Comment on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
iamtherealwalrus@lemmy.world 6 months agoOhh yeah, Microsoft. I own Forza 7 Motorsport. It’s installed on my hard drive. Microsoft killed the servers so I can’t even play single player because the tracks weren’t included in the game. You have to download the track every time you play single player or multiplayer.
That is not the same thing. You still own the game, wherever or not it is playable is not the same as not owning. Legal bs but that’s how most Western societies are built.
S410@kbin.social 6 months ago
Whenever a game or program or goes unplayable you can not go and fix it, despite "owning it".
Removal of any kind of DRM, even if for personal, even in products you've bought, is illegal.
And there's no lower-limit on how "secure" DRM has to be: even if you can perfectly re-implement server-side software, tricking the program into talking to your server, instead of the original, is, at best, legally grey area.
iamtherealwalrus@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m not sure what your point is? We’re taking about ownership, not whether you can reverse engineer sine DRM.
S410@kbin.social 6 months ago
Being able to do things to your property is one of the basic concepts of, well, property.
Let's say your car's manufacturer fixed the wheels using security bolts and they're the only people who have the sockets.
With actual cars it would be, at most, annoying. You'd still be able to undo the bolts, either by buying or making a fitting socket, or just smacking a regular one until it fits.
In the digital world, however, just because it's called a "security" socket, you're forbidden, by law, from tampering with it. And if the licensed services stop servicing the model of your car one day... You're fucked. Because, even though you "own" the car, you are legally forbidden from doing basic maintenance required to use it.