Technology

Is there any platform or medium where I can buy locally stored and DRM-free software? Even if I buy a game on disc I am fucked, cause most games need updates. I can only name GOG.

I bought DRM-free TV episodes from Google Play (IIRC). Everything was great until codecs got updated a couple of years later and the videos were suddenly jerky to the point of unwatchability.

Even when I own it, there's no guarantee I get to keep it.

Uh, that's practically all software and games these days.

Hey, just wanted to say I’m glad a few of us remember the rootkit fiasco. I still won’t buy Sony products today.

Sony choose to not offer refunds. Sony knew the contract when they agreed to sell the content. When something gets pulled from steam I can still download and install it.

I think most rational people hate the game rather than Sony directly. We don't care if that's the rules Sony or anyone else has to play by. It's time for the industry to evolve or die.

In-fact I reckon if we see digital retailers reject "selling" digital content because it's not profitable due to end customers rejecting the terms, the studios licensing the content would evolve overnight.

Anecdotal, I had the same with EA. When Origin first launched, the two games I had in my EA account disappeared. Do amount of battling with their support got me anywhere, even though I had the retail copies and the serial keys.

Got to the point where I gave up. Rather play games I actually wanted to play, to than Spore and The Sims 3.

Fortunately Sync just redirects to a link on my home instance. I know I saw a GH issue on what you mentioned but I haven't checked it in a couple of months.

Edit: found it. Still in discussion phase. https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/2987

As a side note, how are we going with instance agnostic post IDs

Tapping it works fine on my app, redirected to the post on my instance 👌 although I believe the situation is still pretty awkward for desktop frontends, they need to put the link into the Search box to open it on their instance AFAIK

Just feel like I should at least add two more things here:

1. Storing information do their customers as plaintext data, then getting hacked and losing all that information (infamous PSN hack);

2. Releasing a portable console that cost between 250 and 300€, promising support for it then 2 years in, give up on it, never officially tell customers, but have one of your higher execs tell the press said console is a great "accessory" for the PS4.

This is why I don't personally buy Sony hardware.

Don't forget: Selling the PS3 with Linux support so that they could pay taxes as if it was a PC as well as to justify the high price to consumers. Then removing Linux later through a mandatory update.

In the US, he is still breaking the law ripping discs. It is against the DMCA to circumvent the DRM on the discs. So he is really just pirating by a different means as far as the industry is concerned.

He is far less likely to get caught doing it that way though.

~~If buying is not owning, then~~ piracy is not stealing.

It's its own, separate thing.

I don't know if it makes any sense to assign blame here to another party than Sony. As a customer who bought a license to watch these shows, that's the company that you have an arrangement with. It seems that their licensing arrangements with Warner Brothers were limited time, and either WB isn't inclined to renew them or is asking more than Sony is willing to cough up.

Probably a combination of both if I had to guess. WB is seeking to maximise the value of their own ~HBO~ Max streaming platform, so they want the content to be exclusive and not license it out to others. At the same time Sony is probably not excited to keep spending cash every few years just to keep content available to customers, they're not making any additional money from that.

So the end result is the current situation. Obviously customers agreed to whatever terms Sony put in their EULA at the time so I'm sure it's legally covered and whatever, but it seems pretty scummy and misleading nonetheless. Like, if they were honest on the purchase screen and said "you can pay $20 for the right to watch this season of mythbusters, but any time we like we can take it away from you again and there's nothing you can do," how many people would have bought that? But effectively that is what people bought, they just weren't aware.