Do you actually own anything digital?

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 335 points – Do you actually own anything digital?
theregister.com

Do you actually own anything digital?::From ebooks, to videos and software, the answer is increasingly no

168

Well, I have 10 Tb of pirated digital content sitting safely at my own home, so I would say yes, yes I do own a lot of digital stuff.

Right there with you buddy, 13TB and growing. Self hosted media servers are the best.

Those are rookie numbers. Need to start getting entire TV shows in 4k and things you've seen previously but may want to watch again in the future quickly and easily.

Personally can't justify many series in 4k, some of the ones I have only ever got SD releases (DVD at best) but there are a few I can justify 4K for. Mainly very cinematic shows such as The Mandelorian or The Last of Us. As long as they have subtitles in the other shows and are available in their best original release resolution it's fine for me.

For example if the original Doctor Who series had a 4K release for it's entirety it would probably be my entire server lol. 693 episodes in 480p is almost 300GB.

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Y'all are chumps.

I got 6TB SSD and 16TB HDD.

But I guess it's less than half full so... Idk, maybe Im the chump with too much headroom.

Sitting on 25.2tb of actual media with 7.25tb free. 4k movies and 34k episodes.

Damn, those are some high resolution episodes.

If I can figure out a way to make my next server upgrade a tax write off, I'll flex back.

What media are we talking about? Movies? Porn?

It's probably the entire database of World Cup matches (including qualifier matches), plus the entire database of entries to the Eurovision Song Contest (including those of national finals), in addition to every single thing that happened at the 'Lympic Games. All in glorious 8K quality (yes, everything got upscaled by world class upscaling software).

Just general movies+tv shows.

It started as a classic Disney film collection and has expanded quite dramatically over the last 7ish years.

Now a days I've got a half a dozen users feeding requests into Ombi along with a bunch of imdb lists being monitored; growing the library entirely automatically.

/edit: who am I kidding, it's just hundreds of copies of one man one jar with different filters applied...

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They're my bytes, and I'll put them in whatever order I wish, thank you very much.

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If it's on my Jellyfin server, I own it as much it's possible to own anything.

If they wanted me to pay for it, maybe they shouldn't have dicked me around, watering down my subscribed services while simultaneously jacking up the price.

you don't have to pay for it, but you're also not entitled to it no matter how much they dick around with their service.

do you really feel like they've wronged you in some way and pirating gets you even?

What do you mean by "entitled" here? Could you explain that word in that context to me?

He's saying that you shouldn't feel like you deserve the products you paid for... Not really sure what he's advocating for though :')

Yes, because I go out of my way to make damn sure of it.

How ? Please share so that people like me can learn. I've started watching Louis Rossman YouTube videos and that guy actually makes sense about how companies are treating their customers.

Not the OP, but I'm buying DRM free ebooks and software only, and for every album, movie or series I purchase, I'll download a pirated copy that I add to my offline storage + backup.

If a book I want is not available without DRM, I'll buy a hardcover and a pirated copy.

Also you can remove some types of DRM with DeDRM plugin for calibre.

For music, buy a record on Bandcamp to support the actual artists instead of the record label and they give you free FLAC or high quality MP3 downloads along with all physical media. Otherwise pirate the album for a digital copy and buy the physical in a store.

Pirate stuff. That's the easiest way to make sure you own it

Even if you buy it(which I do support more and more), pirate it. We're at a point where it's just far easier to use the pirated versions of a lot of digital items and you also don't have to worry about someone "taking it back" afterwards.

Can it be taken from you, at any time, for any reason or no reason at all?

If yes, then you don't own it.

I mean, that technically applies to everything. The government can seize your land, the police are in the news every few days for straight up taking money out of people's homes and vehicles and shooting dogs, robbery is still a living profession, etc

There's really not a lot that sentence doesn't apply to, if anything at all.

I think you continued to make his point in a dark way.

Can the US government cease my land?

Yes, imminent domain. You don't own land you only lease it from the government.

Can they stop your land?

I think you mean seize. And I guess it depends on where you live in the world.

When it comes to the US government at least, there are 4th Amendment protections in place, so no, your property can't be seized "for any reason or no reason at all".

