You Should Get to Own Your Media, Not Rent it Forever
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92 replies
i think browsing webpages should be the same.
load it once, then store it locally andor host a torrent for it
Buying is renting, pirating is owning
It's fucked up that this is basically true now
Better line than the "owning, stealing" one. Pirating has never been stealing, anyway, but copyright infringement.
Well, aren't you quaint. Next thing you'll be asking for is seed corn that you can replant year after year from the corn it grows, heated seats in your cars without a subscription payment, replaceable batteries in your battery powered electronics.
Don't forget a subscription free garage opener/motor camera.
I think I got the last one of those, but mine did come with a "free" phone app to open/close the door. The app turned into an advertising platform about 3 years after I put the opener in - no options out, gotta see the ads if I want to use my opener via app.
That's bonkers.
Pihole?
Have one, suppose I could try tweaking filters around whatever it gets its ads from, but the code to present the button to open the door doesn't show up until after the ads do, so I suspect all my pihole will be able to do is break the app.
What an evil piece of shit
In the world of "fair" - it still has the old battery powered remote buttons to keep in the cars, and the button on the wall, just like openers always have had, but I'm not in my cars or near the button about 2/3 of the time I want to open or close that door - so I just get pissed off specifically at that company every time I use their app. Whatever they get from those ads really can't be worth that loss of customer good will, can it?
probably most people just silently accept it like good consumers.
did you try installing an old version of the app? or if it works through the network, maybe home assistant could help. but you probably checked that.
If buying isn't owning, then pirating cannot be stealing. These corporations are literally herding people back onto the seas. I need to go get myself a new flag with a skull and bones, since I tied my boat to the pier about fifteen-twenty years ago.
Pirating is not and never has been stealing. You do not deprive anyone of anything when you make a copy of something.
Copyright is a dumb as shit system of artificial scarcity and always has been.
Its kinda true. I like to think of gog and gog-games. One is a storefront. One is a clean ui with all the games downloadable for free.
I think many would still use the free one vs paid. Myself, there's something about owning it.
I pirated doom eternal back in the day. I was enjoying it so much I just bought it instead. 🤷
I get what you're saying with "copying" vs "stealing", which is true. But if you could clone your friends car for free you don't need to buy a car and the business loses a sale.
The business loses a sale of what though? A copy they never created or had possession of in the first place?
If I go home and build a PC, can Dell claim that I deprived them of a sale of a copy of one of their computers?
For digital media, pirating increases the number of sales
Oofff, I felt that
Yeah me too lol. I'm also old enough to say back in the day for OG doom too...
So sad that gog-games will be shutting down soon. Are there any plans for forks?
"Pirating" isn't stealing regardless of anything. It is unsanctioned copying.
And not removing the product from anyone.
I’m stealing this.
No, you're copying this, and if OP doesn't allow you to, then you're pirating this
That’s the other part of it. How will you pirate when they no longer sell hardware to us?
Their whole idea is for the production of technology to be exclusive to them and their “AI” datacenters. Besides being used to spy on us and everything we do, think, create, and opine - they will force us into walled gardens on locked down tablets and we will use their software they way they intend for the time they allow us, only.
It’s a prison.
No worries we will always have the hardware. It may not look shiny or new, but we can go to scrape yards and another places to find what we need. And we will build our internet. It be true cyberpunk. Hell with 2 dollar saw blade I can gather some materials needed.
That's just it with most of these services - you never bought 'em. You pay a subscription fee each month to use their service.
That is not buying, nor is it ownership.
I mean that's fair, an actual subscription is different to buying. Nobody is suggesting you "own" the games you get with PS Plus Premium, or the movies you watch on Netflix.
But if I buy a movie on Amazon Video for £9.99, it should be mine. And when I'm bored of it, or find myself suddenly owing £10,000 to a local gangster due to a hilarious mix-up during a backstreet game of high-stakes poker, I should be able to sell it on to somebody else like I can with a disc.
