Comment by knaik94
5 days ago
I agree with the sentiment implied by the author, but I would reword it slightly. If you don't have the freedom to share something, you don't own it.
I disagree with the interpretation that it needs to be held physically. Digital ownership is still ownership. I go out of my way to find music on Bandcamp, games on GOG, and rip movies myself using MakeMKV.
I wish I could encourage people to continue embracing physical media but most people value convenience over true ownership. And most companies value market capture and "security" over user rights. In crypto the sentiment of "not your keys, not your wallet" is held a core truth, yet people use 2factor authentication and Passkeys without respecting the same truth. I am not arguing against the use of 2factor, but at the same time certain accounts can not be logged into freely without push notifications in Duo or Microsoft. I still don't see a universal ability to export Passkeys, and I believe that's by design.
I hope laws catch up to modern technology in terms of digital goods. I can't imagine companies choosing to open up their walled gardens otherwise.
We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to data. When I own data, sometimes it refers to data I created. Other times it refers to data about me. Other times it's something I've been sold. Other times it's my responsibility to ensure that data's accuracy. There are probably a few I'm missing.
I happen to like the notion of ownership that you're describing, but I think we'd all have more fruitful discussions about data if we dispensed with: "_____ is not ownership because of _____" and instead just came up with entirely different words for each kind of relationship one can have to data. Then stasis could move away from arguing what words mean and closer to doing something about the problems that arise around data "ownership".
Agreed. I'd go further. This obsession with ownership has always struck me as a peculiarly American thing, perhaps related to the absolutely central role of private property in the USA's history. In other cultures the concept of private property is often diluted somewhat by social obligations and counter-obligations. But that aside, the term is already very imperfect for the reasons you describe.
Perhaps the better word is just "control".
Isn't it the same thing?
Stuff you fully control is stuff you own fully.
Stuff you don't fully control is stuff you don't own fully.
Stuff you fully own is stuff you fully control.
Stuff you don't fully own is stuff you don't fully control.
2 replies →
> We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to data. When I own data, sometimes it refers to data I created. Other times it refers to data about me. Other times it's something I've been sold. Other times it's my responsibility to ensure that data's accuracy.
We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to food. When I own food, sometimes it refers to food that I harvested for myself. Other times it refers to food from me. Other times it's food I have bought from someone. Other times it's about my responsibility to ensure the edibility of food I sold.
In the case of data it should be more aptly described as "possession" rather than "ownership"
These are different things, and this is precisely the point here. You do have the possession of the data when you stream a movie, but you do not have the ownership. When someone makes a picture of you, they do posses it, but they do not necessarily own it, that would be you.
I also don't agree with your parent, because ownership is precisely the correct term here.
> I disagree with the interpretation that it needs to be held physically. Digital ownership is still ownership. I go out of my way to find music on Bandcamp, games on GOG, and rip movies myself using MakeMKV.
Files on a hard disk that you own are still files that you physically own. The only difference between those files and, say, a DVD, is that the encoding is more space-efficient.
The parent's point is that possession of a physical good is a bright line separation. For digital files, there's a huge difference between [Files you own] on a hard disk, and files [on a hard disk you own]. There are files you can put on a hard drive that you don't own and will ultimately kill themselves when specified criteria are met, like DRM'd ebooks.
I would argue that the files on your hdd that can expire or made unusable by some remote third party are as incomplete as a book that is missing half the pages. For example a keepass file without the password/key-file is incomplete, the same goes for Audible aax files that can not be played without per-user 'activation bytes.' You have possession of the file but you never owned its contents.
1 reply →
> The only difference between those files and, say, a DVD, is that the encoding is more space-efficient.
Also that it's (depending on the format) perhaps not illegal to use the content in the file wit any viewer you choose.
Which does not depend on the data being on a DVD at all, but the details of contract of purchase. When you buy the data on a harddisk, the exact same terms would apply.
I think the idea is that with a book or a DVD you're not allowed to copy it. You're allowed to lend or sell it though.
Is that the state of things? I thought you could copy a legally purchased thing, just not distribute it?
2 replies →
>I hope laws catch up to modern technology in terms of digital goods.
I fear the opposite is more likely. cars are already getting government-mandated connectivity.
I'm on team convenience. I don't like it, I get how the media ownership situation sucks a times ... but I don't want to drag a bunch of cds, or blue rays or manage files on some personal server because I want to watch movies.
Isn’t it interesting that you can purchase a movie, rip and transcode it… but if you download the same transcoded version for the movie you already own, you have committed a crime?
> people use 2factor authentication and Passkeys without respecting the same truth.
Passkeys are still your keys. You can put them on hardware authenticators you control entirely offline separate of other services. You can store them in software vaults you manage.
that's not true. Passkeys have an optional remote attestation capability, which second parties can use to completely enforce aspects of your keys, such as them being non-transferrable or not usable without a screen touch etc.
Passkeys (as defined in the spec) by definition don't.
Non-passkey WebAuthn keys can have additional attestations.
3 replies →
This doesn't change the fact it can still be your physical device that remains in your personal control.
I can stash them on a yubikey or similar device and still meet those requirements. It's still only my device, it doesn't rely on other services, etc.