Theft is a thing, but it's random and you have the right to defend yourself in your own home. You also aren't at risk for losing EVERYTHING. Not in the way you are if your digital library license gets revoked.

If a cop can take your property with no consequences and you will be arrested or killed if you defend yourself and your property, then what the law says doesn't matter as the defacto state of reality isn't concerned with such petty things as laws.

You clearly don't know about the state of seizure laws in the US over the last years. Having cash is reason enough for them to seize it and they don't have to suspect you of a crime. They can simply find the cash as suspicious and take it and you have to prove the legality of your cash or property at your own cost/expense to get it back.

The fourth amendment of the Constitution of the United States does give us protection against unreasonable search and seizure, but the unreasonable is its weak link and as such your protections have been gutted by SCOTUS since the 1990s and the War on Drugs.

If law enforcement seizes everything you own via asset forfeiture, or kills you in cold blood when you are neither armed nor resisting, your estate can sue to get your belongings back or compensation for wrongful death, but a ruling against law enforcement in your favor is the exception in the US, not the rule.

Avoid engagement with US law enforcement. Ever. And if you must deal with them, do not expect any right to be respected. Under no circumstances should you call law enforcement to respond to a situation.

If I can actually download it and it's DRM-free, yes.

The only certain way to own digital products is apparently to pirate it illegally.

Gog provides DRM free installers when buying games at their store

And plenty of steam games are DRM-free too.

I really wish steam made it clear though. Should have to come with a tag stating DRM/no DRM. Shit, let us filter games by its DRM status.

Don't all games on Steam get the basic DRM treatment?

Nah, it's optional

However, because steam doesn't tell you which games are DRM, and companies have been known to arbitrarily add DRM in updates, I generally treat steam games as being DRM games

Nah, you can buy it legally and break the drm illegally. That is what someone I know very well does with my, ahm, their ebooks.

Removing DRM from content you bought is actually legal

What's illegal is doing so for the purposes of sharing whatever was DRM'd in the first place

Not that it stops me

Fyi, steam doesn't add additional DRM to games. So long as the maker hasn't added anything significant, you can often just copy the game folder out, and run it independently. There's nothing (in theory) to stop you backing it up yourself.

Steam itself is drm though. If you have a pc that can't connect to the internet or is no longer compatible with steam (like an XP pc for example), even if you have the game files, you can't play then without first installing and updating steam.

I have an XP pc for period-era gaming and I can't touch anything steam related for it so instead I have to either look for them on the internet archive or hope there is still a torrent for such an old game. Or failing both, actually find a physical copy. This still means I can't really play Valve's XP games though because of their requirement of Steam no matter how you bought the game.

Sort of, but only if you're launching through Steam. You can launch DRM-free Steam games through the executable file without launching Steam if you already have the files downloaded.

Games on Steam don't require Steamworks or any other DRM, if your game won't launch without Steam running that's a choice by the game developer and not a restriction imposed for Steam.

There is a whole list of drm-free games that will work without the launcher or with instructions on how to make them run without the launcher. If a game makes use of Steam's APIs, it won't run without proper authentication when opened with the launcher even if it is drm-free. You would need to launch it directly from the game's files in that case.

There're few games that work like that. Many use the steam basic drm, making the game not launching if a valid steam session is not running.

That's why I have the generic steam crack. In case they pull the plug some day.

GOG, buy music in mp3/flac format, not sure about video. I guess you can pay for subscription and just pirate stuff you like to keep real ownership.

I like that on GOG you know you own it because they let you download the installer DRM free so you literally can keep a separate copy of all of your purchases. You will always have access to them regardless of what happens to GOG. Videos, music, games, everything they sell.

Yep, I always check GOG first when I want to buy a game on PC.

I think I own my fingers, so them.

Those who down voted you are either idiots, or hate clever wordplay

Or they saw that I made the same joke five hours before this one? :p

If you're on Lemmy, you almost certainly understand the problem and know how to acturally own digital stuff.

The problem is all the normies who can't even see the problem. We need everyone to be protected by law and it all to be citizen oriented. As the moment, it's all stacked in favour of exploitive multinational companies. Maybe ever was it so, but we need to fight that.

