This is old news. Owners of e-readers have known about this for nearly a decade. Nine years ago, Amazon realised it didn't have the rights to an e-book it had been selling so, one day, it just...
This is old news. Owners of e-readers have known about this for nearly a decade. Nine years ago, Amazon realised it didn't have the rights to an e-book it had been selling so, one day, it just suddenly deleted that e-book from everyone's Kindles. The e-book wasn't even stored externally on cloud servers - they erased it from the physical devices themselves whenever they synched up with Amazon's servers.
That incident taught me and many other owners of e-readers that even purchased digital copies of media are ultimately temporary and erasable. I therefore never buy anything digitally unless I'm happy to lose it tomorrow. If I want to keep something permanently without the possibility of some publisher yanking it out of my library, I'll buy a physical copy, whether it's a book or a CD or a DVD/Blu-Ray. Amazon is not going to come into my house and take a book off my bookshelf!
And, the name of the book that was erased from existence? Ironically... it was '1984'! :)
I'll confess that I once had some participation in a media-sharing community (a/k/a pirates) explicitly so that we could maintain off-line archives of material that might be deleted, altered, or...
I'll confess that I once had some participation in a media-sharing community (a/k/a pirates) explicitly so that we could maintain off-line archives of material that might be deleted, altered, or otherwise censored, and socialize content into hands that might not be able to afford it otherwise. [I've since seen the light about creators actually needing payment in order to keep creating.]
Now, both the content creators and consumers are at the mercy of oligarchic publishing and distribution networks. It's not like there's a master hash library which can identify what's been tampered with, or a permanent versioned repository of every piece of copyrighted media.
I've actually kind of got hopes that this is an opportunity for blockchains to ensure distributed archiving and verification. None of that's helpful if the power goes out, and I've got my own little library of remaining physical media editions, but paper, plastic, and magnetic media are pretty fungible as well.
Some pirates are born out of frustrated customers. Other pirates are just immoral and/or selfish, even if they try to dress up their selfishness in supposed righteousness.
Some pirates are born out of frustrated customers. Other pirates are just immoral and/or selfish, even if they try to dress up their selfishness in supposed righteousness.
Certainly - I'd gotten started making my own digital editions of paper books I owned (this was in the late 90's, for reading on a PalmPilot) because the publishers weren't interested in releasing...
Certainly - I'd gotten started making my own digital editions of paper books I owned (this was in the late 90's, for reading on a PalmPilot) because the publishers weren't interested in releasing them, released them only in DRM-locked/device-dependent formats (many of which are no longer accessible), or altered the content. Also, if it wasn't possible to share an e-book with another person in the same household, let alone lend it to a friend, then it wasn't fulfilling the function of a book.
While it's nothing new, and (to me) not even that surprising, this, along with the Windows 10 intercepting browser installs post remind us that we're moving towards a grim future where we don't...
While it's nothing new, and (to me) not even that surprising, this, along with the Windows 10 intercepting browser installs post remind us that we're moving towards a grim future where we don't truly own or have control over our technology/data/files.
This is precisely why you should be running Linux instead of Windows! And why you should be buying physical copies of artistic media whenever possible. Things are only going to get worse from here.
This is precisely why you should be running Linux instead of Windows! And why you should be buying physical copies of artistic media whenever possible. Things are only going to get worse from here.
When I was in the Navy I got back from a deployment and I lost so much of my music that was an iTunes. So I pirated it. I really support artists and paying for stuff I listen to but I wadn'tt...
When I was in the Navy I got back from a deployment and I lost so much of my music that was an iTunes. So I pirated it. I really support artists and paying for stuff I listen to but I wadn'tt going to pay for all of my catalog a second time. I moved around so often I didn't really have anything to back it all up on. I usually would pull it all out of iTunes when I could. I keep all of that stuff on a file share outside of other things. I don't use Spotify or iTunes or any of that. I just keep the files on my machine and devices and I stream from my machine as well.
While I do use Spotify and Netflix, I generally keep a local copy of anything I particularly enjoy and/or find important to me. I also use Linux on my desktop and Lineage OS on my phone. I’d love...
