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technology You do NOT own digital media


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You do not own anything that requires someone else's computer (also known as "the cloud") or some service. It doesn't matter if it's a streaming service, some kind of music store (I think Microsoft had at least two of them and then discontinued both), a MMO game or a game/software that requires activation or always-online.

 

You own things that do not require internet connection - physical media, like CDs or tapes, files created by ripping said CDs (or bought DRM-free files). However, those files have to be stored on your devices and media that can work without access to the internet.

 

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I wish more people knew about/cared about this. I've tried to explain this to people a few times and many just aren't bothered by it. I'm a massive advocate of owning and backing up physical copies of media, to the point where I'm driven anxious by the way the state of media seems to be going these days. Less and less pieces of media are given physical releases, and streaming services are known to alter the content without good reason. (Like Disney+ and Gravity Falls.) My advice will always be to collect physical media that you actually have control over. 

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Yup.  And don't forget about games!  Steam is convenient, but they could technically pull the rug out from under us at any time.  That's why you have to diversify and buy things that are really important to you on GOG and make backups.

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I'm rather surprised that people are so worried that they don't own things. Like do you really believe that Steam or Netflix would one day just get everything back? The only advantage I see in owning a physical thing is that you can sell it (and you also can sell accounts but it's more difficult)

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39 minutes ago, Vefka said:

Like do you really believe that Steam or Netflix would one day just get everything back?

The company may simply go out of business. It's not like companies have not gone out of business before. Netflix has been removing movies for a while now - the content creators can choose to no longer license them to Netflix, Netflix may think it's unprofitable to license them and so on.

Also, Microsoft has done this with music multiple times, including a service named "PlaysForSure" - not anymore it doesn't. A cassette I bought in 1996 can still be played though.

I like to own things, not rent them, so I use physical media and my own file server.   I can trust a VHS tape more than I can trust some service.

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Non-physical media also cannot be resold, unlike physical media. More than that, issue with digital media is that law has not yet recognized that these are nothing more but typical service type agreements. When you go to a barber, you buy a service of having your hair done. When you buy a game, you buy a LIFETIME service to using that game on the host's platform. As long as you don't break their rules.

However when it comes down to Steam they CANNOT lawfully remove your access to games. They CAN if they have to cut your internet access through their platform but you would still be able to play offline any games you own on their platform.

The whole digital media market is nothing but means of stripping consumers off of their rights. Law encompasses physical objects, but no detailed laws exist for digital products. That's why companies can afford saying that you "resign from right to refunds the moment payment is done". Like, what the hell... And we ALLOW it, through incompetence and corruption of majority of governments.

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This doesn't really matter to me. I own hundreds of games AND movies/TV shows on Xbox One digitally. I would have absolutely no proper place to store that without it being a massive inconvenience if I owned all of it in physical form. It would also be very difficult to keep track of it all. With what I own on my account, I have so much entertainment media right at my fingertips ready to go. I don't exactly have any fear of Microsoft shutting everything down. I have anxiety over a lot of things in life. This simply isn't one of those. As far as I am concerned, I do own what I've bought. 

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I stopped buying physical media ages ago. DVDs, CDs get damaged or lost and that's not fun. I have some older games and movies that are on discs and that's that. Sadly I have quite a lot of stuff that I would need to back up before it dies but I never actually take my time to backup/archive it.

Edited by zerox
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2 hours ago, Passion said:

However when it comes down to Steam they CANNOT lawfully remove your access to games.

What if the company goes out of business? Steam needs servers, those servers have to be run by somebody.

2 hours ago, Passion said:

They CAN if they have to cut your internet access through their platform but you would still be able to play offline any games you own on their platform.

That, I think only works if you set the offline mode before they disabled your account.

1 hour ago, Kyoshi said:

I don't exactly have any fear of Microsoft shutting everything down.

It would not be the first time for Microsoft.

 

I have a lot of stuff stored on my shelves as physical media or stored in my file server as files. The only ways to remove my ability to play that media is to either physically steal it (for records, tapes etc) or hack my file server and erase it (and then steal my backups).

