscription. No Smart bullshit that requires an application to turn my lights on or off. No Ring doorbell. None of that mess.

[@FateShape]

Literally all the physical disk movies and their unskippable fbi warnings. There used to be a whole meme about buying the disk but pirating and watching the ripped content just to skip that trash.

[@avithedev]

Been pirating since I was a kid

[@M.O.T]

every game that has denuvo anti-tamper it makes the games run slower

[@UnitSe7en]

SPORE. SPORE was the game that made me stop buying EA (Been playing EA games since the 90's) and never buy another game on launch. It came with a 5-install limit per key and was only after a lot of backlash that they released a 'de-authorization' exe to remove the restriction.

[@realElzie]

Buying physical copies of things is the only way to protect your stuff, the issue is that they are expensive and many companies (especially gaming companies) are slowly phasing out physical items.

[@antonyjharper31]

But what if it’s not on dvd?

[@GG3kOfficial]

Flash it to a disk or store it on a USB/external hard drive. Store it across many floppy disks. Store it on film. Print out the contents of the file. Write the binary in a notebook.

[@coolsnake1134]

Best buy apparently will no longer be stalking physical media in their stores

[@ellicesanchez3194]

Don't forget to do offsite copies, if possible. Your house can legit burn down and then it is all lost. Not all DVDs and things can be replaced when making them becomes economically unviable, or like DVD players are only in museums.

[@cedrebleu7181]

That is why GOG is a good solution for gaming, you can buy games and copy them on any storage you want, no DRM or other BS

[@DoktorJammified]

Biggest insult you can give to any media is telling them you wouldn't even pirate it.

[@excentrik5725]

LoL, good one. Im gonna pirate this quote and spread it :)

[@CodeBroRob]

been saying it for years now, EA is on the top of my shitlist, ubisoft close second

[@JakeInvest]

@@CodeBroRob copy paste comments is equal to piracy in my opinion. all ur doing is sharing and sharing is caring

[@darth3261]

That's me with the content shat by Disney

[@jaysdood]

Yep and increasingly content such as Star Wars and the M She U fall into that category.

[@AR-ey1ur]

Same goes for video games. If you read, for example, Steam TOS, you'll see that you DO NOT own anything. They pretend to sell you a (digital) product, but in reality they sell you access to the product, which access can be removed at any time. Most companies these days that sell digital goods have similar legal disclaimers. Like someone said, if paying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

[@VPCh.]

That said, Steam made a legal commitment to continue to provide you your games, regardless of what happens. You don't technically own them, but even if the company goes bankrupt they will give you a way of downloading without DRM them before the servers shut down.

[@ragegaze3482]

To be fair that like never comes into play, I have never heard of someone losing access to their steam library. And in some games that's actually necessary, mainly competitive multiplayer games. They need to be able to ban you from playing the game for cheating and such, and force you to buy another copy if you want to continue playing. It helps ward off more cheaters.

[@Duke6598]

@@ragegaze3482 ubisoft recently did this with their assasins creed titles.

[@thefool8224]

@@VPCh. i would feel safer if i could back up my steam library and have an offline installer like GOG. once the people who made them good leave or change, then that company becomes blizzard of today, and im expecting steam to go that path once gabe loses control of it

[@EbonyWolf.]

I can still download and play my games that are not available to buy on steam anymore.

[@ReaIHuman]

When piracy is higher quality than paying for a service, why would anyone choose the lower quality item?

[@丫o]

They would choose the lower quality by default if they have no idea how to pirate, and/or object to piracy

[@canalcoloradoaado]

people afraid of piracy

[@lukmanalghdamsi3189]

​@@canalcoloradoaadobut but the guy in the suit on tv said it's bad! we most fear everything that we don't understand and never educate ourselves and learn about it. the government knows what is better for me.

[@ceu160193]

Because piracy usually doesn't have anyone walking you through whole process - yes, it has guides and forums, but it falls on user to find those guides and follow them to get what they want.

[@lightborn9071]

@@ceu160193 Literally ask a friend to copy something on an USB drive.

[@dece870717]

"Piracy" is the best means of not just preserving what you own, but also a great way of demo-ing a game (or movie). The amount of times I've lost money on games and movies that I ended up disliking, or eventually became unplayable because they're broken, or ended up collecting dust because the save file was corrupted, or the disc/cartridge got scratched/damaged is quite a bit. Most games I've "demo-ed" I ended up deleting and/or selling for a loss. I've got so irritated at the amount of 4K blurays and regular blurays that I've eventually ended up getting ruined or that led to significantly less movie to watch because of one seemingly insignificant scratch.

[@poppyalt7427]

I can second that, many times if I pirate I will either put it down and delete it, or enjoy and pay for it when I can. I don't have much extra cash so I will make it clear when I appreciate something. A friend recommended a game he was excited for, so I tried the mobile version on an APK and enjoyed it. Later I bought the normal Google Play version, the first console version of the game, dlc, and the sequel, and now I'm waiting on the next game. My library has a section of video games, so I tried a new series I was interested in but couldn't spend tons of money on. I enjoyed it to the point of emulating older games in the series, and bought games that are coming out more recently. I pirate books that I usually only get at my library anyway, but buy the books on occasion when I have the money if it's a series or author I like. Sometimes just a demo is enough to show what you need and what's not worth continuing or paying for 🤷‍♀️

[@mokahless]

Yeah. The amount of game demos I've played over and over before eventually buying the game in the 90s/2000s is... well actually none because when I went to try to actually on purpose buy those games, they weren't available anywhere. And they'd only been released a couple years back, too! But the point is, game demos should not have disappeared.

[@Wolvahulk]

Also media and game preservation. Try and get a good Silent Hill PS1 copy today... Ridiculous prices from scalpers, and none of that money is going to the developers nor companies that own the IP. Piracy is practically a requirement for preservation. If a game is abandoned by a company for over a decade (which has happened in some cases), it should basically be public domain at that point. It's ridiculous that so many amazing games simply rot away for no good reason. Companies shouldn't be able to stop fans from keeping their game alive if they don't plan on doing anything at all with that game in the future (sometimes with the IP as a whole even). It's such a destructive practice, and basically amounts to "I made my money, so now no one can have my product".

[@joza3592]

Valve figured out that piracy is a service issue, and now they have the largest online game store. Even though many other colossal competitors tried to usurp Steam, none succeeded because no one else wanted to admit that piracy is a service issue. Even PC pirate scene is suffering.

[@OcDmn]

not looking forward to the day current people who running the service not there anymore. imagine if the "pay for every reload" EA guy somehow got to replace them in the future lol

[@Ligma-Nut7]

There's even a lawsuit right now against Steam for being a monoply platform. I'm like good. Steam is actually doing things right. Don't give a fuck if it's a monoply.

[@Raptor091288]

DRM does not hurt pirates. It hurts paying customers. Always has, always will.

[@roland985]

Then viva la pirata @@OcDmn

[@XxWarmancxX]

pirated burnout paradise back in the day, ended up buying it afterwards when i had disposable income (doesnt hurt that it went on sale at the time too). never wouldve bought it if i never tried it pirated.

[@_Gromm_]

As Pirate Software once demonstrated with one of their video games, the best way to counter piracy is to offer a better deal than the pirates. Brazilian players were pirating his game, so he dropped the brazilian price down by 75%. Because of this change and making his game more affordable to a poorer nation, brazilians started buying the game instead, and they now make up a quarter of his profits from that game.

[@TheSkytherMod]

God I hate that dude.

[@m0lDaViA]

Companies don't wanna do this because some people will buy it cheaper then.

[@TabbyGarf]

they would STILL buy it instead of resorting to piracy @@m0lDaViA

[@lokeshchandak3660]

​@@m0lDaViAsmall income vs no income... Somehow companies fail to see this

[@nazaxprime]

Yup. Great shout out.