While I do use Spotify and Netflix, I generally keep a local copy of anything I particularly enjoy and/or find important to me. I also use Linux on my desktop and Lineage OS on my phone.
I’d love to have more physical copies of stuff, but it would be more for the novelty of being able to hold something that I enjoy. Most of the music I listen to doesn’t exist in physical form, but I’m at least trying to keep DRM-free local copies of things.
I would love to run a Linux distro but then I'd have to forget about playing my games. I'm not tech savvy enough to set up a VM or use WINE so I'm stuck with Windoz. As for physical media like CDs...
I would love to run a Linux distro but then I'd have to forget about playing my games. I'm not tech savvy enough to set up a VM or use WINE so I'm stuck with Windoz. As for physical media like CDs and DVDs, yeah, I prefer to have the physical copy of the album or movie, rather than trusting that it will always be accessible on my computer.
That isn't true at all! Well, maybe for some games, but many are now playable via Steam for Linux thanks to a Valve-funded project known as Proton! Both Wine and DXVK have been directly integrated...
The problem is also the potential unnoticed loss of items in collection of movies, songs, etc. in such services. The person in the article noticed that the movie disappeared but someone else could...
The problem is also the potential unnoticed loss of items in collection of movies, songs, etc. in such services. The person in the article noticed that the movie disappeared but someone else could not, and eventually they could lose track of some rare good art.
I occasionally backup liked song name list from Google Play Music to prevent that and would recommend others keep an eye on integrity of media collections too.
If you are in the US, Movies Anywhere lets you link various accounts, and any movie (only from certain movie companies, but it's enough that it covers most movies) you own on one will be given to...
If you are in the US, Movies Anywhere lets you link various accounts, and any movie (only from certain movie companies, but it's enough that it covers most movies) you own on one will be given to you on the others. Presumably if Apple removed a movie, it would still be available on the other accounts after that.
You still don't completely own the movie on any of the services, but unless every service takes it away from you, it's harder to lose.
IMO if you pay for a movie and it is later revoked from your account, there is no good reason not to pirate it.
There are services like Band Camp that allow your to purchase then download flac files, and while in not sure about legitimate services that allow for film dowosds, I still intend on getting my...
There are services like Band Camp that allow your to purchase then download flac files, and while in not sure about legitimate services that allow for film dowosds, I still intend on getting my hands on a file to store in my NAS. Frankly, I have zero ethical concerns about whether downloading content is bad. I send the artists money if they need it, and if they're a big group whose overlords have already seen my dollars at some point or another, then I'll download.
Steam also is under no obligation to let you keep the games they 'loan' you, and there's no physicalmedia at all for those releases.
This is old news. Owners of e-readers have known about this for nearly a decade. Nine years ago, Amazon realised it didn't have the rights to an e-book it had been selling so, one day, it just suddenly deleted that e-book from everyone's Kindles. The e-book wasn't even stored externally on cloud servers - they erased it from the physical devices themselves whenever they synched up with Amazon's servers.
That incident taught me and many other owners of e-readers that even purchased digital copies of media are ultimately temporary and erasable. I therefore never buy anything digitally unless I'm happy to lose it tomorrow. If I want to keep something permanently without the possibility of some publisher yanking it out of my library, I'll buy a physical copy, whether it's a book or a CD or a DVD/Blu-Ray. Amazon is not going to come into my house and take a book off my bookshelf!
And, the name of the book that was erased from existence? Ironically... it was '1984'! :)
I'll confess that I once had some participation in a media-sharing community (a/k/a pirates) explicitly so that we could maintain off-line archives of material that might be deleted, altered, or otherwise censored, and socialize content into hands that might not be able to afford it otherwise. [I've since seen the light about creators actually needing payment in order to keep creating.]
Now, both the content creators and consumers are at the mercy of oligarchic publishing and distribution networks. It's not like there's a master hash library which can identify what's been tampered with, or a permanent versioned repository of every piece of copyrighted media.