4 replies →
> If you don't have the freedom to share something, you don't own it.
How does pre-DRM copyright affect the picture here? Do you mean it's been impossible to own copyrighted content since the inception of copyright?
By OP's framing, it seems so.
But I think there's more nuance here. I can buy a copyrighted book, read it, and then sell it or give it to you for free. The copyright holder's rights have not been violated: I've not copied it, the clue is in the name copyright.
It's not legal for me to go into a library, borrow a book, and then make a copy of it. It's a larger breach to then share that copy more broadly by making more copies.
In the digital era copying is cheaper, and distribution is broader. This caused panic within publishers of all media - they wanted to provide the convenience of digital distribution and consumption (and realise the cost savings), but noted that without DRM, copying would mean there was a risk they'd only ever sell one copy of a game, film, album or book.
This is a snap back to the extreme interpretation of enforcing copyrights. Publishers could structure their DRM and licensing to mimic physical media better. For example, the license could be irrevocable and provide a right to the user of a copy in perpetuity, so it can't be withdrawn. The license could be transferred to other owners: I could lend you my copy, you could then return it to me, digitally; I could donate it to a charity; I could sell my license to another individual; it could be part of my estate and bequeathed at my death.
Physical media has flaws, so does digital media. With a little vision and not much technology we could make digital media as awesome as physical media while retaining copyright to drive investment.
Or, we could go the way OP seems to be nudging towards: we try and grow the copyleft media industry to something economically viable and put the entire economic model of controlled distribution into a place of no longer being viable as a business. Big ask.
You can still share pre-DRM copyrighted work without running afoul of any laws. Stuff like lending out or selling VHS tapes. Copyright is concerned about copying, not about moving. Digital media just makes the line between copying and moving sufficiently blurry that companies get away with making moving impossible under the guise of making copying impossible.
Exactly, which is why the article is right to focus on physical media, it's the only practical way to allow moving without copying.
> I disagree with the interpretation that it needs to be held physically.
I mean sure, but you can think of it analogously that if the file lives on a hard disk/SSD that you own and can hold in your hand AND the file is in some open format that can be used with open source software (as opposed to some proprietary player that checks some external license to work), only then you own it.
GOG is totally dead. Try submitting a game there or contacting anyone.
Dead platform. The origina owner got the site back and does literally nothing with it.
They just released four games yesterday and looking at the news reel it seems they release a bunch of games every day. They're also running a summer sale right now. I doubt they're anywhere close to being dead.
They are known to take their time when it comes to developer submissions (and that time can be quite long) but that was the case since pretty much forever, not something that happened with the new/original owner.
Imagine if Steam or App Store or Google Play or anybody serious said:
"We approved 4 new games today"
Dead platform.
1 reply →
Is it? A few weeks ago I had to contact support to remove some games from my account and the response time was decent.
I am curious why you had to remove them. Was it content reasons? Was it you were moving and ownership of them in your new home isn't legal?
1 reply →
I had to do a refund earlier this year, gog processed it very quickly.
It could have been automated though.
I would emphatically not do this, because you're confusing legal ownership with physical ownership and only one can be guaranteed with reasonable certainty.
Honestly, I'm continually surprised at how badly people miss this even as, e.g. Sony et al just take away stuff you "bought."
So, to put directly. Do not reword it, you will screw it up.
You must be able to hold it in your hand.
Sony can only take it away because you didn't own it.
I digitally own SimCity 3000 Unlimited from Gog. The copy lives on my NAS. The NAS could break, sure, but so can a CD.
Can I hold it? Well, sort of. The same way I can back up my physical CDs to a hard disk, I can also back up digital things I truly own to a CD/DVD/BD or other media.
As long as the thing I'm holding in my hand is all I need to be able to make use of what was given to me at the point of sale, I see no issue.
On the other hand, Valve, who I think most would agree is a company that has been on the less bad side of digital distribution for the most part, has sold "physical" copies of games that actually still required Steam to install and use. And in that case, from the layperson's perspective, it sure seems like you can hold it, and yet you don't own it.
So IMO this argument just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
When I brought half life 2 there was a lag of about 2-4 years before I could play it for the first time - I didn't read the fine print, and on a dial up connection I couldn't get past the steam client updating in a reasonable amount of time, mind you I was able to download much larger Linux ISOs over time frames of a month+ through resumable downloads.
Not really an issue these days but it certainly was back in the day
10 replies →
>you're confusing legal ownership with physical ownership and only one can be guaranteed with reasonable certainty.
You mean legal ownership, right? Because people can illegally take your physical belongings.
I think you’re confusing your own file backup practices with ownership. If you purchase a DRM-free piece of software (say, a game from GoG), I’d say you own it just as much as if you bought the same game on a CD (assuming the CD was also DRM-free).
If you don’t keep a copy of the game yourself, and one day you can no longer access it because GoG ceases to exist, that doesn’t mean you never owned it. It just means you failed to back it up. You could also fail to backup a CD when it inevitably stops functioning.
> physical ownership
I thing the word you are looking for is possession. When something is physically in your possession, it does not mean, that you have "physical ownership", that requires you to have actual ownership, which is defined by the law, so "legal ownership".