[@joshmrcl]

I saw this situation coming years ago. Its absolute lunacy that companies can say you can "buy or rent" then eventually pull crap like this with no recourse for the consumer. Its rent for a couple days or rent until we just shutdown the service whenever we decide. This nonsense should be illegal. Sell me a file i can download and properly own or gtfo.

[@mitchjames9350]

This is why I am against streaming for video games, if Microsoft next console is streaming only or dependent on the clout I am done.

[@awesometonio1]

This is the exact same problem that has been going on in the video game sphere for quite a while with the turn towards "live service" models and other ways of forcing an internet connection to a server in order to access and play the game. As soon as those servers get turned off, the video game in question, and whichever others are also inextricably connected to those servers, become the software equivalent of paperweights. There's a fantastic video done by Accursed Farms, the KZbin channel by Ross Scott, titled "'Games as a Service' is Fraud" that goes much more in depth about this concept and why it is, in no uncertain terms, outright theft.

[@ferrarikangaroo9271]

"When you make people who want to do the right thing feel stupid for it, they will stop doing that "right thing" and will start doing whatever they want to do" Well said mate! I hope you're having a top weekend

[@voddybull]

I remember the days when we got reminded on a bought movie on DVD that piracy is illegal, often times with a short clip of 30 seconds or more. Never saw one of those annoying disclaimers when I actually pirated a movie.

[@meloniedropik3539]

This is so right. I have a set of DVDs that have a blaring, seizure-inducing, nonskippable piracy warning that lasts about 30 seconds. Then there is a nonskippable (but I can FFWD) advertisement for the exact box set that the DVD comes from before it will allow me to access the menu. Every time I play those movies, it irritates me to no end that I wouldn't have to endure their stupidity if I had pirated them instead of paid for them. I imagine that the mushroom-brains who Louis often parodies from his comments sections are actually the people responsible for such things.

[@ynotwalk7391]

we used to re-author dvds to remove all the intro and menu garbage

[@GGG_gaming]

And the people that made that anti piracy ad pirated the music for it Which is funny

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

You wouldn't download a car

[@chrisp174]

Every person that gets affected by the Discovery content removal should get a refund. If removals like that start happening more and more on other platforms then people will just not buy digital items anymore.

[@scpatl4now]

A ways back, Amazon nuked some books people had bought and downloaded to their Kindles, and didn't even bother to tell them they were going to do it. This is not new behavior. If people allow this to go on...guess what, it will.

[@exidy-yt]

Which is exactly why I never 'buy streaming content" or DRMed media at all. Because this will continue to happen and I do not intend to be robbed.

[@donjj8294]

@@scpatl4now on the other hand. Google gave the customers their money back for purchased Stadia games....

[@artos6209]

​@@exidy-ytMy thoughts exactly!

[@robertsmith2956]

My kid wrote his own song and used it on a YT video, and was threatened with copyright infringement. I know damn well he gave himself permission to use it.

[@yetidynamics]

remember that time Sony installed RootKits on music CDs?.

[@hyper_visor]

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

[@ohnoitschris]

It's incredible how all video streaming has completely disregarded that.

[@greatspaceadventure]

In the end it should all come down to the negotiating power of the most discerning highest-value customers. As soon as people with enough money to pursue and sustain legal action against these abysmal business practices notice that the quality of the goods they purchase is below the quality threshold of what is available for free, something will get done about it. Most people aren’t that discerning, which is therefore why, in my opinion, media literacy is important in this discussion. The more discerning consumers can be, the more power they have to demand the bare minimum of value for what they pay.

[@Dionysor]

GOG is already fitting the bill when it comes to games. Getting updates and owning the installer files on disk is what I gladly spend my minimum wage on. Something like GOG Movies (or rather GOM) would be pretty nice, though for buying seperate movies and series. I don't see a lot hope in streaming services personally, as the goods are stored remotely, ready to have the access cut off by greedy license chairmen..

[@hakasonma8588]

Truly false - I live in Canada, take legal bud for example - it’s been 5 years now, maybe not long but long enough, and I have never walked into a legal shop, will never go into one, and will die never buying from one. Is the experience better? For most maybe, but I’m from the past so I’m aware of the culture and everything before regulations, and because of that I can never support scum, and I’ll support the “war lord funding” any day So if the services let me keep my content but it’s trash, why would I pay? If the companies I previously supported now support odd agendas, why would I pay? If said brands make it seem their gender based towards one side, as the opposite gender, I would think it’s not inclusive of me and then again, why would I pay? I’m a person who spend $$$$ on anything I DEEM WORTHY anything else I’ll take free, stolen or any other way but the proper way 😂😂

[@HanCurunyr]

Baldur's Gate 3, an indie game with a long development cycle, a long early access (2 or 3 years long), and was one the most successful launches in steam's history, over 900k concurrent players on the 2nd day, for a fully featured, single player game with zero anti piracy measures, not even steam DRM, runs completly offline, yhou dont even steam open to play your copy bought thru steam, I paid full price for that game, and would buy again

[@braddl9442]

Yup. Piracy is clearly moral and justified the longer time goes on. At some point there will be a successful class action lawsuit where we all get a .50 cent check

[@ambiarock590]

I remember I got like 2 dollars from one about AMD and CPU's. I was rolling in dough, I should have just retired right there and then and went on vacation lol

[@altrag]

Moral, not really. The moral thing to do is to just not consume the content at all. But justified? Absolutely. The same companies that do everything in their power to screw consumers have also managed to build a world where consuming content is practically a social imperative. Not consuming the content leaves you socially isolated when all of your friends and coworkers are commiserating over the latest episode. The moral option is simply not realistic for a lot of people. They're pressured to consume the content one way or the other so they have to choose between paying the premium for subpar service, or piracy. And I would argue that allowing yourself to knowingly get screwed is just as immoral as piracy, regardless of the legality.

[@brettski74]

I don't have a stake in this particular fight since I don't own any model of playstation, but if I did and if I had purchased any of this content, what I'd be asking for as a remedy is not a refund, but an unencumbered copy of the media I purchased at the resolution and quality level I paid for.

[@jakobschneider558]

@@altrag Moral is subjective. So both of you are right. I'm on @braddl9442 side in this case. If I pay full price for a game, I'm still gonna pirate it afterwards, so I actually own it. Not being able to own and sell my digitally purchased goods is immoral for me.

[@ImminDragon]

And the lawyer gets a few million. Funny how that works.

[@lucadivine3862]

I thought we already learned this lesson a decade ago with Steam and Netflix: the way to combat piracy is to make paying for content the most convenient way to get it. The VAST majority of people will choose to pay to legally obtain their entertainment as long as it's at least slightly faster/easier than piracy.

[@kernsanders3973]

We did, most people didnt listen and will continue to not listen. People are openly accepting the no privacy, corporate subscription hellscape where you will own nothing and you WILL be happy. I still have physical media and will continue to purchase physical media of movies and shows I love. But the sad truth is that is going out the door, not enough people are sticking to it and in fact getting rid of their physical media collections. Both those arent good examples, Netflix has censored movies on it's platform or altered the content to be more "updated". Steam as well has suffered the fate of few games being removed from the platform. At least with steam most of those titles are still in my library but cannot be purchased by anyone anymore. Like Unreal, Deadpool etc. The only way for someone to experience those that is new to gaming would be piracy. full stop.

[@matthewjuarbe5826]

yeah, the only way I bought Deadpool on Steam was to buy a steam key from a third-party site. it's crazy the game was Delisted 6 months after it was released. then came back stood up for 2 years then delisted again. and both times it was the same Licensing Issue reason. @@kernsanders3973

[@potatorigs2155]

voila @@BassPlayer-jp3dt

[@SkySong6161]

Netflix is also suffering from enshittification. As a capital enterprise, their responsibility isn't to produce a good product for end users - it's to make shareholders more money than they did the year before, every year, in perpetuity. Except Netflix has saturated the markets it's capable of saturating. There's no "new" market to expand to, so they've got to start squeezing more money out of their existing customers and hoping the rubes who ain't paying attention don't notice. So they're turning into cable: different packages for different movies, commercials, degrading quality, ect. Loius already did a whole video about Netflix. Name a major corporation, they're doing it.

