If buying isn’t ownership then pirating isn’t stealing
Oh but it’s not buying! The big “Buy” or “Purchase” button might have said so, but if you’d have careful read through 35 pages of user agreements, you’d see that you only rent the license to stream it.
Which obviously is total bullshit and the whole fucking system should be burned to the ground.
This is precisely why I refuse to buy digital games. (And it extends to other media, but games are where I actually spend money)
I’ll pay for a rental service designed to be a rental service (ps+, for example) but will not buy individual games digitally. Who knows when they will become unavailable for some reason, and I can no longer download a copy. It’s bad enough when servers are shut down within 2 years of launch, but when the whole game gets pulled, then what?
I’ve decided I’m not even bothering with the next generation of consoles. So few things are even released on disc, with half the consoles being digital only, that it’s not even worth it. I’ll pirate instead.
This is where the law needs to step in, it should be illegal to call it “Buy” if you are just leasing it. It’s absolutely misleading to most consumers.
Pirating isn’t stealing either way.
Also, copyright infringement never even used to ever be a crime, although now there is a form of criminal copyright infringement, if it’s done for money or if the value is above a certain amount. Thanks to lobbying from wealthy industries. Most copyright infringement still is not a crime, though.
The reason industries lobby for harsher copyright laws is because they know they can make more money if people can’t pirate. They take the piss with their pricing, but they’re acutely aware that if they take the piss too much then people will turn to piracy. By prohibiting piracy and levying harsh penalties they can get away with even more unfair pricing, and maybe even profit from piracy through punitive damages (which is mainly a US thing, most sensible nations only allow you to sue for actual damages).
It is. You’re stealing income from the person that created the thing you took and didn’t pay for.
By that logic, creating a competitor and wooing over customers would also be theft.
Note they are not saying piracy is legal, or that it’s not a tort. They are saying it’s not theft, and it should be discussed separately, as we criminalize theft because someone loses their property, not because the thief gets free shit.
Creating a competitor is not the same logic at all. That competitor gets paid when someone buys their product.
The issue is that time and effort are put into something that is being made to get compensation for that time and effort, not to be given away for free. If you’re going to a competing product, you’re not ingesting the initial product without paying for it.
I’m not arguing legal definitions. I’m arguing against the bullshit mental gymnastics that piracy is not stealing. It is. Just admit it and move on. I don’t care if people pirate. I just can’t stand the dishonesty of trying to justify theft. If you ingest something that an artist made to try and make a livelihood and don’t pay them, you’re stealing that livelihood.
No, it’s exactly the same logic.
The argument that digital piracy is theft is predicated on the idea that pirating is depriving the creator of their rightful property: the money from a sale. In the absence of said sale, that money wasn’t their property to begin with, however. The only way to reconcile this is by treating potential income as property.
In doing so, a number of stupid things can be argued for:
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Creating a new product is theft because it deprives the competition of their potential income.
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Boycotting a company is theft because it deprives them of potential income.
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Not purchasing a new phone is theft because it deprives the manufacturer of potential income.
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Not hiring Tom because Bob was a better candidate is theft because it deprives Tom of potential income.
There’s a reason that piracy legally falls under copyright infringement rather than theft. You aren’t depriving the creator of property by making a new digital copy of their media, but you are violating their copyright by creating an unauthorized copy.
It is not the same logic. You are not ingesting the work of the creator by going to a competitor. The issue is that you are gaining something from the labor of the creator without compensating them for that labor (which they gain from). It is an unequal exchange that both parties have not agreed to. It is theft. Going to a competitor and buying from them is an equal exchange - you’re paying money for the product of their labor.
Everything else you’ve said continues to be dishonest because it is based on this very simple, fundamental flaw in your original argument.
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That competitor gets paid when someone buys their product.
What if I don’t sell it? If someone opts to use FreeCAD instead of Fusion360, did FreeCAD steal income from Autodesk?