We treat it as a tech problem, something to work round, but it's a political problem and we need to solve it politically.

This.

Also, we all here are aware of the problem, to the point where such posts are nothing but circlejerk.

The article might come as eye-opener to some, but certainly not here. Time for solutions. And they are political.

Drives me mad the main stream seam unaware/ignoring that it's about anything free piracy. You hear next to nothing about the problem of DRM, digital ownership, digital freedom or even proper competition in proper markets. There is sometimes mentions of Right To Repair, but they never follow the thread. Or talk about how the internet runs on FOSS. A FOSS system like Debian is a wonder, that still, after 15y of use, floors me when I think about it. A utopian vision of humans can do.

I get you

Drives me even more insane when they actively complain about losing access to something, or not having it available offline, and do nothing about it

Like, here's the super simple solution, just take it!

But they won't sacrifice a tiny bit of their habit to break free. They'll keep on whining about the world and not doing anything, even when they are directed to it with the most simple, grandma-style guidance.

They can't really perceive what is being done to them. They can notice something, but can't quite put it all together.

Voices like EFF, OpenRightsGroup, FSC, etc, need to be heard and made understandable by normal people, news and government.

This is why I don't want Lemmy to become huge. Keep the idiots out.

Seriously, sometimes I wish we could get all the shitty execs and politicians alone in a room with all of us and just insult them for their shitty behavior, like the Chevy Chase comedy central roast.

I mean who wouldn't want to see the expression on the head of Nestle's face when he's told his mother should have swallowed?

They know full well we hate them, that wouldn't help, and would vent the anger we need to make an actual sensible change.

I’ve got a digital watch

My digital watch, a Pebble, stopped working. The company who maintained it got bought by Garmin. Garmin broke my digital watch 🙃.

Does gadgetbridge not work?

I had trouble with some watchfaces. Couldn't get my favs working consistently.

Like Doctorow said, if you cant own it you can't steal it.

It all depends on the licence. Even if you buy something on physical media you may not technically own it. If something has a FOSS licence MIT, BSD, GPL, etc Then yes you do own your copy and no one can change that.

I may only have a license to view the contents of a dvd, but at least I'll always be able to view it as long as it's in my possession and I have a dvd player.

Content you can only access remotely via someone else systems (or requiring remote authorization via there systems) can be taken away at anytime regardless of the terms of your license, even supposedly "indefinite/permanent/lifetime" licences.

Both of these items use the same term 'purchase'. This term used to refer to the first situation only, but now it covers both.

  1. FOSS licenses are distribution licenses, not EULAs. You have the right to own and use software you acquire even without agreeing to them; they only "kick in" when you decide to do something that would otherwise violate copyright law.

I liked the explicit way version 2 of the GPL explained it:

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

Version 3 says the same, but less clearly (note that "affirms" is entirely different from "grants"):

This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.

  1. EULAs presume to "grant" you something you already have due to the First Sale Doctrine (namely, the right to use your property) and are therefore complete bunk as they lack "consideration." If you believe EULAs are somehow valid just because the copyright cartel's shysters say so, you need to learn to quit taking advice from the enemy!

Possession is 9/10ths of the law, so I 90% own a whole lot of stuff I pirated while I don't own most things Ive paid money for... Great system guys

We still own all our CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays, so them as long as the players still exist.

Only if the DRM is broken. DRM can make the player stop working sooner. It's literally about making the media less playable.

No, and once I became aware of the fact realized that I was kinda screwed when it came to video games.

Every single video game I have purchased is on Steam, and considering its DRM and licence business model, I had multiple conversations with my friends who also had the same worry and wondered what would happen if Steam shut down one day. Valve did state that they'll remove the DRM if the platform shut down, but there's no way of knowing the future as million things can happen and for all we know, they might change their minds or not be in a position to remove the DRM once the time came.

TBH, the default steam DRM is trivial to remove yourself with steam emulators and stuff, and many indie games dont even use it. The real problem is 3rd party DRM like Denuvo, which Valve probably can't remove even if they wanted to.