[@matthewjuarbe5826]

@@SkySong6161 this is true if you are on ad tier you dont have access to certain content even Netflix originals are locked out. The basic ad free unlocks some more content and then obviously the most expensive gives you access to what they claim is all the content but in reality it isnt.also their quality is so horrible. They are streaming 1080p content at around 4000kbps-8000kbps whichcis ok for cellphones and tabkets but on a large tv screen the video wuality is horrible. Compression artifacts everywhere. Now they claim to have a 30mb option which is standard HD Bluray starting bitrate. But thats BS. I enabled it but after monitlring the packets and looking at the bitrate quality its still below the standard 10mbps bitrate rated for HD streaming. So not onoy are they delivering false advertising on all front theyre down right crocks

[@cobra02411]

Never piss off the internet... I agree completely with you. If you purchased something then it's yours. If they don't want to host then they should provide the ability to download or even get a physical copy. I would even support reasonable production and shipping costs if someone wants a physical copy.

[@Davitron_87]

If i purchase something digital, and that company decides to take it away from me without any financial compensation at the very least. Then it is tantamount to stealing. There needs to be laws in place to prevent this from happening.

[@micahnightwolf]

Big company laughs at your silly laws, because the penalty is never any more than a monetary fine. Also known as "legal for a fee." Their corporate leaders will never see the inside of a brig. So we sail the mighty seas and plunder their booty to take back that which is rightfully ours!

[@BodilessVoice]

Such laws exist. They are not enforced against wealthy and powerful corporations. We've normalized hypocrisy, theft, and double standards.

[@potatorigs2155]

lol so let's say you bought a film digitaly for 5 box and 8 years later they remove it you want what exactly 5 cents ? smh good luck in court .

[@rocketmunkey1]

There are Laws its called THEFT contract Law and Legislation can NEVER take precedence over c 0mm 0n Law ! despite what they tell you !

[@marcogenovesi8570]

@@potatorigs2155 by the same logic it's ok to steal from shops, what are they gonna do, come after you for 100-200 bucks?

[@patheadroom7072]

A great man once said piracy is a service problem, not a price problem.

[@FractalPrism.]

that would be Gabe Newell.

[@nobody4y]

​@@FractalPrism.That's Lord Gabe Newell sir

[@shinobuoshino5066]

Funny how I never paid for music, never paid for movies, but have over 30 games paid for on steam.

[@GirolamoZanchi_is_cool]

And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. -John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. -Acts 3:19 :) .

[@GirolamoZanchi_is_cool]

@@shinobuoshino5066🦫

[@SnowyFoxFox]

"You don't have to be worried when people pirate your content. You have to be worried when people stop pirating your content" is a great quote and I need to remember it.

[@luigivincenz3843]

I do remember the explosion of popularity for the Walking Dead season 2 and 3 back then. Supposedly the episodes are the most downloaded on t*rrent in history not even game of thrones was able to reach those numbers. If it's not popular, then no one will "acquire" it.

[@jasonanderson5034]

u clearly dont know anything bruh if their is a solution that dosent effect the user experience while also being uncrackable thats the way to go fking id**t till then we deal with it

[@Ligma-Nut7]

I'll download a game to try it out. If I like the game, I'll buy it for the sake of not having bugs. Pirated games are often filled with bugs because they're "Cracked".

[@GeneralChangFromDanang]

That's what's happening to Disney right now.

[@richh650]

You are exactly correct as we are now in a world where most companies feel they have a right to steal from their customers. Companies/content providers try to control your experience and one can be sure it will ALWAYS be in their own interest, not your interest. The more cloud usage we are forced to move to (for all things, not just streaming), the more our experiences will be worse for all of us!

[@atygr]

funny how theyre never allowed to get the shit end of the stick, if you pay attention those same types of people overlap.

[@shannell580]

So if they feel they have a right to steal I guess we can put the shoe on our foot as well, like Rossman says. It is just become a real 💩💩 world and crappy service. Like Roasman says

[@friendlyninja5048]

This is what happens when we have people constantly simping for these corporations. They feel like they can literally steal from the customer because they know people will defend them anyway. Stop defending the actions of corporations that don't care about you. If they do something wrong, they deserve to be held accountable

[@pepinowhite5014]

This, so pathetic to see people act like these mega corpos are their friends or something

[@atygr]

@@bruce5597 yes, but you should still not like the persons running the corp doing something just cause it's not a "law"

[@Bob_Bobbings]

They are in essence selling you something they don't own or have rights to sell you to own indefinitely. It's like selling you a car they have hired from elsewhere and charging you the full price for the privilege. They then stop paying the hire car fees to the original company to honour their part of the agreement of selling you the product. So now the cars are getting repossessed by the people that sold you it.

[@hardwatergaming7965]

Nice analogy

[@TheAcidicMolotov]

Correct, they even dont hide it from you. It is just consumers who want their cake and to eat it too. It says the risk on the tin, you took said risk and lost

[@loveluclins]

@@TheAcidicMolotov I don't know who pays you to be a spokesperson for a practice that isn't even sustainable to begin with. If anything it's a long term scam.

[@Andras889]

We need right to ownership. If you purchase a movie / game etc online, it has to be available until the company goes bust, and if it does they, have to make it available for download in full and DRM FREE, it has to be part of the liquidation process, if any emploee, deletes / encripts any part of said products they should be prosecuted (i would even argue to make the source code available for software). For online services, they have to refund you the full purchase price and any addon, if they shut down the service. Same if they want to change it to subscription based.

[@scoobertmcruppert2915]

@@TheAcidicMolotovHow are some peoples brains wired so wrong to get the complete opposite lessons from everything?

[@stepheneddington1667]

Amazon did something similar to this with their game New World back in October. They took out content that had been in the game from the beginning, and some things they added for free in the first few updates, and they charged people to get it back in the new 'DLC' content they released. They wanted us to pay another 30 dollars for things that we had already paid for when we bought the game before. I tried to get people to understand how wrong this was by using the analogy of imagine you bought a car, paid in full and own it, then a year or two later they come back and take your tires and say they'll sell you new tires but they are really your old tires they took. People attacked me. No company should be able to take back something you paid for.

[@divinecomedian2]

Rockstar did some similar bullshit in GTA Online

[@FARTSALOTist]

Paid for 150 movies on PlayStation movies and they denied me access for ever . About 1000 £ down the tube .

[@vansdan.]

I started pirating when I was like 11 and couldn't afford it anyway. After reaching adulthood and getting a job, I started purchasing games, movies, music etc but as time went on.... piracy became more and more reasonable. I'm 30 now and still basically have to pirate half my shit.

[@GMAV3RICK]

Same here. Smart woman. 👨🏾‍🦱👍🏾

[@DarkOmicron]

I'm 31 and relate to that a lot, I think its something related to the time we grew up vs now. Piracy was common before we had good easy places to watch videos, movies, listen to music, play games etc, then those places popped up and made it easy right around the time many of us finally had jobs and could actually buy stuff. Lightning in a bottle for services like Netflix or Steam. Now that so many services are splintering, and using an argument of monopoly to sway uninformed masses, all the content costs so much for so little value to keep up with that its just better financially to go back to pirating just like when we were kids with no jobs or money.

[@vansdan.]