Another dishonest argument. FreeCAD is explicitly granting people use of its product for free. They are not selling it. If someone opts to use a free product instead of a paid one, that is not stealing income from the creator of the paid product because you’re not using their product. The entire issue at hand is that people are using the product and not paying for that use.
What about Autodesk pissing in the face of users who bought a “lifetime” license, not only superceding their product but degrading it such that it doesn’t work anymore?
You should pick your examples more carefully.
You should also take an objective position and consider that not all rightsholders are acting in good faith. But then, in order to do that, you would have to be acting in good faith.
You eating data?
Ingesting something doesn’t only mean eating it. It literally means “to bring into”.
I wish piracy was stealing income, I need some of that income.
It is stealing income. You’re taking advantage of the result of someone’s effort and time without compensating them for it. No one is ok with that in any other context but y’all bend over backwards to justify it unilaterally here as opposed to denouncing this behavior (the Crunchroll behavior, to be clear) as its own issue that is also wrong.
The workers already got paid. It’s executives that are being “stolen from.” ( I’m too broke to buy it anyways)
That’s irrelevant. That’s not the case with all media, especially anime, when the creators are the owners and executives of many studios. Even if it was, it doesn’t change the calculus that the work is being sold.
If you weren’t gonna buy it anyway and since the creator doesn’t lose anything, how can it be stealing?
And on top of that, it offers the creator exposure and creates new fans who one day might buy some of their products.
Another example: if I go to an art gallery and look at paintings every day without ever buying anything, is that stealing? I’m ingesting their art daily for free. No, I’m not. That’s the purpose of art galleries. But painting has been a thing for thousands of years, we’ve had time to adapt to it. Not the same thing with digital media. It came about after all these definitions and laws. Which is why we’re having this conversation. And because corpos are greedy, we’ll probably keep having this conversation forever
That’s just factually untrue. The ‘creators’ are just animators that work for animation studios that get paid by companies like funimation, amazon and Netflix to publish content and those middle men reap the majority of the benefits. Very very rarely do actual individual people make a percentage of whatever a work earns. It’s just middle men executives that earn that.
I would argue that piracy helps make them more money anyways. The actual money is in merchandise. If I’m able to pirate an anime and really like it I’m more likely to spend money on merchandise VS me not bothering to watch a show and not buying merch.
Here’s an article proving that the actual creators don’t make much money at all and it’s not because of piracy.
That’s not stealing lol. If I pirate something or if I don’t, the creator sees no difference.
Stealing income would be reducing the income for the author (piracy doesn’t alter it) and you getting it instead (you don’t).
That’s both dishonest and factually untrue. If you’re ingesting the creation without paying for it, then you’ve stolen it from the artists because they didn’t create it for free (unless they explicitly have). The creator sees a difference because you wouldn’t have been able to ingest their creation without paying them for it.
Theft requires you to deprive the original owner of their property.
Creating a digital copy does not prevent the creator from accessing or selling their property. Potential income is not property; it was never in their possession to begin with.
Don’t worry, you’re correct and these people are just uncomfortable to define this as theft (if you didn’t pay something to someone prior.). If you didn’t pay, it’s theft, and it doesn’t matter what background revenue sharing agreements exist.
…If nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. he who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me. that ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benvolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point; and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement, or exclusive appropriation. inventions then cannot in nature be a subject of property"
–Thomas Jefferson
This is a dishonest response. Movies and media are not ideas. They are representations of ideas that take time and effort to create and that are created so that the artist that made them can make a living and pay their bills. Stealing those representations without compensating the artist for their time and effort means they can’t pay their bills which means they have to stop creating in order to get a job where the fruits of their efforts aren’t stolen.
it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
That statement makes no sense in this context, regardless of whether I reflect on its poor grammar or not.
Sure it does, you just don’t like the substance of it.
By this logic, everything you don’t buy is stealing income. Every item you walk past at the grocery store was made by someone for money, and by not buying it, you’re denying them that income. How dare you eat at a friend’s house for free?
