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

  • @[email protected]
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    10 months ago

    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.

      • @[email protected]
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        1810 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          1610 months ago

          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.

      • @[email protected]
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        310 months ago

        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.

          • @[email protected]
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            410 months ago

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

          • YⓄ乙
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            110 months ago

            What media are we talking about? Movies? Porn?

            • Resol van Lemmy
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              310 months ago

              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).

            • @[email protected]
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              10 months ago

              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…

    • YⓄ乙
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      10 months ago

      Torrent that Shit so that it can live forever

    • YⓄ乙
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      1410 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        4310 months ago

        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.

        • JustEnoughDucks
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          10 months ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          1610 months ago

          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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1710 months ago

      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.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

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

        • @[email protected]
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          1610 months ago

          Can they stop your land?

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

        • @[email protected]
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          1810 months ago

          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.

        • AdmiralShat
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          1210 months ago

          This comment is so fucking frustratingly ignorant of the realities of living in the US. Is this a troll comment?

        • @[email protected]
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          1210 months ago

          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.

            • @[email protected]
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              710 months ago

              You said the Fourth Amendment, not your state law. The fourth amendment should protect from this but historically it hasn’t. One good state doesn’t change that.

        • Uriel238 [all pronouns]
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          1110 months ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          1010 months ago

          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.

            • @[email protected]
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              310 months ago

              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

      • The Menemen!
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          1010 months ago

          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

          • SkaveRat
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            210 months ago

            It depends on the jurisdiction. Removal is illegal in some countries

      • @[email protected]
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        610 months ago

        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.

        • MrScottyTay
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          410 months ago

          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.

          • my_hat_stinks
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            1010 months ago

            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.

          • @[email protected]
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            310 months ago

            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.

            • MrScottyTay
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              210 months ago

              I’ll look into it, saves me buying a game again on gog

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          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.

  • @[email protected]
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    3010 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      2310 months ago

      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.

  • @[email protected]
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    1710 months ago

    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

  • @[email protected]
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    1510 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      910 months ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 months ago
      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!
  • @[email protected]
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    1210 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      110 months ago

      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.