@@DarkOmicron yep. couldnt have said it better myself

[@jeryjohn]

And this is why torrents will never be eradicated

[@explorer7913]

I never bought any digital products prirate from the beginning

[@TheSteveBoyd]

Downloading copies of media you have paid for already is not piracy. It's called backing up your library. Anyone who has read their Orwell, or their Bradbury, should understand the value of storing these backups on physical media.

[@GYTCommnts]

👏

[@Devdraco]

Morally that may be your position, but legally that is not true.

[@TheCarpenterUnion]

As long as it is in close format to the version you own, agreed. But you can't own a dvd and download a 4k rip

[@cydragon2.099]

also using files to make your steam purchased games to run without steam is also legal and ethical

[@Austin1990]

​@@DevdracoThe laws in question are the results of lobbying. They enlist the violent force of the government to defend extortion of their customers. And, they still break the laws regularly.

[@MausBastion]

We need to start taking political action against these practices. EULAs should never protect thieves and nefarious actors.

[@bumblebeegamerreal]

First, try taking action against Mojang for taking away people's Mojang (Minecraft) accounts because they didnt migrate to a microsoft account. Migration is supposed to be an option, not something forced down people's throats. Using Louis's logic, that means you have every right to find a way to access Mojang account. This is another right to ownership problem, because you paid $30 in 2013 or whatever year for a Mojang account only to take it away from you. People have kept using the EULA argument to defend Mojang for their action

[@LordOfNihil]

ok, where are you going to get the millions of dollars to lobby with? because they can buy more lobbying than you can and they know it.

[@LordOfNihil]

@@bumblebeegamerreal minecraft was different for me. i ran pirated, and was legitimately impressed with the game so much so that i bought a legit copy. then i went back to the pirated copy because i didnt need or want another cloud account.

[@marionascimento450]

Well, if the EULA covers it, then it's not stealing and they're not thieves, so there is not really any action you can do, other than not buying from them and reading the EULA 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@goblin3810]

The answer is to not engage with those companies, but people have zero willpower. So they steal it and justify.

[@QoraxAudio]

I have to say, buying Linux as a teenager back in the 00s was probably one of the most nerdy things a teenager could do! Buying any kind of software was nerdy and uncool back then, but especially Linux of all things... lol You really deserve some respect for that Louis! 👍

[@svsguru2000]

In a world where you own nothing, you will steal everything.

[@itrytobeanonymoustoo5289]

Yeah! Banishing ownership is going to have some very undesirable consequences for the corporate world.

[@MrJohnnyseven]

And I do....

[@j81851]

Kudos excellent

[@thefool8224]

like a wise person in this channel once said "if paying doesnt let me own it, then pirating it isnt stealing"

[@innocentbystander3317]

"Take what you can, and give nothing back." Some Disney movie

[@JeremyNeish]

The best way for a media company to avoid piracy is 1. Make it available (for ever when you buy it) 2. Make it affordable 3. Value add. I've been saying this since the 1990s, they still don't get it.

[@daniels-mo9ol]

That's not making them money. Everyone, including them, know this to be better for the consumer. They just don't want to make it too available. Lawsuits and corporate deals are key. Not your individual purchase as a person.

[@theglassarrow_]

they problem is they want to capolize on every possible dollar. there will always people who wont steal the content, and people who will always. best practice is to rob the people who wont break a law. Movies and shows also do come out with bonus content when buying them digitally, but that stuff is normally not hard to find, or not cared for. I 'own' every rick and morty episode digitally. Every season has some bonus content, but Adult swim posted that same content for free on their youtube. Extended versions of movies isn't hard to find either, but normally come out later so some people buy 2 copies, or they people who thought buying before wasn't worth it may. but hey if the movie undersells, then why invest more money into a second wave of publishing.

[@WaaDoku]

Does Steam do these 3 things? I'd rather have my hard copies back but it seems like gaming go into a different direction and nothings available on a disc anymore.

[@LocrianDorian]

I don't think things being affordable matters, as long as they respect your purchase and it's good value. Affordable means different things to different people.

[@TheBlueArcher]

It's funny. I feel like companies DID get this in the 90s but have forgotten it post 2000

[@GChezlynD]

Another reason why Physical copies are better than Digital. And whats crazy is Digital copies cost THE SAME as physical copies. Physical copies go through printing & distribution which obviously cost more to produce per product but the fact that a digital purchase costs the exact same price as a physical copy is just a madness in my eyes.

[@AngeloAbela]

Digital sales lose some 30% revenue to the platform holder.

[@MacUser2-il2cx]

But it's good to have a backup just in case. It's like a music cd. If the cd gets scratched over the years, you still have the mp3 songs to burn a new cd. :)

[@ey1615]

@@MacUser2-il2cx In that case just buy them physically and pirate them digitally.

[@MacUser2-il2cx]

@@ey1615 What happens when the bigger games refuse to put the whole game on the disc and want you to "update"?

[@noneyabusinessyoushouldbes7924]

@@MacUser2-il2cx When they do that, just say NO (i.e. don't buy it).

[@DrunkActual]

Unfortunately physical media is bulky and takes up physical space, it’s the only way to prevent losing your purchases in this context. You’re absolutely correct revoking my ability to use digital content, that I’ve purchased, is a form of theft.

[@mokahless]

@user-iy1vo2jf2q Whoosh. Someone lives in pirate land. The point here is that there is no legal way to just get the files on a HDD.

[@this.is.a.username]

@@mokahless sure there is. purchasing digital content gives you the right to keep a copy downloaded on your drives. you have a receipt, it's yours.

[@CutterOne.]

Back when video games began to transition from physical disks to digital downloads there were a bunch of us warning that this exact thing would happen. If you don't physically have the game/movie/song you purchased, they can, and will, take it away when they need or want to. Those of us opposing digital downloads tried to warn people, but we were made out to be "paranoid" and "crazy" because, why would a game company ever take away a game you already paid for (or in this case, TV shows/movies) they said, it'll never happen they said.

[@pakeshde7518]

I tell folks that who are all gaga over bitcoin and digital wallets. The cash you have today is cash tomorrow, the digital code you have today is the banks tomorrow and you will somehow say that's a good thing.

[@MetallicBlade]

That is why I have always considered Steam to be the biggest trojan horse that had consumed most of modern PC gaming. By... on the surface giving the user more convivence to access their games, but deeper down; it has successfully eroded physical PC gaming _and_ ownership in one fell swoop. Your 'game library' is at their mercy.

[@michaellopate4969]

@@MetallicBlade while this is true, what is the other option? Tons of games just don't exist as physical media. Steam is the ONLY way to buy some of these.

[@meetshield2461]

plus you cannot ever loan or trade or sell. Total scam.

[@Ancyker]

At least you can still buy non-digital games for consoles. If you haven't bought a retail box of a PC game lately, then I have some sad news: Oftentimes the box just contains a code to redeem online to download it.

[@lesscommonsense1804]

Back in the day people used Netflix because it was a better alternative to the box office, blockbuster, and piracy. Now it’s worse than piracy in so many ways.

[@jer1776]

Ironically its also getting worse than physical media.

[@czaczaczar]

Back then Netflix almost killed piracy but they became too greedy & started abandoning fan favorites.

[@last808]

@@czaczaczar It's in huge part because the media companies saw their success and pulled their content to spin up their own streaming services. Anything that Netflix wants to license in the future is costing them more and therefore they're raising prices and it's just a huge mess.

[@minbari73]

Piracy has always been better.

[@thatguyalex2835]

Netflix has too many remakes. They remade One Piece. Never touch a classic 1990s show like that. I will be using my local library which is walking distance from me instead for movies, documentaries and TV shows.

[@NopeNaw]

You don't need an excuse to pirate, you need a reason to pay.

[@renakunisaki]

It's funny how the media/software I have no problem paying for is also the stuff I could most easily get for free.

