This is simply false. The “quote” here fully omits a sentence without using a bracketed ellipsis, so you can’t tell you’re being deceived. The omitted sentence makes it clear that the claim made in the post about purchased digital copies is false; the thing we are discussing is not purchased digital copies. Full post from Crunchyroll; I will add emphasis to the sentence omitted by Mr. Goldfarb.
We understand that you may have concerns about your digital copies from Funimation. These Digital copies available on Funimation were a digital access to the content available on the DVDs or Blu-rays purchased.
Well that’s a big difference. Still a little bit lame, but not absurd like the OP implies.
I’ve frankly never once used the digital version from physical DVDs.
I see a lot of calls to just buy physical media but there are plenty of things that aren’t available on physical media. But you can still make your own and depending on what it is, you might not need much to make copies. Games on Steam, for example, can be backed up by copying the installed files and finding a crack if it actually uses Steam’s copy protection system (many games don’t need cracks and can just be copied and run; such as Kerbal Space Program).
You can do this with GOG games too, and not even worry about cracks because they have no DRM, allowing you to merely make copies of the installers themselves.
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.
You are still off the mark. Profiting off someone else’s work is not theft. Maybe a crime, maybe immoral, but it’s a separate concept. Theft specifically is bad because you lose something you have. Copyright infringement is considered bad because we want people to be incentivised to create original stuff, and we want people to feel like if they create original stuff, they get to have special rights over it.
You don’t steal an IP by piracy, you infringe on it. If you stole it, the original owner would not have it. The whole argument around theft and piracy is that by equating theft with piracy, we get to a false dichotomy that if we don’t prosecute the random pirate or OpenAI for infringing on copyright, we can’t prosecute car thieves or wage thieves or whatever either in all fairness. Which is not true. Societies with the concept of property but without the concept of copyright did and do exist.
It’s all fair if you say copyright should be protected, and infringement punished, but it’s as much not theft as it is not murder. I mean, since you harm IPs by piracy, and one can argue excessive piracy can “kill” an IP, would making a pirate copy be assault with a deadly weapon? Or vandalism? That’s why words have meanings, and different things have different names.
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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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
It would be worse for you to “lose” money and the creators gain nothing but that’s not the situation you’re discussing.
That is literally the situation I’m discussing. I want to watch Haibane Renmei. My options are a) find whatever streaming service has the rights to it, pay them their toll, and have temporary access to it, b) find a streaming service that doesn’t have the rights to it, don’t pay them anything, and have temporary access to it, c) find a new copy of it that gives money directly to the original creators, or d) find a used copy of it, and give money to some random person on the internet. Edit: there’s also e) renting the DVD from Family Video. Functionally the same as D, re: the creators getting their money from me watching their show.
The only one of these that you seem to have a problem with is B, and I don’t think that’s morally consistent. You’ve been saying time and again that piracy is wrong because I gain something while the creators gain nothing, and that’s exactly what happens when I buy a used DVD.
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.
Licensing isn’t ownership, and pirating isn’t stealing, it’s copyright infringement.
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.
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.
No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it.
A friend bought a movie, invited me and 12 other people to watch it. Are we supposed to be legally required to say no?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with?
Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.
Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money.
They are if you take something they created.
It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact.
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.
I don’t know how these justifications can be described as anything other than “mental gymnastics” because they obviously make zero sense and personally benefit you.
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.
LOL they know it’s stealing. Some of them will even blatantly admit it with no guilt.
Here’s the question though: if you click the button that says “buy” and give them money, but you don’t actually own it, have they stolen from you?
If you “bought” a printer and then like a year later the company comes back and says “actually no” and takes your printer back, is that stealing? And if you go back to that company’s warehouse and take it back from them, is that also stealing? 🤔
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 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.
Are you saying that if I pirate a movie from 2019, the actors have not been paid for their screentime yet and won’t be paid until I buy the movie in, like, 2028?
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.
No I just think some of them are more honest about it than others.
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
Well that’s certainly a good way to misrepresent someone else’s beliefs. LOL
“I’ll just make up some bullshit they didn’t even say or imply and put it in quotes like they did!”
AHHHH I love seeing my own meme spread!!!
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.
There’s a bit of misunderstanding here. You didn’t buy digital content on Funimation. You purchased the physical copies (DVD/BluRay) and also got access to it digitally on your account, sort of like a bonus. I do understand the frustration since Funimation said you’ll have access to it forever online. I don’t know what to say if people bought it solely for the digital convenience. But you still have access to the physical media.
It was still part of the purchase. It was often part of the advertised product. You purchased digital content from Funimation, and Crunchyroll is revoking access to that purchase.
It’s wildly different than buying a digital copy of a movie and losing access though which is what this post compares it to.
Taking back a sold good (access to a digital library) after sale is nothing but theft. Imagine the bag boy at your supermarket would take an apple out of your purchase and eat it.
Voicing “I do understand the frustration” is not the answer to stealing.
if you can take something I own from me without compensating me, I can take something you own from you without compensating you. piracy is a moral imperative in order to preserve art.
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
Remember kids, piracy is not only moral, but a moral obligation in this capitalist hellscape! (and not theft by definition, and should not be illegal) Torrents are one of the few effective weapons against corporations
Without piracy, many things would be lost. I’m not going to pretend piracy is purely altruistic, but it certainly has benefits for society.
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.
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.
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 the big green “purchase” button. 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.
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.
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 👍
I… uh.
This is technically true but dear lord you should not be melting down plastic without a ventilation system.
Did you just tell us to go fuck ourselves?
I remember that happening with a game subscription service, and they had the decency to provide me the option of downloading an offline copy of the game when it did. What’s so hard about these services at the very least allowing them the option to download an offline copy when things like this happen? They know that otherwise, they are just going to skip over to pirating entirely, right?
How is it legal that you can purchase a company, without also acquiring their liabilities and obligations?
Likely because the original company had terms similar to others where digital content “ownership” is only an “ongoing license/subscription to access” which they can revoke (which is the real issue with any sort of online digital media)
It’s always ethical to pirate from big corporations and situations like this just prove this point.
It’s always ethical to pirate when an intellectual property is owned by someone other than the creator.
This is something I don’t see enough people bring up. It’s one thing to download the newest album from [independent band] for free when they’re selling a DRM-free version of it on their website for $5. It’s another thing to download an obscure 20+ year old anime that’s had its distribution rights passed to seven different companies since its release. Someone from Madhouse can correct me if I’m wrong, but I cannot believe that using my friend’s Crunchyroll account to watch the Japanese dub of Boogiepop Phantom instead of illegally streaming the English dub from a sketchy website would earn any of the original creators any money at all. Even if I paid for my own CR subscription, it would only provide Crunchyroll with money. No matter how I consume this anime, the folks who made the show aren’t getting compensated. So why should I pay for an inferior service?
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.
