Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” (08 Dec 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

  • @iamtherealwalrusEnglish
    -3•1 year ago

    Ohh yeah, Microsoft. I own Forza 7 Motorsport. It’s installed on my hard drive. Microsoft killed the servers so I can’t even play single player because the tracks weren’t included in the game. You have to download the track every time you play single player or multiplayer.

    That is not the same thing. You still own the game, whether or not it is playable is not the same as not owning. Legal bs but that’s how most Western societies are built.

    • S410
      4•1 year ago

      Whenever a game or program or goes unplayable you can not go and fix it, despite “owning it”.
      Removal of any kind of DRM, even if for personal, even in products you’ve bought, is illegal.

      And there’s no lower-limit on how “secure” DRM has to be: even if the client-server communication is not encrypted in any way, doesn’t include any identifying information, and you can perfectly re-implement server-side software, tricking the program into itself into talking to your server, instead of the original, is, at best, legally grey area.

      • @iamtherealwalrusEnglish
        1•1 year ago

        I’m not sure what your point is? We’re taking about ownership, not whether you can reverse engineer sine DRM.

        • S410
          3•1 year ago

          Being able to do things to your property is one of the basic concepts of, well, property.

          Let’s say your car’s manufacturer fixed the wheels using security bolts and they’re the only people who have the sockets.
          With actual cars it would be, at most, annoying. You’d still be able to undo the bolts, either by buying or making a fitting socket, or just smacking a regular one until it fits.

          In the digital world, however, just because it’s called a “security” socket, you’re forbidden, by law, from tampering with it. And if the licensed services stop servicing the model of your car one day… You’re fucked. Because, even though you “own” the car, you are legally forbidden from doing basic maintenance required to use it.