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Oh my, now this is a topic that has me pleasantly surprised. :coco: People waking up to the fact that the push for "digital media only" is a scam. Always make sure whatever you have digitally downloaded is saved on a physical drive you own and continue to buy physical copies of games if they're available. 

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I DO own digital media, on a disc. I do not like streaming or cloud based content. If I stream it then I assume it could disappear tomorrow. I take it as a one time thing. Advantages of physical media: 

  • I have control over it.
  • It is better quality (streaming sites can send reduced quality to save bandwidth).
  • Special edition stuff is cool, like posters, books, and junk that comes with some movies.
  • It won't just disappear.

There might be a chance that my digital discs break, but the content will still exist with the owner (hopefully) so I could rebuy it if I had to.

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Already knew that after the disasters that were the PT and Scott Pilgrim delistings, and how you can't even redownload them if you had to delete them for whatever reason

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Ross Scott of Freeman's Mind and Game Dungeon fame has gone on a crusade against this sort of thing.  Game Dungeon in particular covers several games that people who paid for them can no longer play because they were dependent on online servers that were shut down.  As an added touch, any game covered in Game Dungeon that is dependent on an online server gets an icon of a man with a noose around his neck giving a thumbs up in the summary at the end of the video. 

There was a game I liked called March of War that suffered this very fate.  It was basically a turn-based tactical diesel punk game, think turn-based Command & Conquer.  It had six unique and rather characterful factions, and was a blast to play.  Unfortunately, it was run from a server which the developer abandoned when it wasn't making enough money.  Its fans circulated a petition to ask for the source code so they could host the game for themselves, but it fell on deaf ears.  It was a free to play game, but had a real money store, so anyone who made real money purchases lost everything they purchased in that game.

So yes, anything you purchased that is dependent on a remote server you can't control can be taken from you in the blink of an eye.  This is why I will not touch the Google Stadia with a 30 ft pole.  You are just asking to have your video games purchases ripped away without cause by using that thing.

Edited by Twilight Dirac
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Physical art will always be better to me than digital art, so I like to create/possess physical art whenever I can.

I used to get lots of physical games as a kid, but now I only get them as gifts and go digital for myself cause going digital means the game won’t run out, I don’t need a cartridge, and I can get points depending on what console I’m buying from.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I love having the physical disc in hand. I also use nefarious means to download movies and whatnot directly to my hard drive. I regularly burn things to DVD so I can save them. I do not trust "The Cloud". I have never 'bought' something from Netflix and the like, just to pay for the privilege to access a file on THEIR hard drives.  I want direct control of all my files!

On 10/30/2020 at 7:57 PM, Bastian said:

Meh, I have things digitally but inside my computer and in hard drives, not in clouds or anything.

I own things digitally if that makes sense.

That makes perfect sense. I do the exact same thing. I "Rip" DVDs I get from the library, download things, and burn everything onto DVD (And keep the files on hard drive, too) .

I also can never pass up used DVD Blu-Ray sales!

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41 minutes ago, cuteycindyhoney said:

I love having the physical disc in hand. I also use nefarious means to download movies and whatnot directly to my hard drive. I regularly burn things to DVD so I can save them. I do not trust "The Cloud". I have never 'bought' something from Netflix and the like, just to pay for the privilege to access a file on THEIR hard drives.  I want direct control of all my files!

That makes perfect sense. I do the exact same thing. I "Rip" DVDs I get from the library, download things, and burn everything onto DVD (And keep the files on hard drive, too) .

I also can never pass up used DVD Blu-Ray sales!

If only I could trust physical media either. I'm still stuck ripping things. I can leave a CD in a sleeve after playing it just once, and then years later when I try to play it again, I'll encounter skipping.

Soon as a buy a CD, the first thing I do is make MP3's.

Movies though, that's more complicated. DVD/Blu-Ray seems to have far better error correction though, where a micron of damage that came from putting the thing into the loading tray, isn't going to ruin five minutes.

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