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

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    If it’s on my Jellyfin server, I own it as much it’s possible to own anything.

    If they wanted me to pay for it, maybe they shouldn’t have dicked me around, watering down my subscribed services while simultaneously jacking up the price.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        11 months ago

        Gog provides DRM free installers when buying games at their store

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          11 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.

            • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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              11 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!@lemmy.world
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        11 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.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 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

      • cynar@lemmy.world
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        11 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@sh.itjust.works
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          11 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@programming.dev
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            11 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.

          • DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml
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            11 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.

        • daniskarma@lemmy.world
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          11 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.

  • User79185@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 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.

    • MashedTech@lemmy.world
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      11 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.

  • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    If you’re on Lemmy, you almost certainly understand the problem and know how to acturally own digital stuff.

    The problem is all the normies who can’t even see the problem. We need everyone to be protected by law and it all to be citizen oriented. As the moment, it’s all stacked in favour of exploitive multinational companies. Maybe ever was it so, but we need to fight that.

    We treat it as a tech problem, something to work round, but it’s a political problem and we need to solve it politically.

    • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      This.

      Also, we all here are aware of the problem, to the point where such posts are nothing but circlejerk.

      The article might come as eye-opener to some, but certainly not here. Time for solutions. And they are political.

      • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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        11 months ago

        Drives me mad the main stream seam unaware/ignoring that it’s about anything free piracy. You hear next to nothing about the problem of DRM, digital ownership, digital freedom or even proper competition in proper markets. There is sometimes mentions of Right To Repair, but they never follow the thread. Or talk about how the internet runs on FOSS. A FOSS system like Debian is a wonder, that still, after 15y of use, floors me when I think about it. A utopian vision of humans can do.

        • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I get you

          Drives me even more insane when they actively complain about losing access to something, or not having it available offline, and do nothing about it

          Like, here’s the super simple solution, just take it!

          But they won’t sacrifice a tiny bit of their habit to break free. They’ll keep on whining about the world and not doing anything, even when they are directed to it with the most simple, grandma-style guidance.

          • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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            11 months ago

            They can’t really perceive what is being done to them. They can notice something, but can’t quite put it all together.

            Voices like EFF, OpenRightsGroup, FSC, etc, need to be heard and made understandable by normal people, news and government.

      • thegreekgeek@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        Seriously, sometimes I wish we could get all the shitty execs and politicians alone in a room with all of us and just insult them for their shitty behavior, like the Chevy Chase comedy central roast.

        I mean who wouldn’t want to see the expression on the head of Nestle’s face when he’s told his mother should have swallowed?

        • Sanyanov@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          They know full well we hate them, that wouldn’t help, and would vent the anger we need to make an actual sensible change.

  • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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    11 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

    • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      Only if the DRM is broken. DRM can make the player stop working sooner. It’s literally about making the media less playable.

  • Commiunism@lemmy.wtf
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    11 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.

    • Euphoma@lemmy.ml
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      10 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.

    • echindod@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      I am curious why you think that. I download Bandcamp files and place it on a home server, and I have never had any problems. It is conceivable that they have a tracker or some bull shit connected to it, but more than a little unlikely.

      Bandcamp files play fine on non bandcamp-approved playing devices. This is a big win on my book.

  • LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol
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    11 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.

    • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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      11 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.