Comment by goldenarm

Unless you’re in, say, Ohio, where the government will simply overrule decisive mandates with years of procedural nonsense https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/03/31/ohio-republican-la...

Power in numbers is with the people. Power in votes is with whoever has the votes. Power in money is with the billionaires. Power comes in many forms and isn't fungible.

ok but who enforces the law?

If you haven’t been paying attention lately, laws are only as good as they are enforced and it has become obvious that the ruling class is not going to enforce laws against themselves.

The solution here is not something most people are willing to inconvenience themselves over

Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.

In democracy, power comes from demos. In capitalism, power comes from capital.

Demos doesn't have capital. People never had power. Whenever they've thought they won ... they just damaged position of someone powerful for someone even more powerful without even knowing it.

the power is not with the people (us) but with the people in power (corpos and politicians). We (they) can enact any laws we (they) want.

In a thread about movies, it's perhaps more relevant to talk about how those two platforms handle movies.

In a browser, the top category on Google's "Movies & TV" is "New to buy or rent". The buttons on the page for a movie are labeled "$X.XX Buy" and "$X.XX Rent". In the Google TV app on my android phone, the two buttons are "Rent 4K // $X.XX" and "Buy 4K // $X.XX".

The splash images in the Apple TV app iOS say "Buy or rent it now.", and the buttons on the page for an individual movie are labeled "Buy $X.XX" and "Rent $X.XX".

There needs to be a carrot or stick to discourage this kind of practice. Perhaps when companies sue users for piracy, the valuation of what was "stolen" should be dependent on the nature of that company's sales practices. e.g. A company that merely "rents" media in a deceptive way would only be eligible to claim small fractions of a penny on the dollar were stolen when prosecuting a pirate. This way companies would be encouraged to respect user ownership rights if they want their own rights to be respected.

How about if it doesn't say RENT, it means you own it and first sale doctrine applies. We can't let them weasel and wordsmith their way out of things.

Apple does the same thing as Google, the button is only labeled "Get" for free apps, for paid apps it's labeled with the price.

Paid apps largely failed as a business model though (why would a consumer take a risk on buying a paid app that they can't try before they buy) so most apps that you pay for are free apps with IAP subscriptions... which I guess makes it a little more explicit that you're renting the app, for better or worse.

wow, sidestepping like that sucks.

Strangely, some kindle books actually do meet california criteria of "buy" by allowing a download of the book in .pdf or .epub format.

But when you go to buy them, it still seems to say:

  By placing an order, you're purchasing a content license & agreeing to Kindle's Store Terms of Use.

There is no other indication in the item description of this difference.

It is only later in your library that it quietly says:

  Download available in additional formats

I think that's a great effect, they are no longer lying. I don't want to see a button that contains all the terms. What else would you want?

Yet another victim of an overspecific law.

What makes you think that this is "as good as" buying when the original post itself demonstrate clearly that it's nowhere close to actually buying something?

Is there something in Apple or Amazon terms which say they can't under any circumstances deprive you of accessing the content you have bought with their "Buy" buttons? I don't see why you are trying to assign a difference between them and Sony here?

We have words like leases, licenses, or renting for a reason and they are not new.

The companies which shifted their business model to renting in the digital age have perpetuated the "buy" buttons to make their customers think the transaction was the same as when they purchased a physical media... but clearly, and it's by far not the first case, these companies will deprive their customers of their "purchase" for many reasons that shouldn't be any concern for someone who actually "bought" something... like the companies suddenly deciding to stop paying for the rights of the thing that they alledgly "sold" to you.

So just as clearly, theses were not actual purchases but just licenses, non-transferable, allegedly "perpetual" but unilaterally revocable at any time with no refund.

I really don't see why you seem to think there is anything hazy about this, or hard to delineate. This law seems to cover the cases in which these companies abuse the language in question, Amazon and Apple are not "selling" you anything digital, you acquire a pretty limited license on all of these services.

Buy only means buy if you can use the product as advertised after breaking all ties with the vendor.

Let's not broaden this definition in favor of the vendor.

