From Playstation Games to ebooks and family photos, corporations are replacing ownership with temporary access. But we don’t have to accept that.
  • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
    35 minutes

    Well, aren’t you quaint. Next thing you’ll be asking for is seed corn that you can replant year after year from the corn it grows, heated seats in your cars without a subscription payment, replaceable batteries in your battery powered electronics.

  • pemptago@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2 hours

    Beyond the obvious problem of paying but not owning, it’s impossible to watch/listen without that data being stored on a massive-corpation’s server and likely sold to hundreds of advertisers. Last I saw Spotify had over 300 venders they share data with. I’ve seen sites with over 1000.

    So you’re not only paying for something you don’t own, but you’re also paying to have a larger profile in the surveillance capitalism machine.

    • MangoCats@feddit.itEnglish
      35 minutes

      have a larger profile in the surveillance capitalism machine.

      This is why, when I’m not watching, I’ll set Netflix to stream movies I like.

  • rose56@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2 hours

    I do! I own CDs and vinyls. I collect mainly CDs because they are smaller and need less storage.

  • DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    6 hours

    It’s always been hypocrisy. The media companies only say what part you actually own based whatever is most profitable to them.

    Technically, back in the day, when you bought any music wether it be 8-track, LP, cassette, or CD, you were purchasing a single-user license for the music and the media was just how the record companies delivered it to you. That’s why Napster and all the piracy that followed it was/is illegal, because you don’t own a license when you copy the digital file.

    HOWEVER… Over the many decades I’ve been alive I’ve scratched, twisted, demagnetized, or just plain old lost hundreds of LPs, cassettes, and CDs. Do you think if I requested a new copy of the music that the record companies would send me a replacement?

    No, they would not. So I obtained digital replacements by…other means.

    Now that we’re all used to digital copies, suddenly that’s been the important part all along.

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2 hours

      That’s why if you want to support artists, you can buy the shit locked down files so they get the artist gets paid, and then just never use them. Pay for them but get your actual files from piracy.

  • TomMasz@piefed.socialEnglish
    7 hours

    I have no fear that Amazon will come to my house and remove the books I bought. If they were DRMed ebooks, on the other hand, that would be something to worry about.

    • GreenBeard@lemmy.caEnglish
      4 hours

      I was always more angry about them editing digital publications after the fact. That’s some Grade A “Ministry of Truth” BS right there. Dead Tree Media forever.

  • yeehaw@lemmy.caEnglish
    7 hours

    Only way I feel I can push back is by also saving it locally 🏴‍☠️

  • Hogrider@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10 hours

    If buying isn’t owning, then pirating cannot be stealing. These corporations are literally herding people back onto the seas. I need to go get myself a new flag with a skull and bones, since I tied my boat to the pier about fifteen-twenty years ago.

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      8 hours

      Pirating is not and never has been stealing. You do not deprive anyone of anything when you make a copy of something.

      Copyright is a dumb as shit system of artificial scarcity and always has been.

      • yeehaw@lemmy.caEnglish
        7 hours

        Its kinda true. I like to think of gog and gog-games. One is a storefront. One is a clean ui with all the games downloadable for free.

        I think many would still use the free one vs paid. Myself, there’s something about owning it.

        I pirated doom eternal back in the day. I was enjoying it so much I just bought it instead. 🤷

        I get what you’re saying with “copying” vs “stealing”, which is true. But if you could clone your friends car for free you don’t need to buy a car and the business loses a sale.

        • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
          6 hours

          The business loses a sale of what though? A copy they never created or had possession of in the first place?

          If I go home and build a PC, can Dell claim that I deprived them of a sale of a copy of one of their computers?

    • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7 hours

      That’s the other part of it. How will you pirate when they no longer sell hardware to us?

      Their whole idea is for the production of technology to be exclusive to them and their “AI” datacenters. Besides being used to spy on us and everything we do, think, create, and opine - they will force us into walled gardens on locked down tablets and we will use their software they way they intend for the time they allow us, only.

      It’s a prison.

      • Fredselfish@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6 hours

        No worries we will always have the hardware. It may not look shiny or new, but we can go to scrape yards and another places to find what we need. And we will build our internet. It be true cyberpunk. Hell with 2 dollar saw blade I can gather some materials needed.

  • piedonut@piefed.socialEnglish
    7 hours

    Speak for yourself. I would pay to see The Chamberpot of Secrets where Vulvamort tries to enter the little boy’s room.

  • rf_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8 hours

    We got frog boiled in the 2010s to accept renting out media. Me and my sandisk Sansa clip still go for walks listening to mp3s. I wonder if devices like this will see a resurgence under the idea that owning it gives you control of your media.

    • GreenBeard@lemmy.caEnglish
      4 hours

      We thought we were signing up for libraries. We forgot the “Public” part of how libraries work.