I've actually kind of got hopes that this is an opportunity for blockchains to ensure distributed archiving and verification. None of that's helpful if the power goes out, and I've got my own little library of remaining physical media editions, but paper, plastic, and magnetic media are pretty fungible as well.
pirates are born out of frustrated customers
Some pirates are born out of frustrated customers. Other pirates are just immoral and/or selfish, even if they try to dress up their selfishness in supposed righteousness.
And the rest are born out of poverty.
Certainly - I'd gotten started making my own digital editions of paper books I owned (this was in the late 90's, for reading on a PalmPilot) because the publishers weren't interested in releasing them, released them only in DRM-locked/device-dependent formats (many of which are no longer accessible), or altered the content. Also, if it wasn't possible to share an e-book with another person in the same household, let alone lend it to a friend, then it wasn't fulfilling the function of a book.
That's why I never turn on my Kindle's WiFi. I only copy over eBooks over USB.
While it's nothing new, and (to me) not even that surprising, this, along with the Windows 10 intercepting browser installs post remind us that we're moving towards a grim future where we don't truly own or have control over our technology/data/files.
This is precisely why you should be running Linux instead of Windows! And why you should be buying physical copies of artistic media whenever possible. Things are only going to get worse from here.
When I was in the Navy I got back from a deployment and I lost so much of my music that was an iTunes. So I pirated it. I really support artists and paying for stuff I listen to but I wadn'tt going to pay for all of my catalog a second time. I moved around so often I didn't really have anything to back it all up on. I usually would pull it all out of iTunes when I could. I keep all of that stuff on a file share outside of other things. I don't use Spotify or iTunes or any of that. I just keep the files on my machine and devices and I stream from my machine as well.
While I do use Spotify and Netflix, I generally keep a local copy of anything I particularly enjoy and/or find important to me. I also use Linux on my desktop and Lineage OS on my phone.
I’d love to have more physical copies of stuff, but it would be more for the novelty of being able to hold something that I enjoy. Most of the music I listen to doesn’t exist in physical form, but I’m at least trying to keep DRM-free local copies of things.
I would love to run a Linux distro but then I'd have to forget about playing my games. I'm not tech savvy enough to set up a VM or use WINE so I'm stuck with Windoz. As for physical media like CDs and DVDs, yeah, I prefer to have the physical copy of the album or movie, rather than trusting that it will always be accessible on my computer.
That isn't true at all! Well, maybe for some games, but many are now playable via Steam for Linux thanks to a Valve-funded project known as Proton! Both Wine and DXVK have been directly integrated with Steam, allowing you to seamlessly play Windows games on Linux, no tech savviness required! I highly recommend giving it a try. What games do you play most?
Do note that Proton is still beta software and won't work perfectly for most games (if it works at all).
In particular, certain DRM schemes may have the side effect of screwing Wine.
WoW, GW2 ans SWTOR. I usually play WoW the most but am taking a short break from it and trying out the other two.
As much as is possible I recommend you opt out of these services/software if this is troublesome to you.
The problem is also the potential unnoticed loss of items in collection of movies, songs, etc. in such services. The person in the article noticed that the movie disappeared but someone else could not, and eventually they could lose track of some rare good art.
I occasionally backup liked song name list from Google Play Music to prevent that and would recommend others keep an eye on integrity of media collections too.
If you are in the US, Movies Anywhere lets you link various accounts, and any movie (only from certain movie companies, but it's enough that it covers most movies) you own on one will be given to you on the others. Presumably if Apple removed a movie, it would still be available on the other accounts after that.
You still don't completely own the movie on any of the services, but unless every service takes it away from you, it's harder to lose.
IMO if you pay for a movie and it is later revoked from your account, there is no good reason not to pirate it.
There are services like Band Camp that allow your to purchase then download flac files, and while in not sure about legitimate services that allow for film dowosds, I still intend on getting my hands on a file to store in my NAS. Frankly, I have zero ethical concerns about whether downloading content is bad. I send the artists money if they need it, and if they're a big group whose overlords have already seen my dollars at some point or another, then I'll download.
Steam also is under no obligation to let you keep the games they 'loan' you, and there's no physicalmedia at all for those releases.
DRM giveth, and DRM taketh away!
Appropriate username.