The only "digital" I download, is something that I can put on my personal storage. If I can download it to Nintendo Switch and then move it to USB or SD card, then I can clone the sd card and therefore I own it. (immediate usage might be different, and they may chose to delete if it is put back on the Switch. But I still own it, I just need to find an alternative method to use it).

Same goes with games/movies/whatever. If I can download it and store it on my NAS, I own it.

If you are paying for "digital" but you cannot acquire a copy of it, then it is NOT "Digital" it is streaming. You are paying for the privilege of using some services' electronic library, but you do not own anything on it.

I've been watching this argument lately, and its amusing. The whole Sony thing about Discovery (or whatever it was) has nothing to do with ownership. You were paying to access a library that Sony curated. Sony dropped the contract with the other party, and chose to tidy their library. You just have access to it, because they let you. You do not have any ownership whatsoever, you signed a T&C that says Sony curates the library and they can do what they like.

People seem to have a hard time using words like "content", "streaming" and "digital" vs "electronic copy", "local digital copy" and "DLC"; and then confuse "ownership and "content access".

I actually wonder if the files you download off Bandcamp have DRM on them or not.

I am curious why you think that. I download Bandcamp files and place it on a home server, and I have never had any problems. It is conceivable that they have a tracker or some bull shit connected to it, but more than a little unlikely.

Bandcamp files play fine on non bandcamp-approved playing devices. This is a big win on my book.

Not with DRM

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) like access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM technologies govern the use, modification and distribution of copyrighted works (e.g. software, multimedia content) and of systems that enforce these policies within devices. DRM technologies include licensing agreements and encryption.Laws in many countries criminalize the circumvention of DRM, communication about such circumvention, and the creation and distribution of tools used for such circumvention. Such laws are part of the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the European Union's Information Society Directive – with the French DADVSI an example of a member state of the European Union implementing that directive.Many users argue that DRM technologies are necessary to protect intellectual property, just as physical locks prevent personal property from theft. For examples, they can help the copyright holders for maintaining artistic controls, and supporting licenses' modalities such as rentals. Industrial users (i.e. industries) have expanded the use of DRM technologies to various hardware products, such as Keurig's coffeemakers, Philips' light bulbs, mobile device power chargers, and John Deere's tractors. For instance, tractor companies try to prevent farmers from making repairs via DRM.DRM is controversial. There is an absence of evidence about the DRM capability in preventing copyright infringement, some complaints by legitimate customers for caused inconveniences, and a suspicion of stifling innovation and competition. Furthermore, works can become permanently inaccessible if the DRM scheme changes or if a required service is discontinued. DRM technologies have been criticized for restricting individuals from copying or using the content legally, such as by fair use or by making backup copies. DRM is in common use by the entertainment industry (e.g., audio and video publishers). Many online stores such as OverDrive, use DRM technologies, as do cable and satellite service operators. Apple removed DRM technology from iTunes around 2009. Typical DRM also prevents lending materials out through a library, or accessing works in the public domain.

^article^ ^|^ ^about^

You wouldn’t pay to not own a car

Ahem, what about car rentals when you travel? 😜 Just kidding: in this case you know very well you're not owning the car and only using it for a very short time

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You technically own the car, but some functionality is behind software locks and these days even paid subscriptions. How much do you really own?

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I really wish there was some form of individual copyright that could be sold for specific media. I buy a song on itunes - I own a limited license to listen to that song so long as iTunes may serve it. If I was smart enough to download it to my device, then I might hold onto it a few moments longer in spite of Apple losing the copyright and denying me the ability to listen again on devices without the download. Sucks for me right?

What if I could buy a limited copyright? One that is strictly tied to my individual person and that specific media I had purchased. That copyright is nontransferable, but it is platform agnostic. I could then use that legal copyright to view or listen to that media on a streaming or distribution platform of my choosing. I could listen to a song on Spotify, or Pandora, or Apple, or Google, and I only had to buy it once. Those platforms would not need to negotiate copyright access for media, only demonstrate the ability to serve that media and limit access to those with the copyright.

I would HAPPILY buy all of my media for a ... 3rd time? 5th time? God I don't even know how many times I have purchased some of my music. Vinyl, CD, iTunes, streaming services a plenty... a second CD or two from mixes. Yeesh. I'm fucking tired of it. I want to be able to feel as if I had some kind of longer lasting ability to access the media of which I have paid for.