    • Quantumantics@fedia.io
      7 hours

      If Amazon sales of “MP3 players” are indicative it’s simmering; I see a handful with over 1-2K sales per month (assuming we can trust those numbers, it is Amazon after all). I imagine it’s going to be a bit muted for a while due to the memory and storage price gouging and that may push more people towards CD’s, which are already seeing a resurgence.

      • joe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6 hours

        I have an mp3 player that I occasionally use, but much more frequently I’m streaming my music to my phone from my Plex server.

  • TIEPilot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12 hours

    I saved all my DVDs because the pawn/sale price wasnt worth it… So glad I did.

    • Kjell@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11 hours

      Films are still physical in my home. PC games are only digital, preferably bought at gog so I can download and store them. Music is also digital since I don’t have any cd player. But I will continue to my films as blu ray discs as long as my blu ray player works and the films are released. Well, there needs to be stores that sell the films as well, that looks like the first thing to fall.

  • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7 hours

    I mean, you can do that.

    But it’s inconvenient and expensive and takes up space. So most folks choose not to do that for pragmatic reasons. Physical media still is broad available for books and music. Less so for films and TV shows, but many are still available in physical formats at online retailers.

    I have a lot of physical books, like 500+. People tend to be quite negative about it and have so for a long time, because the popular conception is that physical media is stupid and wasteful. A lot of people take pride in owning nothing physical and regard that as ‘minimalism’ and are more than happy to purchase digital rentals or subscriptions only to further this aesthetic.

    But it makes no sense to continue to produce physical media if only a niche audience is buying it, unless the product is niche, cheap to produce and has a high mark up. That’s why Vinly works, folks are willing to pay $30 per record and records cost pennies to physical reproduce.

    • pemptago@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2 hours

      I didn’t read the article, so I’m not sure how hung up they are on physical media, but the title is about owning vs renting/subscriptions. There are still places were digital copies can be purchased and downloaded to own, DRM-free. Personally, I prefer to store bits on HDDs and SSDs rather than CDs. Of course, that option is limited. Digital music can still be owned (eg bandcamp,Q-something,etc), same for audiobooks (shout out libro.fm), ebooks less so, but still possible and workarounds exist (deDRM).

      Movies and TV are where it really runs dry. There’s a few indie creators you can buy from directly, but for everything else, if you don’t want to have a bunch of dvd/blu-ray cases taking up space your only non-rent/subscription options are borrowing from the library (my jam, but a limited collection), or pirating.

  • roundabout@lemmy.zipEnglish
    10 hours

    I still buy new and used movies, games, and all sorts of media. I think with vhs, dvd and Blu-ray combined we’re around 1700 now and still growing. I’ve kept a lot of physical games and systems since I was kid so I’ve had a collection for a bit but with movies it started with not being able to watch Young Frankenstein anywhere. No place to rent or watch even though I had like 4-5 services at the time. I bought the dvd for it and 2 days later it was on Amazon. No more lol

    • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10 hours

      I hit up thrift stores to buy movies on disk. I think it’s more than 1200 now.

      They get ripped and added to my media server, then I store the disks just in case I need them.

      While I don’t condemn anyone for pirating media, my personal ethics don’t allow me to. So, I need to have the purchased, physical copy to keep it on my server.

      Last weekend I unpacked them all with a plan to put them in alphabetical order:

      Buying used I occasionally get one that’s unplayable. When that happens, I borrow a copy from the library to rip.

      • Kjell@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 hour

        I have similar thoughts on buying media and not use pirating. Where do you stand on pirating films that you see on TV? In the past it was possible to record it and keep it, but today it is often not possible. My personal ethic allows me to pirate a film that I see on a TV channel. I’m more sceptical to pirate 4k or 1080p films for films that I own on dvd, any thoughts on that?

        • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
          56 minutes

          I’m ok with recording a movie or show from TV. That was commonly accepted in the VCR days, so I see no reason it shouldn’t be acceptable today. I have a couple things in my media server that were transferred from a Tivo years ago.

          However, I generally prefer to rip movies from DVD or Blu-ray to avoid the breaks, strange edits, and channel logos that get put on broadcasts.

          I can only think of one thing I really pirated, and that was Song of the South. The only way to get a copy was Pirate Bay. Disney won’t release it and won’t go after anyone who pirates it, because they want to pretend it doesn’t exist. However, it was an important movie historically for it’s early integration of animation with live action.

          The suggestion that slaves freed after the Civil War were happy to remain in a position of subservience to the plantation owners is distasteful to say the least. Apart from that, the writing and acting in the live action sequences is so terrible that it’s not worth keeping. I wanted to see it once, but I discarded it after.

      • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        7 hours

        OK hear me out though. If you are just purchasing used movies at discount prices, the of creator never gets that money anyway, so pirating has 0 effect on that. However I can understand owning the physical media , and some stuff is getting harder to find torrents of. But I just wanted to make the point.

        And if youre buying from artists anyway, everyone is better off if you pirate it then privately send them money as a donation. Or buy from bandcamp.