So presumably the problem here is that DRM in the video is causing it to behave like a subscription rather than a purchase?
It sounds to me like you still only rented it (but I've never used amazon video stuff - I did get a movie from apple/iTunes once and that was very clear on the time -based limitations).
I searched amazon video and its quite clearly pitching itself as another shitty subscription service.
I think once again this comes down to false expectations (and possibly shitty marketing?)
Amazon is both a subscription and purchasing platform. There's no option to download them, only stream. Purchases are not tied to a subscription.
So your complaint is that they use the terms 'buy' but it's basically the same as renting, right?
Buying is renting, pirating is owning
It's high time laws protected us from this. Yes, even from High Lord Gaben.
If we buy it, we own it. We can transfer them to other account. Any stores selling stuff must have a plan in place for what happens when the store closes, whether that's transferring ownership to another store, or something involving making files publicly downloadable...
The starving (and recent gutting) of the public domain demonstrates the institution of intellectual property persists in bad faith. Therefore media piracy is a legitimate means to acquire and consume media.
As the C-suite and its political and paramilitary minions have shown us crime is not about behavior and consequences, but who you are and to whom you bend the knee.
Beyond the obvious problem of paying but not owning, it's impossible to watch/listen without that data being stored on a massive corporation's server and likely sold to hundreds of advertisers. Last I saw Spotify had over 300 venders they share data with. I've seen sites with over 1000.
So you're not only paying for something you don't own, but you're also paying to have a larger profile in the surveillance capitalism machine.
yeah, this is the part that really worries me. Ads are fine IMO, psychological profiling not so much. I used to hear "if you're not paying, you're the product," but now you're the product even if you are paying.
By the way, are any of the other streaming services better than Spotify for not having your data sold to third parties?
RE "If you're not paying, you're the product," also doesn't always apply when it comes to not paying EG: Linux and other FOSS products.
Not that I know of, unless self-hosting. I've gone back to ripping CDs and sometimes buying DRM-free HQ audio. Probably getting my purchases profiled, but at least I can download it and no one else has to know when, what, & how much I'm listening to.
For easier access I have a Jellyfin server on my home network. I plan to switch to navidrome or similar for a better, dedicated music experience as well as setting up secure access over the internet for me and my friends and family.
This is why, when I'm not watching, I'll set Netflix to stream movies I like.
It's always been hypocrisy. The media companies only say what part you actually own based whatever is most profitable to them.
Technically, back in the day, when you bought any music wether it be 8-track, LP, cassette, or CD, you were purchasing a single-user license for the music and the media was just how the record companies delivered it to you. That's why Napster and all the piracy that followed it was/is illegal, because you don't own a license when you copy the digital file.
HOWEVER... Over the many decades I've been alive I've scratched, twisted, demagnetized, or just plain old lost hundreds of LPs, cassettes, and CDs. Do you think if I requested a new copy of the music that the record companies would send me a replacement?
No, they would not. So I obtained digital replacements by...other means.
Now that we're all used to digital copies, suddenly that's been the important part all along.
That's why if you want to support artists, you can buy the shit locked down files so they get the artist gets paid, and then just never use them. Pay for them but get your actual files from piracy.
Better yet, if the artist has a website or something like Bandcamp buy from there so they actually get a decent chunk of the money you give instead of the pittance left over after the distributors and record companies have taken their cut.
Listen, me hearties…
Aarrggh matey!
Gahhh! You two barnacles best be keeping quiet about the high seas, or it's the plank for yee!!
Yo ho, all together, hoist the colors high
Heave ho, thieves and beggars
Never shall we die
We are pirates, yar har fiddle me dee
I do, raise the black flag and you can too.
I have no fear that Amazon will come to my house and remove the books I bought. If they were DRMed ebooks, on the other hand, that would be something to worry about.
