Piracy is justified especially when it comes to movies!<p>If I am buying a DVD, I own that copy regardless of the studio and the distributor being in legal trouble or not. If I "buy" or "purchase" something online, I expect the same thing.<p>I'm not always a fan of the EU over-regulating some things but I feel like they should start fining companies who want to re-define the meaning of the word purchase
> If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing<p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill" rel="nofollow">https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-jame...</a>
Jellyfin + Jellyseer + PassThePopcorn has served me and my friends/family well. I pay $50/mo now for a seedbox with 16TB but it serves 20 people. I would self-host for $0/month but my current apartment only has Xfinity, not AT&T and the upload isn’t enough to self-host.<p>It’s less about the money and more about:<p>1) Having a single place to go for any TV show or movie. I found it very frustrating trying to figure out what service had which show - sometimes none of them have it (a few things are still not streamable at all - e.g. “Sharky and George”)<p>2) Knowing that my streaming service isn’t downgrading the video quality. Even my lay friends notice the picture quality improvement vs Amazon / Hulu etc.<p>3) Jellyseer lets my friends request media that gets auto-downloaded. So it’s a curated list of content which helps me discover high quality stuff to watch.
However, you will stop owning that copy the moment the DVD deteriorates to the point of becoming unreadable. Physical media is a good start, but DRM-stripped digital is the ideal.
If you buy a DVD you have the right, in every sane jurisdiction I'm aware of, to rip the movie from the DVD into an iso. You can then discard/recycle the media and retain the digital copy you have the right to view privately in perpetuity. It is a single consumer license though, as is logical, so it's likely illegal for you to continue to watch the ripped iso if you resell the media with the content still on it or resell the media with any portion of the value coming from the markings from the content or the fact that it used to contain that content. You probably want to shove it in a closet somewhere or just reuse it as rewriteable media for whatever purpose you need - retaining physical ownership of the media makes things simplest legally.
> DVD deteriorates to the point of becoming unreadable<p>If I am the reason for damaging my purchase then I am fine with that characteristic of the purchase.<p>Same happens with books, you buy the copy and if you don't take care of it, soon it will become unreadable.
punishing customers for not using BitTorrent seems like a weird strategy but I’m not an MBA so what do I know
They should absolutely be forced to provide either a refund or a downloadable copy, this is absurd. It sounds like they didn't actually have the license necessary to be able to sell these movies in any reasonable way.
I feel these license agreements have to be set up in such a way people that already bought their movies get to keep them, like okay Sony lost the licences and they shouldn't sell it to new customers but existing customers should get to keep their movies. Since companies don't care the government needs to force their hand and put it into law
it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date
That's a big can of worms, since it applies to approximately 100% of all software. You only ever buy a license that allows you to use software, almost never actually buy software.
and this should include musics and similar in games (excluding stuff like sessional content)<p>if you sell a game you should have to have bought a license to use the music (and similar) in the game permanently (for given game sold, new sold revision can change what they contain but only if there isn't deceptive advertisement and it's very clearly labeled that it's a different revision/the content changed!).
Yes, 100%, and that end date should be very clearly listed too.
Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly, but consumers should still be aware of the fact that their rights are limited. While the Gaben lives valve will store many people's games - when the Gaben dies... well, it's going to suck - but it'll probably take a while to completely suck, we'll probably go through drawn out enshittification first. This outcome seems inevitable[1] but it is likely a fair distance off.<p>1. Unless you write a damned clear company charter, Gabe, get on that.
Renting what? The non-exclusive, revocable license? Because that's what purchase or buy means.
Pretty sure the Terms of Use say just that. They should update the language on the frontend though.
<p><pre><code> sudo pacman -S transmission-gtk
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I suppose it's time to form a new media consumption habit.
How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc? I have multiple games that you can't "buy" anymore, but Steam doesn't stop me from reinstalling them as often as I like.<p>Are they negotiating that as part of the deal with their vendors? Or is it as simple as "We're not dicks." ?
> How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc?<p>Steam isn't innocent either. The instance that comes to mind is Order Of War: Challenge (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-remov...</a>) but I've also seen people say other games have been removed from their libraries or silently replaced with "remastered" versions that removed things like music.
That's just how Valve's license agreement works. You publish with Steam and you grant Valve the right to publish the work in perpetuity.<p>The licensing deal made by movie studios does not work like that because the studios are intentionally predatory. The distribution agreements are temporary and can involve periodic payments. Literally Netflix rents movies from the studios and rents them back to you. The studios reserve the right to cancel distribution deals at any time.
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Sony sucks and I will never give them another dime. Had a PS5 with a 120+ games (majority PS4), also PSVR2, got f-ed over by Sony when they would not refund in incorrect game purchase I'd bought literally minutes before asking for the refund. Gave up my PS5, I will never purchase anything from Sony ever again. Recommend everyone else do the same.
A decade ago they pulled my purchased copy of mortal kombat 2. Not the first time they've done stuff like this.<p>I stuck to buying hard copies and dwindled off the series as they started to charge just to play multiplayer.
Would love to know how hidden the fine text was on that buy button. Unless it said rent this should be illegal.
Again? They already tried to pull that one a few years ago.<p>[1] <a href="https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony%27s_attempted_removal_of_%22purchased%22_content" rel="nofollow">https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony%27s_attempted_removal_of_...</a>
They did get away with it in 2024:<p><a href="https://filmstories.co.uk/news/funimation-streaming-app-to-shut-down-purchased-content-to-be-deleted/" rel="nofollow">https://filmstories.co.uk/news/funimation-streaming-app-to-s...</a><p>(For those without the background: In 2020, Sony bought Crunchyroll and in 2024 merged it with Funimation (acquired by Sony subsidiary Aniplex in 2017). Since Crunchyroll had the larger streaming service, this was done by moving the Funimation library to Crunchyroll. However, Funimation also has a business selling digital copies, not just streaming access, which was discontinued including access to purchased media)
they can do it as many times as they want until it works, then that's precedent
No refunds. Sounds like Playstation customer support. The most customer-unfriendly policies a company could think of.
Fix the headline to say Sony
This is making me mad enough that I’m going to spend my weekend figuring out a media server and pirating movies.<p>If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing. Fuck those guys.<p>It’s been 20 years since I’ve pirated shit, but here we are again…
If you're not experienced in media servers, I'd recommend a QNAP NAS and then install either Jellyfin or Emby. (Plex has really gone downhill in the last 10 years imho.) QNAP is terrible for experienced users, but as Baby's First NAS it's absolutely sublime.
Off to small claims court people should go. Amazon tried something similar and got in trouble because people when after them.<p>And people wonder why some people sail the high seas.
How soon until the digital distributions are owned by just a few cartels, and later when it’s suitable for them, they also modify digital movies to suit a political agenda without letting you know?
Wow.