I miss the days of VHS and DVD shelfs in homes, for example. If you bought the tapes and had them in your home, no corporate entity could alter those tapes without your consent, monitor how many times you watch them, sell your data to whomever they please without your knowledge, roll out new mandatory conditions to a ‘user agreement,’ or remove them from your library if/when they like.
I noticed some dumb change in how Dictionary definitions are shown in the Spotlight (ie, overall search my computer function) in MacOS this week. I’ve turned off all auto-updates, and I didn’t make that change or consent to it. But despite paying the full price all by myself for this machine, I clearly don’t have 100% control over it. It seems very clearly to me that consumers having control and privacy over their Internet-connected devices is a bygone era.
After Blizzard, the video game company, replaced copies of Warcraft 3 that I and others had paid for in full and installed on our computers that we could play without connecting to the Internet with a lower-quality copy that prohibited offline play - I swore I’d never pay for a video game again*, and 3 years later I haven’t backslid on that. I felt so angry, cheated, and robbed by that. (*Edit: my criticism and frustration is really more with larger developers/companies/creators - I appreciate and am happy to support smaller, more independent and libre ones.)
Many people probably won’t be bothered by these things, but I am. I don’t want to pay full price for something that I don’t truly own. I miss the familiarity. I miss the reliability. I miss feeling like it’s mine. Dependable. Trustworthy.
Picking my old guitar up again has never looked so appealing. I think I want to go back to investing more time, money, and energy into things that aren’t connected to the internet
They’re not gone, you just have to be more selective.
First, many of us have turned to piracy for this reason. I don’t like piracy. I don’t want to steal. But I will if they don’t provide me with a legitimate and respectful purchase process.
You can still buy whatever you want on Blu-Ray.
Bit of a double-edged sword there. Mac can make improvements and they can make things worse. The difference is often a matter of personal preference.
I have much bigger axes to grind with Apple, but I digress. Yes the overarching theme is “control” that Apple wants to maintain.
Linux gives you all the control you could ever want.
Pirate it. You have every right, far as I’m concerned.
WHY DON’T YOU WANT PERSONALIZED ADVERTISEMENTS?
Piracy isn’t stealing, that’s just internalized corporate propaganda. No one should feel guilty about piracy, if anything be proud! Not only are you contributing to the preservation of media in an increasingly disposable age, but it also frees up your disposable income so you can actually donate it directly to independent content creators instead of sending it into the coffers of a faceless multinational.
The only things I’d feel guilty pirating are small indie pieces of media.
Even then, if you don’t have the desire or means to pay for it, it’s not a “lost sale”. If you’re well off, yes, please support indie creators, but even a pirated indie title can lead to more sales of that title through word of mouth.
Everything you just said is bullshit entitlement
Please, explain to me why piracy is in any way morally or ethically wrong?
If you really need me to explain it, there’s no hope for you. Even a child understands why stealing is bad.
Oh, sorry, I meant software or media piracy, not, like, actual piracy.
What would a child say if they were asked whether they would steal a loaf of bread to feed their starving family if they had no other way of saving them? What would you say? Does context matter in moral judgements?
LOL WTF dude? You are not stealing food, you’re stealing entertainment.
I actually think the ethics of media piracy are even less debatable than those of stealing food. If you’re stealing food, you are depriving someone of it. If you copy a song or a movie or a game, literally no one loses anything.
To be clear, I absolutely support people stealing food to survive, especially from stores and double especially from large corporations.
You’re depriving the creator of that content from compensation for their work. You know this, you just don’t care.
If you pirate from a company worth billions, it’s stealing and you should be ashamed of yourself you greedy thief degenerate leech.
If a company steals from you, well… uh, I guess you deserved it. Why are you so entitled, that thing you bought you should be grateful for what little time you had with it. Even though you paid for it, it’s not yours it’s theirs. What’s wrong with you?
LOL why do you people fabricate these stories and then act like they have absolutely anything to do with what I’ve said?
Oh right, because you don’t have any legitimate arguments.
I think I’m more or less with @verdigris. I’d get behind the position that most large corporations have bent the rules of society so much to their favour and accrued so much wealth at the expense of ordinary people that we don’t owe them anything at this point. I got mad respect for the independent creators. But I feel there’s no moral transgression with streaming a pirated show vis-a-vis the corporations missing out on making a few bucks from that, to use a example. It’s not black and white; actors and others salaries are important and related. But those “you wouldn’t steal a car, so why are you trying to a CD/DVD?” ads were clearly corporate propaganda, as another example