Steam/Valve follow the law: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purch...

I think many made the same assumption that I made: A movie can be withdrawn from iTunes or an eBook from Amazon, but if you already bought it you'll retain access, it's just that no new sales can be made.

Regarding BluRays, and to some extend DVDs, I'm in the same boat. I have season one of a TV show, but season two never made it to DVD and now it's locked away in the vaults of some production company, you can't even stream it. There are so many movies and shows that will just be lost in the future.

IANAL but I bet that:

- If the license terms include a section on termination, and termination is done in accordance with the license terms, it's fine legally.

- Licenses can be transferable but that doesn't make them non-terminable.

I could be wrong, though.

It's pretty crappy that we got to the point that overly simple actions (like clicking on buttons or breaking stickers on packages) can be considered accepting license terms. Is that really a "meeting of the minds"?

But actual piracy has always been about stealing, so maybe it was not a smart move to label the movement after thieves and murderers, while insisting it is not about theft.

Because yes, it is copying. Nothing gets taken away. But when a pirate took a ship and it's gold away, it was gone.

yes digital piracy was never stealing, but a mixture of contractual breach, copyright infringement and (illegally) causing financial damages through (illegally) causing lost sales.

Hence why you don't get tried for theft when you commit digital piracy. Which, as absurd as it might sound, sometimes (/in some cases) would be better to be tried for due to very unbalanced laws.

But also it should be pretty obvious that this isn't what people mean when they say "if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing" and a intentionally misinterpretation of statements based by nitpicking formulations is neither contributing anything meaningful nor is it appreciated (in most situations).

That is false. It is legal to copy materials that you own, provided you don't redistribute the copy, like for protection against loss. A notable exception of this is the USA DMCA. If, to make a copy, you have to break a copy protection scheme, then you are violating the DMCA.

The license isn't what takes away your permission to redistribute copies; copyright law does that by default. The license is only reminding you that it's not lifting that default, not granting you that permission.

Copying is neither here or there. There is an understanding that when you buy a book, you own the physical thing.

If I sell you a toaster and then remotely cause it to self-destruct, I owe you a new toaster.

Grandparent referenced "if buying isn't owning then copying isn't stealing". I would say that "if buying isn't owning, then stealing isn't stealing".

If a toaster is offered to sale to the public which the seller can remotely destroy at any time, and not pay anyone a cent, and the law upholds that, then it's morally fine to just walk out of their store with that toaster without paying.

yes, but it was (is?) in many places legal to copy Filmes and Musik albums as backup, and iff the original is lost you can very much sell the backup alongside with the license you did buy (kinda, it gets messy practically).

It only mattered that if you sell it you lose it, i.e. you can't buy 1 sell (or gift) 10.

Similarly in analog times this where not unilaterally cancelled licenses. Which are effectively nothing more then time limited licenses where you just don't know how long. (1: un

In law areas outside of copyright this kind of license cancellation terms are often seen as predatory, fraudulent and abusive practices. And _sometimes outright illegal no matter how well you communicated what the license/contract does_ before it was acquired (in some countries).

(1: unilateral cancellable without a brach of license/contract from you side and some other special edge cases to be more precise)

Which is the crux of the problem, not that it isn't attached to physical media, but that it can be cancelled in a mostly despotic manner and you (often) can't make (relevant) backups or similar to protect the availability of the medium either.

It’s not about transfer, it’s about being practically irrevocable.

[dead]

I’m just collecting training data for my AI.

"you wouldn't copyright infringe a car" doesn't have the same ring to it

You wouldn't steal a baby

The proliferation of copies economically devalues the originals.

It really should be fines plus ALL money gained through the illegal activity. If you steal a car you don't get to pawn the stereo, give back the money gained and then drive off into the sunset.

> The fines need to be a standard percentage of income or the personal assets / freedom of officers needs to be on the line

This is the obvious solution to most problems but of course they're the ones writing the laws so it'd never happen in a trillion years.

I get it, but your advertising to it what you want it to be, not what it is.