No, it’s not. If you are just walking past that item, you’re not consuming the value of that item. If you’re being honest about this argument and attempted to make the analogous argument, you wouldn’t be watching the movies that you’re not paying for. The entire issue is that you’re not just walking past the items at the grocery store, you’re eating them and not paying for them. A better analogy would be grabbing a magazine off the rack at checkout and taking pictures of all the pages and not paying for it. The magazine is still there and the store was deprived of nothing but yet you’re now able to gain the value of that magazine’s content without paying for it. That’s still stealing. You can either pretend it’s not or you can say “Yeah, it’s stealing but I’m ok with that because those magazines are garbage anyways”.
Lemme use a different, better example. Say I buy used copies of everything I watch. How is that different from watching shows on sketchy streaming websites? Either way I consume the media and the people who made it get nothing. If anything, it seems worse to me for me to lose money and the creators to gain nothing, while some random person on the internet profits from reselling their work after they’ve already consumed it.
That’s not a better example. You’re comparing a physical item with tangible scarcity to an intangible product. While you’re reading that book, no one else can read that. There is only 1 copy of it. Someone can get another copy of it but the one you hold is physical. Movies and other digital content is intangible. It’s not bound by that scarcity.
It would be worse for you to “lose” money and the creators gain nothing but that’s not the situation you’re discussing. We’re discussing a situation where you gain something and the creator gains nothing.
You’re comparing a physical item with tangible scarcity to an intangible product.
And you’re ignoring the fact that the producer treats their digital product with no real scarcity as if it was a physical product that cost a significant amount to produce and distribute. By your own reasoning, the digital product should be much cheaper.
If it wasn’t for piracy, the product (digital or physical) would be even more expensive. As it is, producers know that if they price too high people will turn to piracy, if that wasn’t an option then there would be nothing holding them back.
Piracy is defined as a civil offense, meanwhile theft is defined as a crime. Theft is also defined as depriving someone of something - eg, if I take your bike, you no longer have a bike, but if I copy your bike and build my own then you still have your bike and haven’t lost anything.
“Potential lost income” is abstract, it doesn’t necessarily exist and the victim of copyright infringement isn’t really losing anything - they don’t even provide the bandwidth you download it with. Ultimately 1 pirated download =/= 1 lost sale, as people download more crap than they would be willing to buy.
I’m not arguing the legal definition of this so everything you’ve said is irrelevant.
The legal definition is THE definition, it’s literally what the word means, and where the concepts of both originate.
What you’re saying isn’t irrelevant, it’s just completely ignorant and wrong.
The legal definition is not the definition. That is just nonsense. There are an innumerable amount of terms that have a literary definition that is not the same as the legal definition.
You’re trying to say that your definition is the only valid one, which conveniently is one that your argument is entirely reliant upon.
It isn’t valid, you’re wrong, your argument does not hold water.
Licensing isn’t ownership, and pirating isn’t stealing, it’s copyright infringement.
The previous comment is more like shorthand, rather than literal truth.
It’s faster to say piracy isn’t stealing if purchasing isn’t ownership than it is to say “if a company can simply reverse a permanent access license at any time then pirating media from them is perfectly ethical and should not be considered a crime”
It’s bad shorthand though. In this context, there was never any “buying content” happening, nor was piracy ever “stealing”. It’s just misrepresentation of both sides.
That’s fair, but I feel like the point is that many people go through a process where
- You pay money
- The buttons on your screen say “buy” “purchase” “check-out” or something else to that effect
That feels like buying media, so according to the common “consumer” (hate that word) brain, you are spending money to buy content.
At the same time, media corps have been trying to teach us for years that piracy is exactly the same as stealing.
The whole point of the shorthand is to explain that these are not facts, they’re misconceptions, AND both of these misconceptions exist for the same reason, corporate propaganda.
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Come up with something better then.
Why?
Because you’re bitching about it. Either there’s a better way to express the precise picture you’re describing, or your central argument is fundamentally flawed, and it’s an effective shorthand.
Sure, there’s nuance. Shorthand is used to convey a nuanced thought quickly. That’s literally the point.