I was always more angry about them editing digital publications after the fact. That's some Grade A "Ministry of Truth" BS right there. Dead Tree Media forever.
I mean, a Kobo + Anna's Archive also works without dead trees.
Never forget: Han shot first.
I like the 4K77 versions.
This hasn't bothered me at all. I've been _Arr_chiving a lot lately.
Only way I feel I can push back is by also saving it locally 🏴☠️
I saved all my DVDs because the pawn/sale price wasnt worth it... So glad I did.
Films are still physical in my home. PC games are only digital, preferably bought at gog so I can download and store them. Music is also digital since I don't have any cd player. But I will continue to my films as blu ray discs as long as my blu ray player works and the films are released. Well, there needs to be stores that sell the films as well, that looks like the first thing to fall.
As long as blue ray discs are released, there'll be webshops selling them
I prefer to buy films with subtitles in my native language and many 4k films are only imported and it can be difficult to find older films. New and large releases that are shown on cinema is easy to find.
I love gog too, but I'm a sucker for classic/retro games. Playing Star Flight atm, forgot how hard these older games are!
I do still have a shit ton of CD's. I actually forgot about them until you mentioned it. Yet nothing to play them on lol. The rest is .MP3 or ripped from my CD's
I do have an old whatever the other version of blue ray player was. They were giving them away and they can play DVDs so I grabbed on as that format failed.
Got VHS and a deck, also got an Hi8 deck but thats more for vacation movies\4 wheeling when I was a kid.
I do have a bunch of laser disc's but never bought a player. I need to as I have all the original Star Wars and others waiting to be played :)
GAH now I remember: "HD DVD"
I never built up a CD collection but I now started a digital DRM free local collection. Yes, I am actually buying that stuff (call me stupid if you like) but only loss free.
One of the few disks I own is sadly too corruoted for error free ripping, luckuly I still have it as mp3. That album simply does not wxist online anymore, anywhere. Possibly not even in the darker corners of the net. I think that happens more often than many believe.
We got frog boiled in the 2010s to accept renting out media. Me and my sandisk Sansa clip still go for walks listening to mp3s. I wonder if devices like this will see a resurgence under the idea that owning it gives you control of your media.
Its a thing already.
Companies like fiio, shanling etc make old skool style players.
E.g.:
https://www.fiio.com/newsinfo/1131387.html
We thought we were signing up for libraries. We forgot the "Public" part of how libraries work.
If Amazon sales of "MP3 players" are indicative it's simmering; I see a handful with over 1-2K sales per month (assuming we can trust those numbers, it is Amazon after all). I imagine it's going to be a bit muted for a while due to the memory and storage price gouging and that may push more people towards CD's, which are already seeing a resurgence.
I have an mp3 player that I occasionally use, but much more frequently I'm streaming my music to my phone from my Plex server.
Like every trend does on social media, it's devolved into another consumerist "spend money" issue, but on Tiktok and other places there's a trend of "going analog" and returning to old tech. Okay not "full analog" as some people were using mp3 players and 3DS as a way of returning to tech that doesn't talk you, and those are obv digital and not analog, but that's the overall spirit of the trend.
The issue is people are going out and buying shit instead of finding what they already have and repurposing it. Use an old phone without a sim card as an mp3 player, or get one used from a friend or a slightly more ethical marketplace rather than a brand new thing you might not use.
I do! I own CDs and vinyls. I collect mainly CDs because they are smaller and need less storage.
Do you just collect the CDs or do you also play them with a CD player? I feel like it's not even worth the hassle of getting a system set up to play CDs compared to a record player because the quality won't be as good.
I've got a good couple dozen of CDs I bought over the years when I hadn't used Spotify yet - moved to self-hosting now - and I was always wondering if I should work on actually playing CDs instead of just burning them
Beyond the "experience". If you rip the CD into something lossless, it should be audibly the same. Vinyl versus CD. People claim "warmth" difference.
