So this is one of those really weird side effects of growing technology. Once upon a time, you had to buy all your media on tape or cd (or record). These you could freely resell without any restrictions. You buy it, you own it, you can do what you want with it except copy it. Simple as that.
But at some point we stopped wearing bright neon and gallons of hair spray and they digital age was upon us. With it, came great accomplishments like digital media and electronic networking. But at what cost? Ownership laws became muddy and ambiguous. Various file sharing companies rose and fell. And we are left with a disconnect between the physical and digital worlds.
So you like Steam / Digital Download games? You like MP3s from iTunes or Amazon? You like to buy movies to download online? That’s great! But you don’t own them… not really…
In the light of the most recent events, further cementing the anti-digital rights movement, we have precedent and law that makes it illegal to sell any digital media. Basically, the outcome said that you would have to sell the physical object in which you downloaded it onto… meaning your harddrive. It was meant to be an obnoxious way to snub digital rights proponents.
Never mind Europe now allows the resale of some digital goods… this just really makes it harder for our future generations to overcome these kinds of restrictions.
The cute way around this is to download your movies, mp3s, ebooks, and games to a cd or external thumbdrive first, then copy them to your harddrive or whatever. That way, you can say you never had them on the harddrive first and be able to sell the media! Take that legal system!
But we shouldn’t have to circumvent the law. We purchase a good or service, an mp3 or game isn’t a digital service as they would like to believe, it’s a digital good, thus, we should be allowed to do with it as we please.
ALSO:
Wow Insider just wrote up a nice article about What’s Shakin!! Take a look! I’m a big fan of their articles and they helped both my sites get their start, so check em out!!
http://wow.joystiq.com/2013/04/14/sunday-morning-funnies-whats-shakin/
Might be better to do it this way: You purchase the right to download and play a game when you want(like on Steam), and you can sell the rights of using that particular game to other people. How is that?
Maybe just like a “title transfer” like they do with cars. Like you said, you sign over the rights to download the files rather than the physical object changing hands.
Hell, if you really look at all the copyright things and such technically when you buy a movie only you are allowed to see it. Technically if you buy it put it on tv and watch it with your family you and your family are criminals for illegaly showing the contents of your movie to people who do not share ownership of this movie.
Only technical way to watch the movie together is by all having contributed to the payment of this movie.
(ps i better sed friends instead of family seeing things bought during a marriage are considered owned by both spouses and seeing you have to support your children they can legally see it to until they’re adults.)
very true! it’s a twisted world we live in…
*Pick Pockets*
I don’t get it. As a Rogue, I live by a set of certain rules… Erm, more guidelines really.
Take what you want, give nothing back.
unless you reverse pickpocket something fun… like a severed foot! XD
…skyrim has ruined me…
xkcd had a comic on this a while ago: http://xkcd.com/488/
Unfortunately the big corporations have been lobbying for their rights for ages and have been very successful at getting their way. Consumer’s rights groups are much less successful.
This isn’t limited to MP3s and Steam either. Movies, app stores on phones, and even to a lesser extent the Windows operating system licence all promote the concept of the corporation owns everything, you only lease it from them.
The plot of the show Continuum also explores this a bit, in it’s future timeline the corporations literally own everyone and everyone is basically an indentured slave. I hope it doesn’t go that far but I’m starting to see the beginnings of it.
ah, very good! yeah, this is whole thing is evil. the more they try to stop pirating, the more rights they take away from those that legitimately purchase their junk, and ultimately drive them to pirate.
pretty much everything digital is subject to these shenanigans. but I do like the bit of headway europe is making in giving back some of those rights. we’ll see if the US can follow suit. (ha! fat chance!)
even more sad, the plot of Idiocracy seems to be unfolding in real life as well…