[@goldenhorse4823]

​@@renakunisakiYeah, weird how costumers do not act against companies that do not go against them. Almost like respect goes two ways

[@wyattx46]

I wholeheartedly agree, I recently downloaded Lies Of P from a piracy website and was so enamored by the gameplay that i uninstalled the game and went and bought it on steam to play from there, even though I could've gotten it cheaper on gamepass.

[@calebharris292]

Could i have found pirated versions of all the Freddi Fish games, instead of paying 20ish bucks for the whole collection on steam? Probably, but it was right there! And on sale!

[@galaxytaba4640]

Pirating from a small scale studio is the 8th sin but pirating from big AAA Companies is the equivilent of doing your part.

[@Damariobros]

Netflix isn't selling you a premium steak, they're selling you permission to use their kitchen, as well as charging you extra for permission to make your premium steak if you know how to make it and have all the knowledge, ingredients, and cookware required to make it. Meanwhile you can get your premium steak for a significantly reduced price or even for free by going to the street food stand in that one corner nobody notices, and you'll even get full entertainment as they make a spectacle of making that premium steak, juggling the ingredients and flipping the steak high up and catching it and doing a little dance, and the fun had watching them compels you to leave a tip in their hat they have set out next to the stand.

[@MattH-wg7ou]

This legit needs to trigger a lawsuit. Now imagine this with connected vehicles. Ugh.

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

That's already being done, Tesla turn off features that a new owner of a secondhand car hasn't paid the company for. There's some videos out recently showing several other manufacturers doing the same, disabling things like Heated Seats if the new owner hasn't subscribed to a monthly payment.

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

Need consumer protection laws regarding this. Need to be able to transfer content from one platform to another and be able to leave digital content to an estate.

[@TheExileFox]

Yeah, totally. But don't expect savegames to transfer properly

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

you need to go political active and make the politicians do the hard work and make a change in the system, its one thing to complain at it and do nothing to change it.. but its another to take action and wake up the people who can make a change to the better.

[@AprilJMoon]

If Sony 'sold' copies of of tv series /episodes of, then for them to take those items back they must reimburse the full cfost to those customers. If not, and the relevant authorities do not hit them where it hurts, then a class action lawsuit should be taken against Sony.. .. .. and the fallout from that exceptionally bad publicity will almost destroy any streaming service that they have or will ever have

[@marckyle5895]

The owner didn't consent to losing their library of titles. They reasonably expected to be able to watch them 5 years from now if they paid the membership fee. But...Sony saying "Oh, here's your money back" like a satisfied John walking away is besides the point. SONY STOLE SOMETHING WITHOUT THE BUYER'S CONSENT.

[@davepastern]

EULA, EULA and thrice EULA....it is very clear that EULAs must be outlawed. In full.

[@JakeInvest]

@@marckyle5895 Its the fact that they can just take ur shit whenever they feel like it

[@AndragonLea]

I'm still amazed that companies will actively pursue and either create or pay for features that make the experience of their customers worse in order to prevent piracy when all of those features end up cracked and worthless hours after release. All they're doing is making the pirated copy better than their own product because it doesn't burden the customer system with extra processes to prevent theft. You're punishing 99 % of your customer base in a vain attempt to prevent 1 % from stealing and it'll be stolen anyways.

[@jackskellington6sic6]

Corporate logic sadl

[@AndragonLea]

@@jackskellington6sic6 Yeah. It's the career CEOs that get a grey hair every time they imagine a single shiny red nickel rolling out of their vault. Killing the golden goose to prevent the theft of the eggs.

[@greenleafyman1028]

You forgot to mention the cost of implementing digital rights management. It's damn expensive but still least effective.

[@DRAT311]

Punishing paying customers is the worst business model the entertainment industry could possibly come up with and somehow they keep doubling down on it and then acting shocked when people opt out.

[@eriklagergren7124]

Was actually looking at buying some Sony games. Well, now I'll probably pirate them. If they'll steal from paying customer. I'll do the same. Eye for an eye Sony.

[@yourallygod8261]

@@eriklagergren7124 an eye for an eye makes the world blind this is not that ... this is probably better than an eye for an eye :) if they keep doubling down I feel its justified

[@rakanrhop4196]

@@yourallygod8261 No, dude, it's the best way to respond

[@mountain_watcher_8730]

This is exactly why copyright law needs to be updated. Content published or purchased should only be subject to the copyright affecting it when it was purchased, not the present state of the copyright. If a movie needs to be take down from a digital store due of licensing reasons, that's fine, but if you've purchased that movie you should be able to either download it or create a backup, so you can still watch it.

[@robertsmith2956]

backup has always been allowed. Is it my fault the only way to get a backup is from a pirate site?

[@sintanan469]

@@robertsmith2956 Legally, no. The fault technically lies with the uploader.

[@patrickj]

This happens with games all the time. Licenses run out, it's removed from the store, but still downloadable and playable, if you previously owned it. I wonder what's different in this case.

[@CnCDune]

@@patrickj I believe the term is abandonware, but I could be wrong. I know of these games being affected of such licensing-shenanigans: Dune by Cryo Interactive, the Dune RTSs by Westwood Studios, the Cybertron games by High Moon Studios.

[@233kosta]

Start by repealing the DMCA. Existing prior legislation already offered copyright protection without f-cking the consumer in every imaginable way.

[@octapusxft]

For me the worst offenders that encourage piracy are cases like Adobe and their subscription only models

[@espressomatic]

They're looking at it the other way and I'm sure their financials back that up. The low priced monthly subscriptions are an easier way to access the software versus the monolithic purchases of the past. Do you remember when Photoshop (alone) cost $600? Then later much reduced bundled Creative Suite package $1200 or thereabouts?

[@Sleepyhead080808]

Adobe profits off businesses - they probably don't even care that you're pirating because they know any serious customer will not legally be able to.

[@SkySong6161]

@@espressomatic Not really. Not only do I not use every single thing in the creative cloud, I can't use it anymore if I run into financial hardship. I haven't updated from CS3 for nearly a decade. I bought it once, god knows how many years ago, for $300. And I haven't had to pay a dime since. The modern CS suite is just rent-seeking activity from Adobe. They can only reinvent the wheel so much (proverbially) so instead of selling you a wheel they let you rent the wheel. Imagine being forced to rent paintbrushes or other physical media. It'd be absurd.

[@ArtistSoftwareEngineer]

That is in not comparable imho. I have zero problem paying for Lightroom and photoshop via subscription. They are constantly being updated and improved - I’m not paying every few years to upgrade to the latest version as in the past, and the amount I pay per month is good value for my use cases. I, as the customer, am OK with what they offer. Would I prefer if they offered a one off purchase option as well for others? Yes, but it’s their choice to offer it or not. However, I *do*, as Louis states have a massive problem with someone removing the right to watch something I’ve already paid for, because of some ridiculous rights issue, or having an inferior experience to piracy. That’s a total shitshow. If Adobe actively stopped you using Lightroom from 2010, then you have every right to complain.

[@sirbaconbuster]

I am convinced that Adobe deliberately makes their stuff super easy to pirate. Hobbyist type users usually aren't going to be able to afford their stuff anyway. But if they pirate it, they're going to learn how to use Adobe's products. And when they go into industry, they're going to have skills in Adobe's products. And then the company will probably end up paying for a seat on Adobe's products, and that is WAY more expensive.

[@AttractionSpot]

I know with Apple or at least you used to be able to if an app gets removed from the store you can still download it in your download history. I can understand a company where you're paying a subscription in your streaming stuff and the licensing expires that's fine because every time you'd be streaming it again you'd be basically watching a new stream of it. But when you purchase something you should still be able to watch it regardless if it gets removed from their Library. And then any new people that want to watch it that haven't purchased it wouldn't be able to. That's just crazy.

[@LegallyBlindGamer]

This is why I love buying physical media. No company can take a movie or TV show away from you if it's physically on your shelf. Best buy was incredibly short-sighted to stop selling physical movies. When the streaming bubble bursts, not if, when, people are going to want to buy Blu-rays again.