I listen to them on a Sony discman! At the moment I have an old computer speakers with subwoofer, and I don't care much for the quality. I also use iems which is much better.
The thing I adore is that I pop any cd I like and start cooking without ads. It can be jazz, a funky house cd mix, pop and goes on.
I also have like the feeling of finding hidden gems in record stores. I will spend 2 hours there, searching, doing previews on my phone and then rush home to spin them.\
That's really cool, and I love that you found a new way to enjoy music.
In my case, I just have the CDs in a shelf and don't ever touch them anymore which is kinda sad. Been thinking about getting a disc drive to digitise the CDs and put the music on my server, but I can get music digitally anyway, so what's the point is what I'm thinking.
A disc man sounds cool in theory, but in practise I'm not sure I'd like the hassle of changing CDs and using wired headphones. How long did it take you to adjust?
Just to clarify some things: Since Spotify blocked cracked apps, my main goal was to have free music along with my CD collection(which grows slowly). So now days, one day it could be couple CD's, and the other music from the internet Youtube(FreeTube and NewPiPe), BandCamp, SoundCloud and Qobuz(wink wink). I listen my CD's at home(sometimes when I commute to work), outside I use my smartphones, which they have MP3's and HiFi flacc files.
It didn't took me long, maybe couple months until my collection did actually grow and I would actually listen more frequently.
Also regarding hassle changing, it's less hassle than changing a vinyl! and it has more music in it. 1 hour+.
I would suggest try and see what works best for you! There is nothing wrong ripping and storing them, many people do it. If you end buying a cd player, you could only spin on weekends. It's up to you! I'm just a romantic guy who likes do stuff the old way, because I don't really fit on the new world lol.
Thanks for the detailed write-up and the "Qobuz" link - hadn't heard of that before. Looking forward to them adding API access so I can add the site as an app to my server more easily.
Also I imagine it's really cool to have that, literal, physical connection to your music. Makes it more tangible and more substantial since you curate what you listen to more so than just via downloads.
I'll think about what I'll do with my CDs!
That's what I've been saying for years. If you've bought digital multimedia like movies, TV shows, software, etc from large corpos, you don't own it and you are at their mercy. Contracts can expire and licenses can be revoked. Corps want you to own nothing and be grateful for them allowing you the privilege of paying them for a product or service they can rescind at any time for any reason, because fuck you, that's why.
I still buy new and used movies, games, and all sorts of media. I think with vhs, dvd and Blu-ray combined we’re around 1700 now and still growing. I’ve kept a lot of physical games and systems since I was kid so I’ve had a collection for a bit but with movies it started with not being able to watch Young Frankenstein anywhere. No place to rent or watch even though I had like 4-5 services at the time. I bought the dvd for it and 2 days later it was on Amazon. No more lol
I hit up thrift stores to buy movies on disk. I think it's more than 1200 now.
They get ripped and added to my media server, then I store the disks just in case I need them.
While I don't condemn anyone for pirating media, my personal ethics don't allow me to. So, I need to have the purchased, physical copy to keep it on my server.
Last weekend I unpacked them all with a plan to put them in alphabetical order:
Buying used I occasionally get one that's unplayable. When that happens, I borrow a copy from the library to rip.
OK hear me out though. If you are just purchasing used movies at discount prices, the of creator never gets that money anyway, so pirating has 0 effect on that. However I can understand owning the physical media , and some stuff is getting harder to find torrents of. But I just wanted to make the point.
And if youre buying from artists anyway, everyone is better off if you pirate it then privately send them money as a donation. Or buy from bandcamp.
Unless the people before you purchased them rather than pirated, as they also expected re-sale value.
Sure it benefits the reseller, I suppose. But it isnt helping the creator. Not that it matters a whole lot for big box movies
I have similar thoughts on buying media and not use pirating. Where do you stand on pirating films that you see on TV? In the past it was possible to record it and keep it, but today it is often not possible. My personal ethic allows me to pirate a film that I see on a TV channel. I'm more sceptical to pirate 4k or 1080p films for films that I own on dvd, any thoughts on that?