Lol “bitching” about it.
Weird logic. Pointing out something that isn’t accurate but gets parroted anyways means I need to come up with a better thing to parrot.
Infringe me harder daddy ©👄©
It is stealing. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics here. You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.
How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with? Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money. This is especially the case if the consumer has previously purchased a license to consume the product, and then the company decides to take (or steal) it away. No moral qualms with pirating the same content then.
It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact. It’s not like a physical BluRay, where if you steal it from a store, you are making that store lose money due to that physical stock being stolen.
And lastly, how is the company not stealing from consumers when they pull shit like this?
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I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. You’re copying something someone else created, for the express purpose of generating income, without their permission.
Who said anything about generating income off of pirated work?
Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.
The definition of theft according to MW: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
If you do not deprive the original owner of the property (such as: copying), it is not definitionally theft. Legally speaking, it is considered copyright infringement.
You hit the nail on the head. That’s why they’re downvoting and arguing. It personally benefits them to steal.
I’ve said it several times here…I don’t care if people pirate stuff. There are a myriad of reasons to do so. My issue is with the dishonesty of pretending it’s not stealing. Keep doing it, I don’t care, but own up to what you’re doing and admit it’s stealing.
It’s mental gymnastics because they need to be able to continue stealing but don’t want to feel bad about it.
Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money.
Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).
Taking away licenses is wrong. I’m not disputing that. But that doesn’t magically make stealing something that actual people created right.
Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).
Are you making an ethical, moral, or legal statement here?
Ownership of intangibles in this context exists only as a means to support a particular political arrangement. I think you may be assuming others here share your politics; there is no objective moral standard for exclusive ownership of intangibles.
By that argument, there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value. If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not. If you don’t agree to that premise, then there’s no point in discussing this with you.
there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value.
You’re right, there is no moral imperative for people to create (or share) intangibles, but nobody is claiming they have no value.
If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not.
Again, is this a ethical, moral, or legal statement? It strikes me as a uniquely ideological statement, but you’ve not elaborated.
It is not stealing. The mental gymnastics are when you try to claim that it is.
You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.
It’s just as much “stealing” as me not watching it at all.
I’m infringing on their copyright, absolutely, but I’m not taking anything away from them that they could otherwise profit from.
You can’t reason with him. He is an anti-piracy troll.
For him, any comparison made to help him understand is a logical fallacy and any evidence presented against his argument is “irrelevant” as he puts it.
It is like arguing with a trump-like narcissist lol. “My argument counts and yours is wrong, but if yours is right then it is irrelevant, made up, and/or a straw man. If I don’t understand something then it is an attack and I will insult you and instantly label you inferior.”
It’s sad honestly and just like them all he is all “think of the poor artists who created the media you love” while conveniently ignoring that in the music industry, many/most artists don’t even get royalties because the record labels swindled then forced them to sign their lives and works away getting a couple pennies on the dollar.
Video game industry is salaried. All profits go to the corporations outside of indie games. Movies, outside of the big name stars, earn almost poverty wages and absolutely 0.00% of what gets sold because the studios are so incredibly corrupt.
Not to mention dead artists where unless they were extremely smart, their families are likely earning 0% of sold media.
Also not getting into the fact that copyright used to be very short until large corporations bribed lawmakers constantly and for so much corrupt money that they changed copyright to extend an extreme amount of time, otherwise things from the 90s would already be public domain if there wasn’t so much blatant bribery and corruption done by the people you are “stealing” from.
Unless you are pirating things from Dolly Parton or someone who was business savvy enough to not get cheated by the studios, you are not stealing from the artists in any crazy mental gymnastic stretch of the imagination.
Piracy, at the very worst, is stealing from long time hard criminals. There is not a single big record corporation that has not committed a multitude of thefts, blackmail, drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and worse. That isn’t even getting into the crimes of porn studios and movie studios. Disney mass murdered animals on camera for views as one example.
No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it. If they’re not entitled to your money, then you’re not entitled to the product of their time, effort, and labor.