[@ApolloT-vp5dn]

Those soulless companies will just jump back onboard again as and when it suits. Like they've done with vinyl.

[@jasonanderson5034]

uhhh nice to know how stupid u are keep wasting plastic when it dosent need to be wasted keep destroying the planet with extra waste u can consume digital media of all that physical media without detroying the planet but billions of u pople stillwant to do itt it adds up u fking idiot

[@TheDeceptiveHero]

The DRM of Blu-ray already basically includes a kill switch that can render either your player or a disc inoperable. All it takes is one malicious software update. The only way to really obtain a copy you own is to rip the disc, which is exactly what you should always do.

[@NerdsWorldNYC]

Or make it "woke" (we just need to make this more politically correct),that's why they are want everyone streaming and having subscription (prescription) plans. Even Spielberg said they need to leave movies alone. I will continue buying my physical media and games as long as it's available.

[@kevinerbs2778]

@@TheDeceptiveHero Sony got sued multiple times for that. The consumer rights law killed broke Sony's back in America, so they stop producing Blu-ray discs for America. I think Only Japan still has Blu-ray as there are tons of anime's released on Bu-ray over there.

[@xikes]

Completely agree. "Changes in licensing terms" is a completely Sony problem and if they are unwilling to properly deal with it, they better brace themselves for another class action.

[@matthewjuarbe5826]

do you know how many class action lawsuits Sony gets in a Year a lot and do you want to know the outcome nothing changes. Sony settles for an undisclosed amount of Money. the people sign a NDA Lawyers get their percentage and rest goes to the people who Sued and Sony continues their Merry Way.

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

They are properly dealing with it though? Their license to provide streaming services for that content has ended and they are removing streaming access to that content. Louis is getting bent out of shape because of the term "Purchased", but failing to recognise the term "streamable" in the EULA. You "bought" amendable access rights to a streamed copy of a show and when Sony no longer legally has the right to provide that streamable content, your rights also end via the amendable nature of the reserved right to remove that content. You wouldn't argue that a cinema must keep every movie they currently had when you "bought" unlimited access to that cinema for a year, and if you would argue that, then you need help. It is the digital rights holder(Discovery) to provide you new access if you believe that you have continued rights to access that content, but the content license will no doubt have included "streaming via a ps5 console app" in the language and who knows whether the merged company will have a ps5 app.

[@Merciful_Angel]

@@Reinforce_ZweiAn annual cinema ticket is like a Netflix subscription; you can watch anything they are showing, but that's an awful analogy. This is more like buying an apartment and one day getting locked out because the person you bought it from sold the building.

[@xikes]

@@Reinforce_Zwei "You "bought" amendable access rights to a streamed copy of a show and when Sony no longer legally has the right to provide that streamable content, your rights also end via the amendable nature of the reserved right to remove that content." Sure. In that case I'd like a refund of the amendable transfer of my funds for the said content. Since the amendable access to the content is no longer valid, similarly Sony's amendable access to my provided funds is also no longer valid. Does it look like I care if " Sony no longer legally has the right to do whatever"? Like I said - it's a Sony problem. The proper way of dealing with this would have been to automatically issue refunds for everyone who had purchased the said content. There is a difference between "buy" and "rent". Words have meaning. If I buy something, it's not "amendable" unless BOTH parties agree to it. If I buy something and then later someone (including the seller) takes it, it's called THEFT.

[@euresko1]

Amazon will do the same thing, if you pay for a video and they lose rights to offer that to you then they'll pull it from your library.

[@TheInquisitiveShark]

That happened to me with Superman the animated series on the Google store. Bought the entire series and down the road I figured I'd watch it again and one of the seasons disappeared. That's theft in my book when I paid for it.

[@riversan90]

I know I am probably a massive outlier, but I had a similar run-in with Amazon, and actually had a great experience. I bought some music, and for whatever reason, it wasn't showing up. So I contacted customer service, and they did a refresh on my music library. Younger people or people who never bought music from Amazon back in the day wouldn't know this, but Amazon used to have a data cap on your profile, so when you wanted to get new music, you had to delete old music. Well, when the associate refreshed my library, some of my old music returned, but some didn't. Amazon had lost the rights to that music over the course of the years, so they couldn't add it back to my library. I actually ended up getting a full refund for music I had purchased well over 8 years prior. Like I said, I know I am probably a major outlier, but I just wanted to share my story.

[@drwombat]

​@@riversan90still that's wrong on so many levels. They shouldn't be selling media they only owe license to. Bottom line

[@_Circus_Clapped_]

​@@drwombat it's either that or the company that got the license is hit with lawsuits where they'll eventually have to pull it eitherway, issue is that the government regulates the hell out of smaller companies that license these and therefore they have to change licenses often which in the end, screws you and many others. You may not believe this but the government doesn't care until it hurts their budget significantly, for example Piracy, all that tax from subscriptions go out the window

[@SanderEvers]

@@TheInquisitiveShark You paid for a license agreement. Which tells you that you can watch it as long as Google has access to it. You don't own the media, you own a license to the media.

[@gn4rpz-the-c4t]

I recently did an essay on media preservation and piracy, and I think you'd have some interest in Cartrivision. Something I noticed as I did research was that streaming services are basically a modern cartrivision red tape. The way streaming works would've been a movie companies' wet dream at that time, given cartrivision red tapes were specifically designed because they were scared of physical media and how it might hurt their profits. Basically: I don't think companies trying to limit access to things you've paid for is a new problem. They just found a new, more acceptable way to do it.

[@Raptor091288]

I used to despise piracy and pirates... Until I tried it. -Pirates, probably But seriously, I was fully on the corporate side until I realized just how bad things are. Especially today when a company can remotely brick your hardware with a mandatory, automatic firmware update (some old Logitech router being the example here and why I no longer trust the vast majority of hardware manufacturers). Companies like KZbin intentionally degrading your experience because you customized your browser is another recent example of corporations valuing money above the ones giving them that money.

[@kesamek8537]

Never go full corporate.

[@donjuan4067]

I still despise Corporate white knights who grow companies out of control without any consideration for the consumers.. The ones that shout piracy is bad while paying $90 for a piece of $hit game that the company threw at their customers. LOL SMH

[@XMorbidCuriosityX]

Tesla can remote brick your car. A good reason to never own a Tesla or any other car that will hide physical features installed in your vehicle behind monthly payments (Like BMW forcing a subscription to activate your heated seats)

[@TheCutiePatrol]

"subscribe? No thanks, I like possession."

[@davidm4566]

My friend had a tablet that is now a paperweight after the forced update. Auto updates are not a good thing and possibly immoral at times.

[@cromagnon305]

I haven't pirated anything in 20 years but I'm starting to look into it again. After paying for ad free KZbin, HBO, ect and my content keeps disappearing, I've had it. Thank you for what you do and wishing you the best.

[@distortilla]

I am pretty young and stopped pirating back in 16 or 17, and mind you I don’t even earn that well and I’m from India where these things are considered luxury… I stopped doing piracy when it has no repercussions here… but now I’m just done… I am getting back into piracy…

[@larscarlsen5860]

I can tell you that jellyfin is really nice :D If you wanna go that route, the experience of the seven seas is better now than back in the day.

[@LeonSteelpaw]

You paid for youtube?

[@distortilla]

@@larscarlsen5860 hey how does jellyfin work? Can you directly stream from the web or do you have to download content which then can be self hosted and played on jellyfin.

