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I'm done with Google

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Re: I'm done with Google

#251

Post by pc2g4d »

swores wrote: post #241
veltas wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask for open mindedness that I bring religion here, I feel it necessary to discuss this question of ethics/morality: "Who gives a fuck?" I quote Mark 12:15. > But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Render…

I can understand how Christianity-based morals might lead to thinking that digital piracy is immoral. I can't understand how that particular bible verse could be a genuine influence on deciding whether or not illegally downloading copyrighted material is acceptable, at all. Can you explain what logic led from reading that text to deciding it meant you shouldn't pirate things? And I'm also curious, if you hadn't read…

I think the idea is that Jesus was saying secular authorities should be regarded as authorities in secular affairs, while religious authorities / God / the church should be regarded as authorities in religious affairs. At least that's one read of it. So the commenter defers to the illegality of piracy as determined by secular authorities, and doesn't pirate, as a way of respecting (his/her interpretation of) Jesus' (reported) teaching.

Which in my view is a fair approach to life, but hard for me to adopt personally.

Re: I'm done with Google

#252

Post by cassianoleal »

Closi wrote: post #214
unity1001 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not the right thing to do. Spotify is peanuts to artists. If you want to do the right thing, buy music at Bandcamp The right thing to do is to directly subscribe to their Patreon. It not only gets you access to exclusives, behind the scenes and even events, it also crowdfunds the future projects of the artist.

The right thing to do is to identify where the artist lives, then withdraw unmarked and untraceable cash which you post through their mailbox as a 'gift'. This means that you can guarantee all the money goes directly to the artist.

If you mean that as opposed to part of it being converted to taxes, I'd argue that's not quite "the right thing". Or does the artist not benefit from public goods and services, like roads, public lighting, police, firefighting, etc etc etc?

Re: I'm done with Google

#253

Post by cassianoleal »

RockRobotRock wrote: post #40
yellow_lead wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a hardcore pirate like me tried to do the right thing when it comes to music - I got Spotify. But when I moved to Taiwan, I tried to switch my payment location to get regional pricing and they refuse to accept my Taiwan debit card. Now I pirate music or use Vanced (YouTube).

Between iTunes and Bandcamp, it's very easy to buy DRM free music (most of the time). In the streaming era, its basically impossible to buy TV shows and movies without DRM.

Are all purchases on iTunes DRM free?

Re: I'm done with Google

#254

Post by cassianoleal »

danbulant wrote: post #244
djhworld wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I think the license you buy from google play or apple or whatever is not a license for the content, it's a license to access the content from the provider through a specific player/app. So getting content from musicbackups dot com or whatever would not be a transferable right or gray area. People will do it anyway though

Not sure about US, but for example in Czechia, you can download any content legally - as long as you don't share it, it's fine. Torrents do share it though, so that is a gray area. You also have a right to make a personal backup/copy of the content, again, as long as you don't share that copy (projecting for multiple people is also sharing in this context).

> Torrents do share it though

Torrents don't share it. You do if your torrent client is configured to do so.

BitTorrent is a protocol. You use it how you use it. If you only want to use it to download stuff, you can.

Re: I'm done with Google

#255

Post by nmeagent »

f1refly wrote: post #49
gleenn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, what's the difference between a pricing and service problem?

A service problem is when the media mafia refuses to sell me files that I can keep. I'd like to open some website and pay 15 bucks for a movie (the same as I'd buy for a recent bluray in a store) where I'm then allowed to just download a .mkv that I can throw on my nas. Major streaming sites refuse to serve me content with resolution higher that 480p (I think?) because my computer obeys me and not them. Sure looks gr…

> Major streaming sites refuse to serve me content with resolution higher that 480p (I think?) because my computer obeys me and not them.

This nonsense directly lead to my permanent cancellation of Amazon Prime. It's infuriating to be treated like a second-class citizen even as a paying customer.

Re: I'm done with Google

#256

Post by sytelus »

gundamdoubleO wrote: post #10

I'm always reminded of Gabe Newell's quote on piracy[1]: >Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem And by in large I still agree with it. For me I've only ever turned to piracy when the legitimate service has become a complete mess of red tape and user frustration. [1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/valves-gabe-newell-says-pir...

This is very First world view sans min wage population. In developing countries, it is always a pricing problem and people don’t care about convenience. When you have only just barely enough money for food and rent, you are not thinking about great service vs zero price trade off.

Re: I'm done with Google

#257

Post by thiht »

usui wrote: post #16

> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault) I really like the frank tone of the article and I wish people in general would just write unabashedly more often when it comes to stuff like this. Writers online love to dance around the idea of "pirating" their digital goods when communicating on the topic: "Ooh my 'friend' may or may not have downloaded 'xyz' movie from 'abc' website, but I don't…

I subscribe to 4 different platforms (Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and Crunchyroll) and every fucking time I want to watch a specific movie it’s not on any of these. Last week I wanted to watch Harry Potter which I know was on Netflix and/or Prime Video at some point, now it’s not available anywhere. So I went back to piracy. 2023 will be the year of Plex+NAS for me because I can’t justify paying for so many subscriptions if there’s not even the things I want to watch when I want it. I’ll just keep Crunchyroll as it’s giving me the best value so far.

Re: I'm done with Google

#258

Post by di4na »

rapht wrote: post #134
di4na wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple cases going through the courts in multiple countries around this. The one i have in mind is in France (UFC Que Choisir vs Steam iirc) but i know there are others. From time to time, someone look at these, read the judge opinion, realise how much it would change the web economy out there, write a panicked piece... Then swiftly erase it from their memory because it is a tad too big to think through.

"Calling a cat, a cat", as we say in French: I really do not see what anyone would lose just putting the right words on each action -- and it's not even very difficult to define. Can the user use the thing mostly without the provider? Yes = purchase, no = rental. If all of sudden it's all "rentals" everywhere, what does it change -- apart from opening up an avenue for the people willing to actually sell the things th…

It changes because what was sold as "buying" need to fulfill the promises too. It is not only long term.

Did you bought a game on Steam? Now they have to give you a lot of rights they were not allowed to give you. And still are not.

Re: I'm done with Google

#259

Post by di4na »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #167
di4na wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. The courts have been swift and merciless on this shit for music, video and similar things. Google may seem big but they do depends on the law still.

The whole music industry's yearly revenue is less than two months of Google's revenue, so I'm sure there is a way.

I think you massively misunderstand the impact of money on law.

Re: I'm done with Google

#260

Post by thiht »

charcircuit wrote: post #117
rapht wrote: post #58

There's a language issue which has not been tackled by regulators and which is actually the mere definition of what happens when I choose to "buy" or "purchase" something. This is because until recently (by the timescale of "buying things") there were no intangibles to be bought or sold. An intangible is mostly a right to something - in other words, it's paperwork. But some things are both tangible and intangible, i.…

You are buying a license to watch the movie. You are not renting it.

You’re buying a license that can be revoked at the seller’s discretion without refund though. Imagine buying a blu-ray and suddenly you can’t play it anymore because your Google account got banned for whatever reason. I started reading Kafka and it sound like one of his stories.
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