Then why is digital piracy legally considered to be copyright infringement instead of theft?
That’s irrelevant. I’m not arguing the legality of it.
If i could just teleport into your house so i could liberate your keyboard, i would. Because your take is so collosally stupid that it actually angers me that you have it.
Like real, palpable rage that this insipid argument still exists in this world, after all this time.
Ahh yes… the tried and true ad-hominem. No actual argument against the point, just childish name-calling and insults. Grow the fuck up.
An ad hominem would be if i avoided your point and instead attacked you as a person. I attacked the point itself as frivolous and years-debunked. Please… Listen… Your keyboard is suffering under the weight of false premise. Free it, please
Saying your argument is stupid isn’t attacking you, dude.
That’s a valid opinion. It doesn’t change the fact that the crime is copyright infringement, not theft.
I’m not arguing the legal or criminal semantics. I’m arguing the dishonest justification and misrepresentation of piracy. Piracy is stealing. You’re stealing income from the creator if you ingest their work without paying for it. I don’t care if people pirate things but admit that it’s stealing and move on.
Piracy is stealing.
No it is not. By any definition.
You can think it’s morally wrong, that’s fine. But it simply, factually is not stealing.
That’s the only point I’m making.
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LOL they know it’s stealing. Some of them will even blatantly admit it with no guilt.
Wait, do you think people that pirate things all have the same beliefs or something? Such a weird way to logic. 😅 Truly, that’s a new one.
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Well that’s certainly a convenient way to validate your own beliefs. lol
“Everyone that disagrees with my worldview just isn’t being honest!”
Stay scientific, friend
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Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).
Digital media should be bought the same way as physical media.
If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and I have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Would make sense if the artist was independent, but corporations pay either a wage or a salary. It is rare for an artist to be paid a percentage of revenue for that product, so the only ones who would be affected by piracy are the corporations who did not directly create the art.
If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.
That would be great, but that is not the case for the vast majority of media. Generally-speaking, media is encumbered with DRM, which prevents the consumer from being able to copy the data or watch it in any way they deem fit (see: streaming services requiring hardware DRM for 4K streaming, even when they charge extra for it)
Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).
So, given that this is not an option for the vast majority of content, the only alternative where consumers maintain full control over their own media-playing devices is to download a DRM-free copy.
As Gabe Newell famously said, piracy is a service issue. Steam also has the same problem of lack of ownership and DRM, though, so its users are at the mercy of Valve to not revoke access to purchases.
GOG is one company who does it right, IMO. Sell only DRM-free copies of games, and allow people to download their copy and back it up to whatever media they want to put it on. This type of practice is rare in the media world, though. Most media companies require DRM on their product in order to license it out.
Also on the first point, independent producers of content generally don’t put DRM on their work anyway, so no reason not to buy their work.
This is an entirely separate and dishonest argument. I’m not arguing anything related to DRM or the structure of the market that creates some content.
This is an entirely separate and dishonest argument.
My point about DRM is highly relevant in this case, because a consumer cannot own something that is encumbered with DRM. They are renting a license for that product, even if the button they click on says “purchase”, since, hidden in the EULA somewhere, the company decided to redefine the word “purchase”. The company will always be able to revoke that license without notice or permission from the consumer, let alone a refund or any kind of compensation.
Relevant Louis Rossmann video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GZUCwVRLs
👆
A clarification that really only makes this worse: Crunchyroll did not acquire Funimation. Funimation acquired Crunchyroll, and decided to use the Crunchyroll name instead. They have had every opportunity since the merger to support people’s purchases, but have chosen not to.
Tired of honoring your contracts? Simply purchase a different company and hide behind their name.
Or in the case of Comcast or Facebook, just rebrand without having to buy another company.
Or if you’re Google, create another company under a different name, split yourself up, then buy everything under that new umbrella (Alphabet). That’ll keep the antitrust enforcers at bay…
Also change your Don’t Be Evil motto, so your investors know that you decided money is more important than ethics.
