My old person trait is that I think 'ghosting' is completely unacceptable and you owe the other person a face-to-face conversation.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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Owning physical media > "owning" digital media.
game companies constantly pushing towards digital only stuff pisses me off.
"Always Online" form of DRM is the most stupid thing anyone could ever do to a single-player.
Ubisoft and EA Games come to mind.
I'm such a weirdo with this, because I don't mind owning digital games, but I really don't enjoy reading books digitally. I have a massive library that my partner is constantly exasperated by ahah
What do you mean by "owning"? Steam/EpicGames game and Amazon movie like owning? That would not be owning, but since they are commonly refered as such "owning" makes sense. It is important to differentiate this with GOG Game like owning, because GOG games are, once downloaded, completely independent of GOG and the Internet. Similar to that would be pirated Movies, and most pirated Software with the difference that you don't legally own it. Like a stolen DVD lol.
You don't own digital media. It can be taken away from you at any time for any reason or no reason at all:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-lawsuit/amazon-settles-kindle-lawsuit-over-1984-copy-idUKTRE59151X20091002
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/07/739316746/microsoft-closes-the-book-on-its-e-library-erasing-all-user-content
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ps4-players-getting-locked-games-123900616.html
Not the first time, either...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/DIVX
All the examples you gave are examples of not owning.
GOG games are DRM-free, so you will only lose ownership, if GOG ceases to exist and you don't have a local digital copy of your purchase. This would be similar to losing or breaking a DVD, only that you can get as many replacements as you want as long as GOG exists.
I don't know any example of legally aquiring DRM-free digital copies of movies or shows, but I think Bandcamp would be the music-equivalent for that.
Then you don't own it.
If the publisher ceases to exist and you lost the CD/DVD you don't own that media as well. Since you lost it. So the point you are trying to make in regards to GOG and Bandcamp is invalid. Those explicitly state that whatever you buy there is yours to own and keep.
GOG only has the convenience that you COULD get it back, if you lost it.
Anyway back to topic: This is the reason why I buy the media from digital distributors, download the media, crack the encryption, which I am allowed to do, because European Laws and this is my own bought copy of this media. I self-host it on a physical server I have access to and give no public access to it. I bought this thing to own, not to own the right of consumption.
Out of print physical media is still available, it's just out of print. This is why record/book/comic shops exist. Challenging to find? Sometimes, sure. But once something physical is put into the world, you don't have some copyright holder clawing it back.
The same can be said about GOG and Bandcamp items. Most of them are easier to find than physical media, too. Thanks to the Internet Archive!
Digital Media is just another form of Media. It's a lot easier to copy, too. That's why the publisher's thought it necessary to implement DRM, just in the worst way possible. In fact they tried to copy-protect books! Here is a stack question and great answer about this.