Zoolander
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This is what I do with movies. I still, to this day, do not understand what possible purpose studios have for including 3 minutes of copyright warnings and other bullshit ahead of movies that people paid for. Pirates don’t see any of that shit, morons, and the people who are ripping these films already are ignoring the warnings. What the hell?
Piracy is not going up. You’re dreaming. What’s going up is the cost of everything and what’s going down is our ability to own anything and the fault lays at the feet of people like you. This “I’m agreeing to it but don’t think I have to follow it” attitude is exactly how we got into this situation in the first place. It’s exactly why Sony and MS released digital versions of their consoles that guarantee that you don’t own anything you buy and why everything is now a monthly subscription. Thanks a lot for that, asshole.
And my solution is a solution because at least it’s one that works as opposed to the one you’re offering that doesn’t work at all. I have an entire collection of physical media that they can’t take away from me. What do you have? Nothing, apparently, and you’ve even lost money because they just took your money and ran. Great job.
It’s not irrelevant. It’s shown on the purchase page. It’s not buried in some EULA that has pages upon pages of content. It’s entirely relevant that people are buying something they’re told about in advance and then complaining when they got exactly what they bought.
I am not trying to understand the opposing view because I already understand it. What you seem to be unable to grasp is that they can and do do this because people like you have made it clear that it’s ok for them to sell things this way by purchasing their content. I fully understand your argument, I’m just pointing out the nonsensical nature of it. There’s no fraud happening here, the product is not being misrepresented, they tell you in advance that the license can be revoked at any time, and yet you still continue to purchase this digital content. On top of that, this kinda bullshit shows up on Lemmy and Reddit and every other site regularly so pretending like you don’t know that these purchases are licenses only is horseshit unless you want to pretend like you just found this out now when Sony did it. This is no one’s fault but your own along with everyone else that has rewarded these assholes by accepting the shit being spoon-fed to them and rewarding them with money.
Wake the fuck up and stop buying the shit if you don’t like it. “But I want it really bad” isn’t a fucking reason or an excuse. You’re the reason we’re in this mess because you have no self-control.
This is disingenuous. They’re not “slipping a gotcha” past anyone. It’s literally on the purchase page. Every single person that bought something is shown this message.
There is 100% an alternative. Buy physical media. Buy things that you own that they can’t take away from you. The whole reason we’re in this situation is because people decided that this was ok by “buying” this content via those terms and setting a precedent that it’s ok.
Everything else you’re saying is just an excuse. People don’t own means to play physical media anymore? Nonsense. Go buy a player or a drive and then rip your own content. Either way, you have it as long as you want. No technical reason? Nonsense. It doesn’t matter what their reasons are. If you don’t like the terms that are presented to you ahead of time, don’t buy the thing.
This is just entitlement. You want the convenience of what they’re offering without the restrictions yet you keep accepting those restrictions every time you buy one of these things. STOP DOING IT.
And to backtrack a little… I’m not defending the company. Sony is not committing fraud if they’re telling you these terms ahead of time. You’re twisting what I said into something I didn’t. I’m decrying the people that let these companies get away with this shit because they’re too lazy, entitled, or stupid to have the self-control to not buy the bag of shit that’s being sold. If I sold you a movie for your PS5 and you could keep it forever but you had to eat a bag of shit in order to own it, would you still do that? Apparently you would because that’s basically what everyone that buys digital content under a temporary license is doing.
You don’t have to read the full EULA. It’s literally written on the purchase page that your access can be revoked at any time. I agree it’s fraud to the user. That doesn’t mean it justifies piracy. Stop agreeing to things you don’t want. This entire situation exists because people set the precedent that, even with these ludicrous terms, they’re willing to buy anyways. It’s death by a thousand cuts and everyone who bought this bullshit is holding a knife.
Except neither Sony nor any other distributor (Netflix, for example) hides the fact that they don’t own the content that you’re paying for and that they have no control over how long you have access to that license - the content owners do.
It’s irrelevant that most people misunderstand the process of buying media. It is clearly spelled out. And I’m not making any legal argument at all. I’m making the contractual argument. With or without the legal system, when you buy something, anything, you’re creating a contract for an exchange of goods or services for money. Sony tells you what you’re getting. They don’t hide anything, as you’re implying. If you still buy it anyways, that’s on you. Claiming people need a law degree to understand something like
“Purchased Content will generally remain available for you to download, redownload, or otherwise access from xxx. Though it is unlikely, subsequent to your purchase, Content may be removed from the Services (for instance, because the provider removed it) and become unavailable for further download or access from xxx.”
is disingenuous. That’s plain English and pulled directly from the purchase page from iTunes. That makes your entire argument here invalid. You asked for understandable language and it’s there. You just didn’t read it or you did read it and bought it anyways without thinking about the consequences of what that means. That’s on you.
Again, I believe they owe you a refund in those cases but that wasn’t part of the contract that you agreed to.
The terms and conditions you mention, though, explicitly state that you don’t own the media and that they can revoke the license at any time. If people didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have given Sony their money. Don’t buy products if you don’t like the terms of the purchase. It’s precisely because people bought this shit that we have the system we do. Why would the publishers and Sony change it when they’re still making money and telling people ahead of time that this media can go away? It makes zero sense for them to change it as much as it made zero sense for people to buy these videos if it was important to them that they could access it forever.
Secondly, this has nothing to do with games. This is only about video content for which Sony no longer has publishing rights to so, even if they wanted to, they can’t let you keep this content. It’s a shitty system that’s working exactly as intended by the publishers (read conmen) behind digital media and both Sony and its users are being punished for willingly taking part in their system.