This is incorrect. It was a merger. Sony owns both Crunchyroll and Funimation. That being said, the servers didn’t magically disappear. Media could 1000% have been consolidated.
Sony owns both now, but Crunchyroll was purchased from AT&T in 2021. Sony purchased Funimation in 2017. So while it is perhaps not 100% accurate to say that Funimation itself did the purchasing of Crunchyroll, the company that owned Funimation did.
Edit: it is also worth mentioning that after the acquisition there was an immediate decrease in new content added to Funimation, and within a couple seasons there was virtually none, as customers were being pushed to the Crunchyroll app. Many, but not all, Funimation shows were also copied to Crunchyroll, but none the other way.
Crunchyroll is subscription only, right?
They couldn’t even transfer over everyone’s watch history like they promised. They can’t even manage to apply multiple audio tracks and subtitles to the same videos, so each dub is displayed like it’s own season and when youre done a series it just starts playing episode 1 in German right away. Their newly added page is full of old titles that just had a Hindi dub uploaded.
They’d have an easier time getting to mars than letting people transfer their purchased videos over.
But crunchyroll paid video game YouTubers to promote it a decade ago, so it was the brand that won out. Never mind that all these problems did not occur on the funimation website. Never let anyone ever tell you that advertising isn’t important, it’s more ten times more valuable than good coding or engineering.
So they’re using Crunchyroll as the name of their streaming service, but will continue to use Funimation for physical media? I can’t imagine they’re just throwing the entire Funimation brand in the trash.
They threw HBO in the trash like it was nothing, I don’t see why FUNimation would be different
This announcement is full of weasely language.
“We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation.”
The problem is your concerns. We are being understanding about your problem.
“Please note that Crunchyroll does not currently support Funimation Digital copies, which means that access to previously available digital copies will not be supported.”
Crunchyroll does not support this, which means that it will not be supported. Your role here is to note this.
“We appreciate your understanding…”
We are being appreciative. Your are being understanding. That’s the way it is, got it?
“We appreciate your patience” has always rubbed me the wrong way too. How dare you assume? I’m a very impatient man, and i know you [x company] appreciate nothing of real value
Reads like a politician’s speech.
The business equivalent of a grandma saying “that’s nice dear.”
Translation: Fuck your digital copies
Feel bad for Abe. I had a same conversation with Garmin; it turns out when you buy lifetime maps it means for the duration we decide to support the product, which can have the lifetime of a mayfly and there is nothing they will do, and nothing you can do except not buy another Garmin product.
I did a quick google, you can torrent updates for free for at least some garmin products. Given you paid for lifetime map updates, I’d argue it’s not even illegal.
It’s such a bullshit argument. Imagine buying a Snap-On wrench because of the lifetime warranty, and they told you, “Oh no no no no, we meant the lifetime of the wrench.”
I still have and use all my old Craftsman tools from the 90s. One of my 1/4 ratchets broke and since it’s a made in the USA tool, I figured I would look for parts online and try to repair it. Unfortunately the parts cost more than the wrench on ebay, so I decided to take it to Lowes (who now distributes Craftsman tools) to see if they would honor the lifetime warranty. They had no qualms about honoring the warranty and replaced it with the current model, knowing full well the tool was 30 years old. The new ratchet is more ergonomic, has a finer tooth count and not nearly as sloppy as the old one. So shout out to Stanley and Lowes for doing the right thing.
Craftsman and Kobalt hand tools are honestly pretty great for like 99% of homeowner-handymen. My dad uses Snap-On because he’s a farmer and he’s hard on his tools. But me? Most I’m doing is tightening something in the house or wrenching on my car. I’ve never in my life had an issue with Craftsman tools.
Dewalt also has great warranties and customer service!
Someone gave me a Dewalt tool set when I did a favor for them. Both Dewalt and Craftsman are owned by Stanley and the Dewalt tools are identical to the new Craftsman.
Also I had 1 small piece break in that Dewalt set and Dewalt replaced it with a whole new set of tools, so now I have 2.