I'm ok with recording a movie or show from TV. That was commonly accepted in the VCR days, so I see no reason it shouldn't be acceptable today. I have a couple things in my media server that were transferred from a Tivo years ago.
However, I generally prefer to rip movies from DVD or Blu-ray to avoid the breaks, strange edits, and channel logos that get put on broadcasts.
I can only think of one thing I really pirated, and that was Song of the South. The only way to get a copy was Pirate Bay. Disney won't release it and won't go after anyone who pirates it, because they want to pretend it doesn't exist. However, it was an important movie historically for it's early integration of animation with live action.
The suggestion that slaves freed after the Civil War were happy to remain in a position of subservience to the plantation owners is distasteful to say the least. Apart from that, the writing and acting in the live action sequences is so terrible that it's not worth keeping. I wanted to see it once, but I discarded it after.
🏴☠️
Realistically we shouldn’t need laws for this. We should all just vote with our wallets. If we can’t own then you go out of business.
However there should be laws against companies changing the terms of the contract after sale.
The wealthy want you to vote with your wallet, as there is nothing they fear more than "one man, one vote."
Day Man! Ohahooooo! Fighter of the Night Man!
100%. I buy physical copies of the books I want to read, because odds are I'll probably keep them and read them again in future. The ebooks I have are files I have been able to download and store on my system (and backed up), so they can't be edited or deleted.
I will always prefer a physical release for a film or TV show over digital-only. Not only do I not have to pay a subscription (and then worry that it's going to get edited or removed), but I get sound+video quality that exceeds what's possible on streaming at present. Plus there's just something nice about having your favourite movies and shows sitting on your shelf to remind you that it's there and something you enjoy, rather than a purely digital library that isn't as tangible or immediately visible.
It's deeply frustrating, too, when there are shows that you just can't buy at all. A few times in the past two years there's been a show on one of our free-to-air TV networks and their online streaming video service that I've enjoyed, but they're only there for a limited time and then gone. Can you buy them on disc or even digital only? No. They are almost as ephemeral as TV from the 1960s when shows were made to be shown once, maybe repeated a few times before rights expired, then gone (sometimes forever, if you didn't have space in your archives).
I mean, you can do that.
But it's inconvenient and expensive and takes up space. So most folks choose not to do that for pragmatic reasons. Physical media still is broad available for books and music. Less so for films and TV shows, but many are still available in physical formats at online retailers.
I have a lot of physical books, like 500+. People tend to be quite negative about it and have so for a long time, because the popular conception is that physical media is stupid and wasteful. A lot of people take pride in owning nothing physical and regard that as 'minimalism' and are more than happy to purchase digital rentals or subscriptions only to further this aesthetic.
But it makes no sense to continue to produce physical media if only a niche audience is buying it, unless the product is niche, cheap to produce and has a high mark up. That's why Vinly works, folks are willing to pay $30 per record and records cost pennies to physical reproduce.
I didn't read the article, so I'm not sure how hung up they are on physical media, but the title is about owning vs renting/subscriptions. There are still places were digital copies can be purchased and downloaded to own, DRM-free. Personally, I prefer to store bits on HDDs and SSDs rather than CDs. Of course, that option is limited. Digital music can still be owned (eg bandcamp,Q-something,etc), same for audiobooks (shout out libro.fm), ebooks less so, but still possible and workarounds exist (deDRM).
Movies and TV are where it really runs dry. There's a few indie creators you can buy from directly, but for everything else, if you don't want to have a bunch of dvd/blu-ray cases taking up space your only non-rent/subscription options are borrowing from the library (my jam, but a limited collection), or pirating.
currentaffairs.org? nah, i own my affairs!
It's the only way to be sure.