[@devforfun5618]

i hope it is better than flex, because in some update the subtitles stoped appearing automatically and i need to change episode by episode and they only work in hardmode@@larscarlsen5860

[@bromachrome]

"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

[@jasonanderson5034]

u got a straw man argument .. if your product is good a reverse engineer could just remove any protection without effecting the quality of the product ... AND MAKE IT FREE u really dont understand cracking if u think that maks sense ... a good product at a good price dosent mean people arent going try and steal it good copy right protection wouldnt effect the user experience and it would protect the company from having their software leaked just stfu your a id**t

[@Ligma-Nut7]

Steam is a shinning example of what he says here. I would of likely bought fewer games if Steam was never created.

[@kevinerbs2778]

That statement is false. You give them a product. not a service. a service can fuck you over & change over time. A product is supposed to be always in its same state after purchase.

[@waltblackadar4690]

Spot on. Gabe Newell (Steam) has shown if you provide a good experience/platform that people will pay for content. Many streaming services don't, which is why I have a VPN.

[@ZesilinaNewborn]

Yeah this is the truth actually, piracy will forever be a thing until it gives a worse experience than paying in every single industry

[@mrjive314159]

I feel ya Louis, and completely agree. It's amazing how companies will boldface lie to you just to make a buck. The black bars to the right and left of older TV shows and above and below movies on a 16:9 screen bothered me, so I hooked up and old 4:3 screen for the TV shows and bought a new "ultrawide" screen display for movies, only to get black bars all the way around the movie video on a blu-ray. I contacted the makers of PowerDVD who informed me I needed to cough up another $70 for the latest version of their software to fix the problem. Unfortunately after the upgrade, the black bars remained. After getting ignored by PowerDVD and doing some research, I learned the black bars above and below are hard-encoded into the video, and the industry made sure you could not legally zoom in on the video to make it fit anything other than a 16:9 display. I no longer condemn anyone that downloads media via bittorrent from the internet. Trying to do the right thing and staying legal only gets you crapped on by the industry.

[@kaystephan2610]

Consumers rights have to catch up to the digital age. If I PAY for a piece of content like a movie, a show or a game, the company should be forced to ALWAYS provide it for me. And that should mean: if they want to take, say, a show, a movie or a game out of their database they should be OBLIGATED to offer me the possibility to download the movie/show/game etc. so that I can watch/play it whenever I want without having to rely on a game client/streaming client or get it on DVD or BluRay "for free".

[@NightMotorcyclist]

Thankfully GOG allows you to download the game after purchase, free of bullshyte DRM and other locks that will render the game inoperable for nonsensical reasons. I'm also happy Steam jumped onto the 2 hour return window model so if a game ends up being a buggy POS then you can return it within that play time, though it should be expanded for games that are rated to be several tens of hours long. If reviewers tell me games don't get good until 10+ hours of playing then I will never buy that game.

[@gltovar]

Stellar quote from the video: "when you make people who want to do the right thing feel stupid for it, they will stop doing that 'right thing' and they will start doing what they want to do." Very applicable to so many things in life.

[@Llortnerof]

Reminds me of what the postal service in my country did. For some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to "reward" the most industrious of their delivery personal with extra work (without extra pay, of course) instead of just letting them go home early. No points for guessing how things developed after that. It's as if they were looking to deliberately make their service worse for no good reason.

[@best591]

Actually I went back to buying physical media like blu-ray's etc. around a year ago for a similar reason: In Prime Video movies are frequently delisted from the subscription and I was getting annoyed by the whole "I could buy it for basically the same price in a digital way but I'm not allowed to rip it and the provider is allowed to take it away from me anytime" policy. It's a similar story with Spotify and Amazon Music. I'm still using Spotify to discover stuff but if I like something I buy the physical media

[@davidm4566]

It's always bothered me that buying digital movies and shows don't reside on my own devices, but the provider's server. If you discontinue the service (or they go out of business), or they drop the movie from their platform, it's no longer yours, even though you paid for it. Personally I like to check out thrift stores, yard sales, ebay, etc. for physical media.

[@Ancyker]

I used to buy DVDs and Blurays until I discovered ripping them was illegal in the USA. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I'm a criminal either way, I'll just keep my money then.

[@newax_productions2069]

​@@Ancykerripping isnt illegal, it's only illegal if you distribute. Ripping a copy for personal use is completely within legal bounds.

[@best591]

@@Ancyker I don't know about the US but in Germany it's legal as long as you keep the original copy

[@Ancyker]

@@newax_productions2069 It's not legal in the USA to rip DVDs or BDs, even for personal use.

[@thisperson1654]

Will be fun. EU high court just decided that digital license must be transferable same way as physical copy. It means you must be able transfer for example game on Steam to anyone (And this right is not removable whatever is written in EULA). I am pretty sure removing license is illegal too.

[@Dwarficus]

Everything I have digitally purchased from Sony or Playstation has been deleted from my library within 4 years of purchase. Not once have I received an email saying that this was happening. Personally I'm done with Sony. Years ago I sang their praise, now I'd be happy with just a refund.

[@DennisMartinezCalifornia]

Which games went missing?

[@Spacer-l3j]

you didn't read the terms and conditions like we all do... they can do that

[@Killswitch1411]

@@Spacer-l3jPeople need to smarten up and stop buying digital crap. You don't own it and they dont deserve our money.

[@user-bw6jg4ej2m]

@@Spacer-l3j no TOS or EULA is above the law, they're just betting on people letting it slide

[@xylemphloem]

This is why i jailbreak all of my consoles. I can “offload” and recompile psn packages as backups that are playable. Or i will just download or “dump” a physical game disc to have forever. Screw these asshole companies that are moving towards a pure subscription based society of media. EFF THAT!!

[@jounik]

I've avoided _all_ Sony products ever since the CD rootkit fiasco 18 years ago. If there isn't an alternative brand for the product or service, I'll just do without. Hasn't hurt me any yet.

[@dg-hughes]

Same here I've never owned anything Sony and never will this just shows what they are like. I was getting close to putting the past in the past but not now. What's weird is usually Japanese companies are pretty good and sensible but Sony seems to be different.

[@deanchur]

@@dg-hughes Modern Sony seems to be run by the US division even though global HQ is still in Japan. Their hardware side is still decent though, especially the cameras.

[@czaczaczar]

@@deanchur They already abandoned their Japanese playerbase by forcing them to adapt the western confirm/cancel button instead of the JP cancel/confirm button.

[@vedritmathias9193]

The more time that passes, the more correct Gabe Newell is proven to be. "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem" The price for 4K streaming did not lead you to The High Seas. It was the service that came with that price that lead you to The High Seas.

[@tylisirn]

In Western countries it's a service problem. In poorer countries it can be a pricing problem. One indie dev put their $10 game permanently 60% off in Brazil and piracy there almost completely disappeared and now Brazil makes a significant chunk of their total revenue.

[@linusgustafsson2629]

Well, with streaming it is more the decentralization. I mean why would I want to use 10 apps to watch my shows, when I can just use one video file player and pirate all the video files?

[@Pie-jacker875]

@jjcatsura For all Valve has done and continues to do for linux gaming I am willing to stay loyal to them

[@mkyprm]

I really liked the convenience at first of netflix and the likes. Then availability started to fragment and you now needed to pay for several services to watch everything. Then they started rising prices and removing shows I wanted to see from libraries. Now I'm a proud owner of a plex server storing several TBs of data. Lot of that data are legally made copies of bluray discs I purchased so I can watch them whenever and wherever I like. Same thing happened with music when even if I had my whole library cached offline I had to make a whole car trip in silence because the app just refused to play without cellular coverage. I will never go back to paying for streaming services again. Fuck drm and fuck them.

[@anotherbrickinthesprawl6238]

You are absolutely right, and that is why I prefer physical media to online libraries.

[@ambiarock590]

One reason I've been building my CD collection of all my favorite albums. No one can take that away from me, and even if something did happen to my actual CD's I have control over the files that I took off of those CDs.

[@lbdjthethird1240]

@@ambiarock590 A USB stick stuffed full of MP3's has been my music collection since USB 2.0 has been a thing.