Yeah I had a battery shit out on me near the end of the 3 year warranty, they sent me a new, larger AH battery, no questions asked.
Does this mean all products have a lifetime warranty? I mean if it breaks it’s past its lifetime so the warranty wouldn’t apply anyways. Why hasn’t anyone thought of
lyingthis new technique before?
Fuck buying physical media, pirate digital media. It’s better for the environment and your wallet.
you can also steal physical media from Walmart, copy it all to a hard drive, melt down and cast the plastic into dildos and buttplugs for your own enjoyment.
Did you just tell us to go fuck ourselves?
With the material of stolen products, yes
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
I… uh.
This is technically true but dear lord you should not be melting down plastic without a ventilation system.
Don’t use Walmart-melted-plastic dildos! They’re not hygienic, bacteria can grow on them! Use silicone or glass, much safer and easy to clean 👍
Nah, that’s stealing (i.e. removing), not copying.
More like upcycling. I love buttplugs.
I still feel like it should be illegal for the button to say “Buy” or “Purchase” when you’re actually leasing the item.
There should be a nice, big, summarized disclaimer right above the button explaining what exactly you are purchasing. I’m sure the 100 page EULA explains but nobody has time to read through the whole thing every time they make a digital purchase.
Yeah, but that requires lawmakers to first not take money from these same companies who are implementing these practices.
Been saying it since I popped out the womb, I’m so happy to see more people share this sentiment. It doesn’t matter that changing the definition of “buy” is legal when they put a tiny little link to a 30 page document above it. The fact that that’s legal is the whole problem.
I’m still pissed that they changed the meaning of “lifetime” to 20 years or whatever it is now.
We should hold them to those same standards when they say they have acquired a lifetime / 70 years or so copyright or patent.
That’s basically how iPhones have worked from the start. You’re paying all that money to lease the phone. Apple can do as it pleases or ban you from using your purchased phone for whatever infraction they want. You are paying all that money but you don’t own it, Apple does. That’s why I’ve never and will never own one
Unfortunately, that applies to way more than just Apple products. You can’t unlock the bootloader on many modern Android phones sold in the US, and you can’t replace the primary bootloader on any phone (with very few exceptions), anywhere, due to the hardware implementation of secure boot, which requires the bootloader to be cryptographically signed by the owner of the keys (the vendor).
There is no option to replace the keys with your own in the device that you purchased and “own”.
Don’t even get me started on Smart TVs and other IoT devices. All of a sudden, people don’t care about computer freedom as much if you just stop calling it a computer.
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Not yet. Just you wait.
Sony is way ahead of you! Sony pulls discovery videos PlayStation users already own.
They did change their tune later, but it still shows that companies can steal or threaten to steal digital items that you had legitimately purchased access to.
If Sony contends that that is not stealing, then neither is pirating Sony’s stuff.
I can’t remember the specifics, but didn’t Audible drop 1984 and Animal Farm down the memory hole at one time?
It’s by far the easiest to make copies of and I do. Basically I own it and I have multiple backups with no drm. You can burn new disks and they play just fine in a Blu-ray player. A movie server is far more convenient though. Bonus you can watch hello Kitty on the toilet if you like.
Music is just as trivial. I wish games were easier to back up though.
How can it be easier than ctrl+c, ctrl+v?
Yeah, but drm on all normal physical video formats has been broken, so eh
Download an mp4 and no one can remove that from your hard drive.
Sony sure tried, and bricked a bunch of PCs in the process.
Did any company ever used DRM to disable physical media remotely? Is this even technically possible?
Serious question. Has there ever been a lawsuit, like individual or tort, that has gone after companies for this behavior? If so, what countries?
I tried to look up an article about the results, but God damn Apple has so, so many lawsuits
I can’t think of a major suit regarding this, but I would imagine thats half the reason decisions like this get made. I can easily see the people making this decision asking the legal department the same question, and the lack of an easily identifiable loss solidifying the choice.
I don’t see the problem. You bought the product, you’re allowed to download it in perpetuity, even if it’s from a torrent site.
