"You wouldn't download a car". Like hell I would, especially when I pay for it, and the sellers decide that I should no longer have it... While keeping my money.
Agreed. If I paid for a $30 Minecraft Java account back in 2013, and Mojang decides to delete your account if you do not migrate (maybe because you dont trust Microsoft), thats stealing. Yet people justify it with the EULA bs and how you were given time. Doesnt matter about time anyways, its stealing
@@bumblebeegamerreal Reminds me of a couple years ago where a similar thing happened with an mmo called black desert online, people lost accounts with thousands of dollars of purchases and gear that took thousands of hours to get on it because of that.
@@bumblebeegamerrealI think it's because so many people view the government as their parent rather than something that is supposed to be made up of a group of peers that are operating according to how everyone collectively comes to agree on or they are subject to consequences just as anyone else would be. Government is not supposed to be above it's citizens that's a dictatorship, it's supposed to operate in accordance to what the population agrees upon. I don't agree with what the population does always on things such as psychiatry, I view it as an industry in desperate need of regulations and to be more like Finland's in that a therapist needs to be seen first, then a psychologist and then of need be a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs. I think that the majority of people who are considered I'll are only temporarily so because of abuse and being trapped in a cycle without a way out or help available that won't lead to self incrimination in the process or just a lack of being able to get any goals achieved such as what happened to me with not being able to secure a relationship with someone that was intimate on the level of boyfriend/girlfriend or dating, or a job that wasn't a dead end job which could lead into working with technology like working in an Amazon warehouse for awhile waiting for an opportunity then moving up from within by being present at work and offering solutions from your own independent expertise as an extensive hobbyist and enthusiast of technology. I later learned even Amazon outsources it's IT infrastructure to India so... I don't know what I want to do now especially since that time I suffered a chemical lobotomy which left me with me permanent cognitive deficits and memory impairments.
Just to hammer this home, this is not a "you never owned it, this was just a long term rental" issue. The language in this purchase agreement said PURCHASE. it was purchased content, and they clearly said that in the press release as well. They knew they were taking something you owned.
Also remember when they demonstrate how you can lend your PS4 games to your friend by lending them the disc? This was done to dunk on Xbox One by the way.
IT seems to me that attempting to redefine a word that is in common usage, with a widely accepted meaning, would be perfect grounds for a class action suit. (I'm pretty sure that "lying about your product, or intentionally misrepresenting the terms of sale for your product, for the purpose of making money" is still legally defined as "fraud" in most courts.)
The shameful thing is that when a person dies, people used to inherit all their purchased books and movies. Not the case with Amazon Kindle or movie digital purchases. Estates should be able to resell a decedents digital purchases 💪
Can you legally inherit individual pieces of digital media in your country? Would you then be able to inherit a computer, but not the software on it, which was 'given' to someone else?
@@Leonvolt28 You're partially correct. I don't think Steam allows for the full on transfer of accounts, however Steam doesn't delete unused accounts, and does have a Family Sharing feature. If you account is set to be shared with family members, I don't know of any instance where Steam would have revoked that after a family member's death. There is no explicit example on this on their FAQ from what I saw, but it might be worth trying to contact Steam support in the case of an unexpected death. They get a bad rap, but they might be willing to posthumously activate Family Sharing with proof.
If you say purchase, then take it away, I should get a refund Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony lawyers noticed that some state or country DOES require refunds if you lie to your customers, and walking this back was the cheaper option.
Yeah, *this* country requires that. No matter what the EULA says, it's plain and simple false advertisement. If the FTC didn't get around to suing them you could be sure they would have been hearing from dozens of the state attorneys general. And if you come up against fraud like this in the future immediately contact your state AG.
Not sure if it’s the same in the US, but in Europe we pay a special tax of about 6% on ALL storage media, including the storage in your computer iPad etc. This tax is to compensate content creators in the case of piracy. So, since we are pre-emptively taxed, found guilty without a trial, I think piracy is allowed, since we’re actually paying for it.
piracy MUST BE legal, since the government is no part of it!!! What a crock. "We're helping the content creators!" Load of shit. Who collects the interest in the money? Where/what account is tat monies held? Probably Gennie (the general fund) where amyone can SPEN it.
@@MrClickbang357 Yeah this is always the scam. They institute a general tax with the justification that it is for the "poor little people", then insiders in government always spend it on themselves and the people like them.