[@Tyrian3k]

I would do the same, if that was an actual option for games.

[@CarrotConsumer]

Gog gives you drm free games you can store on multiple drives.

[@thefool8224]

@@Tyrian3k if youa re willing to spend on external hard drives, then it is.

[@Chase19898]

As a 34 year old man, I'm kinda scared of how much I tend to agree with you! There is no legal way to watch a certain Discovery+ show in my country and I have to pirate. I pay +30 euro a month for all my other subscription services.

[@jasonanderson5034]

u could use a vpn .. your countries restrictions isnt their fault its your goverments and that isnt a excuse to steal from them

[@Chase19898]

@@jasonanderson5034 Uhm, how is that my government's fault? Discovery decides whether they want to offer their services in Belgium or not. For a company, Belgium may be a difficult market, since we are tri-lingual. Heck, Amazon Prime gets it wrong most of the time, by offering me movies with French Dubs, while I speak Dutch and English. Even then, no, I'm not using a VPN. Piracy offers me a way better user experience and I can't say I'm sorry for going that route. It's idiotic to equate piracy to stealing, and you're especially wrong to think it's me stealing from the government.

[@ugrena7419]

@@jasonanderson5034 Ah yes, a brilliant solution. Simply pay 3-4 times the price of Discovery+ simply to watch one show.

[@temper1337]

@@jasonanderson5034 I can't believe dinosaurs like you still use this argument. Please learn how piracy works, there's no theft involved and the company didn't lose anything. You also have 0 proof it was his government doing it and not just the company being too lazy to release it there, which happens all the time.

[@homeaccount5943]

I agree with you 100% This is why piracy will never go away. This is why physical media needs to never go away.

[@curie3938]

if you can't hold it, you don't own it.

[@homeaccount5943]

@@curie3938 100% true

[@LeCharles07]

@@curie3938 "You sure about that?" - John Deere

[@jasonanderson5034]

not true their are meethods that are uncrackable ... enless u were to steal a license directly but u couldnt do that in bulk only 1 by 1 and each license would definitely be flagged instantly their are many methods to pull this off it sjust very hard and very expensive and tediious for eveyrone involeed and takes servers and tons of site not jsut a basic script u would need to bulid a good system for detecing spsoofed device ids which is doable but even then people wouldnt be able to get valid device ids to begin with enless they knew someone personally and they could only steal their license they couldnt steal one and distribute it or many it jus wouldnt work with a server that tracks access via device

[@kevinerbs2778]

@@jasonanderson5034 There is no such thing as uncrackable. Longer to do maybe, but nothing it's uncrackable.

[@buntbar2438]

Thank you for this Video. To me you are a beacon of light. I honestly dont care about streaming/piracy/repair etc. But I care about righteousness and values. To me Louis Rossmann is a freedom fighter. And showing off with your backbone/philosophy instead of your rolex is just admirable.

[@fabiopinna]

I am really, really surprised at the language used in the notice, "you will no longer be able to watch previously purchased content [...] and it will be removed from your library". Makes me wonder if somebody internal disagrees with the decision and worded it in such a way to facilitate a lawsuit lol.

[@ryurc3033]

That would be great, however I'm not convinced. Never underestimate the incompetence of corporations. Or The legal department is screaming at the tech guys, asking wtf are they thinking.

[@Ivotas]

It will never cease to amaze me that people have so little self-respect that they would defend an entity violating them from behind. Rather they will defend those responsible for said practices and antagonize whoever actually supports a course of action that would be in their interest. Grow a friggin' pair guys. YOU DESERVE BETTER!

[@TheExileFox]

The Nintendo fanbase is stunningly inept to act. It is a highly toxic relationship.

[@AlastairGames]

Defend your actions at all costs, even if you've made a mistake!

[@cristiplopeanu]

even more amazing, the percentage of people is in the highs.

[@christopherwood12]

The thing that killed me off digital games is when Sony held my games hostage after I had someone steal my account and buy stuff with my card and then when I tried to charge back they said they will ban my account and take all the games I have away from me if I do it

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

there was a litigation cause at the bottom of the obfuscated ToS.. and that's sadly legal.

[@cydragon2.099]

that is just plain wrong

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

^^^ Hence why I'm not a big fans of consoles. Neat in theory, but there are risks you need to understand that come with running proprietary hardware and software. When you're using a Playstation, Sony has you by the nuts

[@havenbastion]

I "own" hundreds of games on Stream but when trying to play then less than half work.

[@TheCutiePatrol]

​@@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxXwhen your PC, you don't even have a disc drive though. Sure you can pirate a game but you can mod consoles and freeboot games. A console is just a system dedicated to playing games, it's simple, turn on and go. Steam has screwed many over on their purchases and many have complained, I'm sure it's not an isolated issue given steam is still the largest PC gaming platform.

[@challengegravity]

I'm having more and more customers ask me how to get movies for free online, even specifically asking about torrenting and VPNs, and usually their concerns/complaints are nothing to do with price, but instead the quality and ease of use. If only the free/pirated version is better quality, can be played anywhere and with any device without the need of a perpetual internet connection, something must be wrong with your video service. What? The app can't independently track when your subscription ends to allow you to use it without logging in? The app can't risk using any processors apart from the developers' favourites? Ridiculous.

[@disklamer]

What bothers me the most about any and all of the streaming/media providers is they simply do not carry any shows or films that I want to watch. No matter how much you pay, they do not have a catalog of anything outside their mainstream of whatever studio or channel they provide. So no cult movies, no older or lesser known TV shows, just whatever Hollywood execs are pushing this season. It’s all just another “16 channels of sh¡†“

[@KrotowX]

I agree that it is often hard to get a movie or documentary you would want to see. The real issue is that capturing and storing old content cost real money and ones who do that are paid by money earned by pushing new crap around.

[@jamescheddar4896]

it feels like the majority of movies i discover on netflix that aren't originals are gone by the next time i want to watch them. most people rewatch movies for a specific time of year

[@lollollollolololollo]

Thank you for doing what you do. Oh and JUST cancelled Netflix myself😂. Raised $2 for nothing and without my consent hidden in numerous emails so the user wouldn't notice. I had been a customer since 2013. Back to piracy, for everything. No more paying for anything. I'm done.

[@youtubeenjoyer1743]

Don’t forget to seed

[@Jabid21]

I had been a customer Netflix even before they started streaming with renting DVDs. Canceled in 2022 when they raised 4k plan to $20. Worst part of it is I rarely got the full 4K resolution with a gigabit fiber hardwired by ethernet.

[@ProctoLogic]

@@Jabid21 It is not your internet speed that desides if you get 4K or not,

[@Jabid21]

@@ProctoLogic then what does? My latency? my 4K tv? my working HDCP handshake? My tv is capable of 4K@120HZ with VRR so if there is anything that is lacking it is Netflix’s ability to serve content.

[@bigcazza5260]

probably there latency and there access times. if the server is getting mashed hard it simply may not have capacity to stream out 4k piracy wins again @@Jabid21

[@TheMediaHoarder]

I've ALWAYS been wary of "digital purchases"- Vudu used to have porn until they were bought out by Walmart in 2010. If you bought any porn titles, they were removed from your library but they did refund the purchase price. This was right when I got my first 'smart TV', most people dismissed this but I've never trusted the model ever since; even if you don't like porn they could still do the same thing to something you DO care about.

[@sevenfacedsin]

I tried for almost 7 years to do everything by the books. I just can’t anymore. It’s so frustrating. Logging in to Apple Music, sometimes my library will be borked. Artist names change to various artists, songs removed from albums and put into compilations or soundtracks, or albums straight up removed from the platform. Movies and TV shows are just as bad. My HTPC is 8k ready, and I have even seen the 720p streaming as you have seen. My excuse, they make me do it.