Hell, the law is on my side. Depending on where you live, there are laws which allow you to make copies of media you own for personal use.
You can use a VCR to record broadcast TV, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to make a copy of stuff that’s available on streaming sites, etc. Especially if you bought it.
Fair use does allow you to back up your stuff. That’s why you can rip CDs in the US. Nbd. They tried to make it stop, but it didn’t. And I buy CDs specifically to rip the lossless audio off of them. You can also rip DVDs legally.
But Blu-Ray gets a little muddy. It’s not the content that’s the problem, but the DRM. You’re allowed to back up the content, but it’s technically illegal to defeat the DRM in order to access said content.
Hasn’t stopped me. I don’t make my MKVs available on the Internet. I acquire copies of my movies legitimately. What I do with the discs when I get home is honestly nobody’s business.
While it’s legal to make a copy for personal use only, it’s illegal to circumvent any form of DRM for that.
You are allowed to own a copy of protected media, but you aren’t allowed to make a copy.
I literally save a copy of digital content I “buy”, cause “buying” obviously means “you can have the product for a bit, if we feel like it”
TBH I have a subscription to multiple streaming sites, but I usually torrent what I want to watch anyway.
I paid to watch it, I’m simply choosing to watch it in the way that’s most convenient to me. Sometimes Netflix forgets to supply the video in the quality I paid for, so I’m simply helping them fulfill their contract.
But on page 69, section 420 of Netflix’s EULA, it says that you may only watch videos in the quality you paid for if your device is capable of supporting their shitty hardware DRM implementation, where if you modify any part of the system, it becomes invalidated.
Therefore, you, the consumer, are in the wrong for not reading through and understanding the entirety of the license agreement before paying extra for a service that didn’t make that limitation obvious before receiving payment. Nothing legally-dubious going on here.
DRM should be illegal.
Yarr.
Excuse me while I continue to enjoy the salty sea air, practice my vocal projection for shanties, and peruse then collection of different national flags aboard to make sure they are convincing and not in need of mending.
Hilarious how CrunchyRoll actually did the ‘live long enough to become the villain’ thing.
They didn’t tho. Crunchyroll was the acquired one, Funimation just valued their own streaming platform less.
Sounds like a lawsuit to me.
Doubtful. TOS would state that you’re only licensing the media. If the media no longer exists, the license no longer exists.
Day 10,490 of saying it should be flatly illegal to call a lease a purchase. Companies should never be allowed to use language that implies ownership of a product when what you’re buying is a permanently revokable temporary lease.
“But it’s in the TOS, what they’re doing is perfectly legal” yeah the problem is that it’s legal
If only.
Good luck with that one.
Easiest class action lawsuit
Yeah you bought the right to use their license and to pull it off their servers as long as they exist. You still have that, nothing changed in that regard.
But yeah it’s a problem that buying digital stuff doesn’t really mean anything.
Longest $5 you’ll ever earn
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I bought the fallout 4dlc when it was new. I went back to try and play recently and my dlc is gone and says I need to purchase it. My save files don’t work cause they need the dlc so clearly I had it.
But it was years ago, I lost or deleted the email. I called up psn support and since all records of me having bought the dlc are gone on their end, they won’t refund or give me the dlc back.
They literally swiped my purchase away and are asking me for a receipt to prove I bought it, 8 fucking years ago. At least with physical media, the studio doesn’t walk into my apartment and steal my hard copies
I bought Assassin’s Creed Origins on Steam and purchased one of the DLCs on Uplay because it was on sale. They told me after it wouldn’t load that no the DLC wasn’t compatible because it was bought on a different storefront even though they both ultimately run on Uplay…
No I couldn’t get a refund either…
I now view it as a personal risk to give Ubisoft any money whatsoever so I have zero qualms about pirating their games.
The same answer can be given to the question why people pirate digital content.
Soooo… does anyone have a torrent of a complete and unabridged copy of that library?
Would be interested in lending my assistance in seeding.