It's what corporations do when they have a monopoly, and the corrupt government doesn't apply anti-trust laws and consumer protection laws against these corporation.
The last thing Sony needs right now is another lawsuit. They're already seeing a lawsuit in the ballpark of what Microsoft spent for Zenimax Media, because of their monopolistic practices regarding the sale of digital games.
Hey, did you notice that there aren't many class action lawsuits anymore? There's a reason everything pivoted to arbitration and thereafter all the products went to crap.
You are 100% correct that I am unwilling to pay for a subscription to get back the thing I previously paid for. Also, if you get to redefine the word "purchase" on page 22, do I get to redefine the word "payment"? I think so?
PIRACY IS ALSO THE ONLY REASON WE HAVE ANY ACCESS TO SOME MEDIA CONTENT. Studios and publishers will let so much be lost to history if they don't feel like selling it anymore: movies, shows, video games, music, books.
This is an excellent point ... charging extraorbitant money by bundling stuff together is one thing but sitting on stuff and not making it available is on other level of evil.
I sailed the high seas and got my copies of the SciFi channels Dune and Children of Dune miniseries since it was out of print and unavailable on any streaming service. Plus I was not going to pay $60 for used old stock dvds
Yeah, some companies **cough** Nintendo **cough** that go to war over archival and preservation of shit they don't care enough to even make available...
I just knew someone was going to mention the rootkit scandal eventually, and I'm glad you did. I feel like that didn't get *enough* controversy and people don't bring it up enough. People, Sony installed viruses on their customer's computers. That's insane. Frankly, there should've been arrests and extended jailtime over this, and Sony should've been destroyed then and there. If I put a virus on your computer without your consent, even if it technically doesn't do anything, I can go to jail for years; a corporation does it on a mass scale and nothing happens. Rules for thee, not for me.
Yeah, I am one of those who remember that, it made some headlines in some magazines back then. I never wanted to pirate music but for a long time my parents made me buy pirated CD/Cassette instead, and in other times I just can't find the CDs of those South American artists I wanted. I could get them from itunes for some of them but it has annoying DRM on them as well. So at least for Sony ones, sorry I will just grab it from Limewire or Kazaa without any guilt. Also what that rootkit Sony put are: 1: Anything but harmless, it is a trojan which can allow others to access your PC from the backdoor. 2: Very poorly written and not secure, all a hacker need is to put $ in front of the file names of the payload for them to be let through.
I purchased some games for my nieces and nephews for Christmas, I thought I’d been conned when they opened the cases as there was no game inside, then realized they contained a download code. No-one understood why I was irritated by this but I ordered a physical product to own, if I just wanted a download then I would purchase through the online store
I dunno what game you bought but in general modern games do not fit on disks even when you get real physical disk it’s just a pretty place to store your digital liscense as the product is something like 100 GBs of data. This truth is VERY convenient for the ppl who publish games but it is true
@@alexphelps7042 Then add more disks, or ship on USB drives if it's cheaper. I remember games that came on 4+ disks because they couldn't fit on one, 100GB would take like 22 disks but then they could just charge more for the physical copy. I own the full Stargate SG-1 boxset, 10 seasons, it has a stupid number of disks and I never have to check with a server to see if I still have the right to play the content on the disks. The only reason they don't even try is because they can potentially milk you more in future with online DRM.
@@alexphelps7042they could easily still fit an installer on the disk and let you install it to your drive before being able to play. In fact, this was even still commonplace back in the Xbox One & PS4 days. When they realized they could get away with hurting resales even more and funneling more money into themselves, they stopped doing it. I still have massive respect for Nintendo for fitting the entire game as it released on cartridges.
How come they're allowed to call it "buying" or "purchasing" the product? That should be illegal. Also, if you pirate something you already own, it's not piracy. You steal from me, I steal the same thing back, only you don't even lose anything, I just get what I paid for. That's just making sure I don't get screwed. If they call it anything else, they're lying.
Downloading something you already own is legal (though a bit of a gray area). Seeding it isn't, because you're illegally distributing it. That's where they get you.
Government insistence on a made-up thing called "intellectual property" is how we got to this situation and you somehow think more government is the solution...
@@Netist_ im sure its at worst overlooked around the world; i only ever got 1 email from my isp asking about a thing and that was because it was warner brothers and it was only a couple months old... dont make money off it and youre all good
If the contract says "license" but the "button" is classified/says as a "Buy/Purchase" then I consider that to literally be "false advertisement" by the very definition of the meaning. when I pay for a "temporary" movie on Amazon... it says... "rent" not "buy" The "buy" is a different button!