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It depends on how you acquired it. Nobody can take the license for your pirated, modded fallout. Literally buy it anywhere but itch.io? You probably don't.

You own most GOG games, too

How is GOG? I haven't used it and have heard noth sides. Owning it alone makes it worth looking at.

It's quite alright, but the platform hasn't really grown in a while outside of its available catalogue. Gog galaxy is still in beta I think and it also still has no Linux launcher yet. Still good for the no DRM part tho

I'm about to blow all windows out of my non-work life. So dunno how good that will mix.

You don't actually need gog galaxy, though. It's just an optional launcher.

I just download it directly from the website and install it myself

Between Lutris and Heroic Launcher I have been able to get every game I play running. Some took some tweaking (Fall Guys and Rocket League the most), but they all run and work with online play now.

Thank you, and since I'm not replying to everyone thank you all. I'll give that a good look when I begin my linux gaming journey this winter break. Luckily my week knows we're children and we get this off.

Protondb has a lot of comments on each game as to how to get it running. That's always my first stop if something doesn't run immediately in a launcher.

For Linux you can use Heroic if you want a launcher. Otherwise you can just download the installers on their website.

It's pretty good they do a good job of keeping old games available in a decent state

You can download offline installers that don't require an internet or licence key to install, so if you back them up I'd say you own them to the same degree you'd own a game on optical media

No. Not unless you have it stored on media that you own and control.

If you own a physical object and it has an internet connection than you don't actually own it.

I guess I didn't buy my phone or my laptop then?

You did, but you are the product

How am I the product when I bought it outright and installed Linux before ever booting it up?

Congratulations, then you aren't. On another note, how does Linux on a phone look like? I thought Ubuntu touch was still pretty far from daily-drive capability.

Ah I was just referring to my laptop there. I do still use Android, but with LineageOS instead of my device's stock image.

You bought it but you don't own it. The companies that made them can always decide to reach through the internet and rearrange them better to their liking

Custom Android ROM? Linux? That's just not true. Especially considering entirely FOSS devices i.e. System76.

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Oui mes empreintes.

Je n’ai aucune idée de ce que vous dites.

In French digital means related to fingers. Empreinte digital means fingerprint.

What is funny is digital is sometimes used like in english by French companies, it can gives stuff like finger related jobs ( digital jobs).

Le seul truc dont je me débarasserais bien

Only if its still there and you can use it entirely when internet goes bye-bye forever

Yes I own things because I simply don't pay for something if I'd need to open proprietary software or pay a subscription fee to use it.

It's really quite simple and remarkably easy to do, it's just more mental load to decide what to buy and people just want to pay monthly and forget about it and get mad when it stops magically working.

It's a very complex answer, but in short, no. You don't own anything.

Even if you buy a CD or record you own the medium and the right to reproduce the content, but you don't own the content itself. Hence why it's illegal to make copies or commercially reproduce content. Same thing with electronic devices. You might own the hardware itself, but design of it is copyrighted and software you only get the permission to use.

I own lots of content, because I created it myself.

I think it depends on the definition of own, if it can be sold to someone else who will then own it. If it doesn't have value like that, then it is just something you have, like pocket lint.

Definitely not my car. And if I can help it, it's going to stay that way.

I don't own my digital media but nobody is taking it away from me 😎👉

Why do I need to own them?

You paid money for something and then you find you can't use it again. You seriously think that isn't fucked up?

Yes, that is "fucked" up. The same way it is fucked up that not all VHS you once bought and own have been preserved without loss and none of them will forever. The same way it is fucked up that a software product you once bought and own won't be updated to be usable with your requirements forever.

The mortality of a product does suck, but a) this isn't exclusive to the greed of subscription services and b) you don't need to use a product til the end of time to make it worth it. E.g. I don't use Netflix anymore, but everything I was able to consume during my subscription was ridiculously worth it to me.

Let's say you paid $150 for microsoft office. One day microsoft says, we are only doing office 365 subscriptions and when you launch word, it will not let you use it. It makes you pay for a cloud subscription instead.