Posted by bilsbie 4 hours ago
I know it'll never happen with the people we have in government these days, and the anti-consumer organizations, like the ESA, that are out there now claiming things like running private servers for Minecraft is illegal and piracy. (Yes, they really said that. Despite the fact that Minecraft has always provided the server and allowed this for 15+ years)
You only need legislation like this to hold in one major market to make a big difference.
Politicians are taking about it. Anyone who purchases media cares about it. Support for copyright reform is only going to grow, so hopefully we'll see some.
We seen what licensing ala Netflix and Spotify means artists.
"The feature was controversially removed by Sony since system firmware update 3.21, released on April 1, 2010.[2] A class action lawsuit was filed against Sony on behalf of users, but was dismissed with prejudice in 2011 by a federal judge. The judge stated: "As a legal matter, ... plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable."[3] However, this decision was overturned in a 2014 appellate court decision[4] finding that plaintiffs had indeed made clear and sufficiently substantial claims. Ultimately, in 2016, Sony settled with users who had installed Linux or had purchased a PlayStation 3 based upon the availability of OtherOS."
And with games it's just getting worse (Sony announced they won't make discs starting 2028; the Switch 2 takes carts but very, very few games release on a cart). If you care about control over the games you purchased, if you care about going back and playing older games, then the only choice is to use platforms that are DRM free. (Or, well, non-legal means.)
And "gamers" refuse to listen to reason and assume physical copy = they can play it for eternity, when in reality, in 5 or 10 years when a server is inevitably shut down, they're forced to pirate. Nintendo does not allow offline patches.
Still walled garden, but they act way better.
We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over the network to a thin client. PlayStation and XBOX consoles are basically dedicated gaming PCs that can only run Sony or Microsoft's version of Steam. DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan, so Microsoft won't have the last laugh there either. If Valve controls the store you purchase games from, the software which runs the games, and the operating system running the software, they are an ODM contract away from becoming Sony's PlayStation division, and look where they are now.
And even if they somehow arrived in a market position where being less benevolent would make more money: Valve isn't publicly traded, nobody is forcing them to make the most profitable move. As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing it
(not that they are all around benevolent. "consistent" and "usually choosing the side of the customer over the side of the publisher" is maybe the better framing)
Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
Gabe seems like the kinda guy who is in the Game for the love of games.
It would be a legendary legacy indeed to commit Valve and it's profits to a trust which defends digital rights and freedom.
Gosh this is ridiculous
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/12/summary-claims-against...
Sad that most executable code (games, software, etc) these days is digital only and requires drm calls to a license server to install. I will not pirate executable code.
It was a copyright violation. Which, I don't give one fuck about.
And then Anthropic publically bellyaches that "WAHHHH CHINESE ARE STEALING OUR STOLEN DATA WAH". Lemee get that worlds tiniest violin for that sonata!
These days if you're following the rules, you're a rube and a stooge. And you will be taken advantage of again and again and again.
One would think dozens of SWAT officers would rappel down helicopters and storm the mansions of these big tech CEOs. Unpayable trillion dollar fines, actual prison time. Instead the AI companies reached some absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims.
It should, however, be illegal to tell your customers that they are purchasing/buying media without explicit "Rent" language (which implies a non-expiring license) when you do not yourself have the right to grant non-expiring licenses.
Many of these services offer cheaper rental options. When you go for the more expensive "buy" option, the assumption that you are actually buying it to keep should hold true.
And Sony made it easy for them too by using this verbiage: “previously purchased content”
For Sony, the correct move here would have been to not list Studio Canal titles in the first place, and put out a very public statement saying that they aren't being listed until Studio Canal agrees to make purchased licenses perpetual as they should be.
IANAL but I think the US law approach is to rely on chaining, so the #1 blame is on Sony until Sony proves it isn't.
1. Consumers who were damaged sue Sony for damages.
2. If Sony loses, Sony sues Studio Canal for damages.
3. If Studio Canal loses... ?
I'm curious. What are the best sites nowadays? Still torrents, right?
I used to be in the know but switched to legit things a while back so I wouldn't have to explain how dad is getting Bluey episodes.
it is more immoral to sell something you can't legally "sell" (permanently and irrevocably transfer ownership of a product), than to pirate that content (which has no level of expected payment)
Then they did not sell them.
People don't like that though. We should change the laws so that is illegal. We can just make laws we want--we're allowed to do that.
Watch ... it'll fail on me later today. :-D
Except that no part of what you claim is true:
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/back-up-iphone-iph3ec...
I still make digital purchases, but at the first sign of friction, at the first indication that I'm gonna get screwed somehow, I leave port and off to the open waters. Fuck 'em, I played by the rules until I discovered that I was the only one doing so.
Nobody would buy that. So they say "buy" instead, and courts have largely let them get away with it. Until legislation actually forces the word "buy" to mean ownership, this will keep happening.
There's a dangerous path where the companies are required to describe these transactions as "rentals", but that wont actually solve anything. If we require clearer advertising, we're going to end up with a world where everything is very clearly a rental, and there simply is no option to purchase. People will still buy the $40 "rentals" because it's their favorite movie and they want to watch it, and it's Friday night and they want to watch it right now.
I think people understand the situation when they "purchase" digital media. They know it might not last forever. They do it anyway. They don't like it though. They would prefer genuine ownership, but it's not an option.
We either need to outlaw these long term rentals, or break up monopolies until companies that are actually offering genuine purchases arise. Or we could do both.
We need to regulate more than just the wording on the "purchase" page. This isn't just a problem of wording.
4 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346
4 years ago ( so it's not the first time studioCanal has done this): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32010317
Another perspective: In accordance with the licensing system that Sony and their lobbyists helped establish, Sony's licensing agreement with StudioCanal came up for renewal. Sony decided that they didn't want to pay StudioCanal's perfectly reasonable() asking price.
this is StudioCanal's perspective.
[0] https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-produc...
But I not for a single second trusted "buying" digital goods, and I was quickly proved right. The first digital purchases getting yanked story must have been close to 20 years ago at this point.
I still buy CD's and books and game discs when the digital DRM-free equivalent cannot be had.
I have a similar grief with YouTube movies although in that one, they don't play UHD. Some do like Valerian plays at least in 1080P, most movies are capped to 480P unless you have an "approved device" eg. something probably riddled with ads.
Not sure if it is still the case today with the latest generations of ultra-advanced codecs.
I don't partake in downloading anymore but I do go to streaming sites