These people have zero moral standing when they agreed to these terms when they bought the media. The idea that this somehow justifies piracy is ridiculous.
That’s the thing, though. I’m not denying that what they’re doing is wrong. They shouldn’t be able to do that. They should either be required to refund those purchases or they shouldn’t be allowed to remove them. Either way, that doesn’t justify piracy. This is just people who already are pirating finding a reason to justify it for themselves after the fact to make them feel better.
If I build a machine that just makes endless copies of your intellectual property, just because I can, it doesn’t affect your income whatsoever.
More dishonesty. This isn’t what’s happening. People are ingesting media that they have no right to. Stop trying to cover it up with flowery language. If I make some form of content and am offering it for sale then the only way to ingest it legally, and morally, is to pay for it. The copying of the media isn’t the issue. That’s only an excuse that people like you give to try and justify their specific brand of theft. The only reason piracy is defined differently than theft is because someone is deprived of a good in theft whereas, in piracy, there is no physical good to deprive someone of so the theft is of income. If you’re ingesting the content and you’re not paying for it, then you’re stealing income from the creator of that content. There’s no way to argue that this isn’t the case.
You can even try to argue that you only pirate things by huge studios that don’t need the money or that the media that you’re pirating was created as a work for hire so the people who made it already got paid but that’s all irrelevant to the point because, even in those cases, you’re reducing the future work that those people will receive. We live in a capitalist system where dollars earned dictate the work that people get hired for. No matter what way you slice it, you’re stealing from the content creators - whether it’s the income that they deserve for the work you’re ingesting or the future work that they would have received.
Just admit you’re stealing and get over yourself.
Way to be dishonest. Comments do not make for people’s livelihoods. Piracy is theft of income from the creators. People here are dishonest and try to do all these mental gymnastics to justify their specific version of piracy. The only form of piracy that can be argued to be somewhat amoral is pirating media that is not available legally. Otherwise, no matter how you look at it, you are stealing an income or livelihood from whoever created it.
He wasn’t introduced that way, though. He was just introduced as a “Ukrainian war hero and a Canadian war hero [and we thank him for his service]”. That’s why it’s not surprising that everyone gave him an ovation. Who wouldn’t? The issue is that the person introducing him, who didn’t even tell anyone else about his attendance or that he would be recognized, although he got some basic facts right (the guy fought in Ukraine and now lives in Canada), didn’t bother to vet the context of those facts. It’s incredibly sloppy and incredibly embarrassing.
Immediate edit: I have finally seen a video of this and he definitely says “Ukrainian independence against Russia”. Oooooooof.
It’s not unnecessarily restrictive. It was the entire point of discussion. Opening that up to more general straw men does nothing to further that discussion. Bristle all you want but I can see no other reason to ignore the point and argue against things that were never mentioned other than to be dishonest.
It’s ludicrous that people here can’t be honest with themselves. Piracy is theft, of one form or another. No, it’s not the same thing as stealing a physical object but no one is pretending it is. The gymnastics all over this sub are childish and tiring.
Those are dishonest comparisons. The OP was saying that rich people get more votes. None of those things you mentioned are a vote for content. They are votes for the mechanisms of the content and, guess what, people vote for them every time by buying them, rich or not. Nintendo selling the same title for a different system is something people do whether they’re rich or not. A rich person doesn’t buy multiple copies of a re-released game for a single Switch. A rent-to-own store doesn’t deal with movies or music or content, they deal with goods.
My last statement isn’t naive. It’s literally what capitalism is. Ingesting content is not a need. We’re not talking about Nestle buying up all the food companies. We’re talking about completely optional products.
Not necessarily. There would be no point to someone paying multiple times for content. Rich people do, however, get to overwhelmingly produce the content which is exactly why it’s most important to support creators and pay for their content. If you want to build a meritocracy within a capitalist society, your dollars are the most important means of change.
No. I am not comparing to wage theft. You’re just making a semantic argument rather than a substantive argument. Sure, if you want to argue semantics, then I’m viewing it as trespassing or service theft. Either way, you’re depriving a creator of income. If it’s a smaller creator, then you’re stealing money from them because, otherwise, you wouldn’t get the experience of ingesting their content. You’re entitling yourself to the experience of ingesting their work without contributing to your end of the contract. You’re only making the argument in the way you are because larger studios pay the creators on a contract basis. The truth is, though, that those creators don’t get hired if their content doesn’t result in material sales (whether physical or digital) of the content. No one invests in content that doesn’t make money and the excuse that “it still does make money even if I pirate” is just mental gymnastics.
Your second argument is also dishonest - the “no one is losing any money because the person wouldn’t have paid for it anyways” argument. That’s just an extension of the second part of what I said above. If piracy is ok for one person, it has to be ok for all and if it was ok for all, then the content wouldn’t make money. TV shows don’t get renewed. Sequels don’t get made. Sure, maybe the original content made money because some people were honest and paid for it but you are depriving a creator of an income because, had everyone paid, they’d have more work and more income coming in.
All this is to say that I’m fine with piracy. Sometimes you can’t afford it. Sometimes it’s not available legally. Sometimes it’s just a superior experience where you’re not forced to watch ads or deal with DRM. These are all fine. But to try and justify it as deserved or go through these mental gymnastics to claim it’s not stealing is just nonsense or arguing semantics. Just admit you’re stealing/trespassing and not holding to your end of the contract and admit that you’re harming creators.
I think the point is just to say that you can.