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Exactly, the reasonable lifetime of the licensed product/or forever. People just want to play semantics on "purchase" vs "licensed stream". At no point was anyone able to download(store locally) the content in question, it was always a streamed product but bEcAuSE iT sAY PuRcHasE tHEn sOnY sToLE It FrOm tHeM.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Imo, that's a terrible definition by the way you could swap "Buying" with "Renting" and it's equally as correct. As far as the public is concerned: "Renting" = Temporarily buying or purchasing a product or property. You could argue it's not the official definition but this is what the customers will think when "Buy/Purchase" and "Rent" are put before them and it WILL impact their decision to know what they're getting before they spend their money. There is a reason every company has "Buy" or "Purchase" buttons but never a "Buy a license" or "Rent" button for the same stuff: Customers want to own their content, companies want as much money from you as possible and owning stuff is counter-intuitive to the company's goal.
Except for the fact that EVEN IF YOU 'BUY' a digital movie on Amazon, they STILL reserve the right to DELETE that movie for ANY reason at ANY time! So it literally means NOTHING!!!
I can't wait to see your thoughts about the new Prime Video announcement. Adding adverts to a paid service under the guise of "it helps us pay our bills" gotta be the most ridiculous thing I've seen from a BILLION dollar company in a while lmaooo
@@user-iv1in2bd2w Use the ONLY power you have at your command and cancel your membership, and let them know why you're doing it. When enough people leave the ads WILL be removed.
Thank you for mentioning the Rootkit shenanigans. People forget, or as you said may simply have been too young. Sony has a *history*. Sony has a *track record*. If you think piracy is bad, then by all means - don't pirate. But good lord, don't give your money to Sony.
Discovery throwing horrendous ads on programming while paying was the cancel point for me. I pay to avoid ads, i don't pay to see them even if you give me a few $ discount. Crazy to me.
Amazon is now adding ads to movies & TV but you can pay an extra few dollars for "LIMITED AD'S"! Even if you pay more you still get ads, wtf. Thinking about canceling, this is ridiculous.
My mother has a Rocku stick that is used for TV. It requires a subscription (cuz of course it does) and still has ads. I go out of my way to avoid ads, and sure as hell ain't gonna pay to see ads.
its funny being able to watch this all come full circle. I remember when netflix first launched, outside of not having to rent movies. It was that you could watch all this content on one platform for one price. Instead of paying for multiple channel packages including stuff you didnt want. And now here we are with streaming services doing the exact same thing cable companies did.
Netflix was the chosen one. It was said that it would destroy cable, not join it. Was. Back when you could get Netflix on your Wii, but you needed a seperate disc to do so
Netflix definitely marketed it as a platform for you to see your "favorite" shows for one price. They had nickelodeon, cartoon network, pretty much all of the Fox animated content, comedy central, just to name a few that you would've had to purchase channel packages to see back in the day. Granted Hulu did launch streaming before Netflix but they were exclusively Tv shows. @@GH0STST4RSCR34M
Years ago, I said that this was going to happen. That every network would have its own streaming service And that subscribing to more and more streaming services would increasingly cost more than cable, or buying your favorite shows and movies on DVD.
*FOR THE "YOU ONLY BOUGHT A LICENSE" PEOPLE:* No, you didn't "only buy a license." Companies have gaslit you into thinking this over the decades and it has worked wonderfully, but that's not how a *purchase* works. If I pay to *PURCHASE* a digital product, the company has no right to revoke access to the digital product. *That's clawing back the sale.* It doesn't matter what is stated in their click-wrap agreement fine print. It doesn't matter if they disclaim the warranty of merchantability or claim that I'm purchasing a revocable license. *If they put out a product to be bought and I pay to buy it, I own my copy of that product.* End of story.
We need to remind folks that the entire point of the license you do see on purchased media is to prevent you from using that copy for commerical purposes. It's license that lets you watch the media in private, but not to show on a big projector and sell tickets to others for a viewing. _That's_ the fine print-- and it was not about the company being able to claw the media back from you.
@@JodyBruchon You can spout whatever nonsense you want. Simple fact is, if they want to delete it, they will delete it, and there's jack shit you can do about it that won't label YOU as a criminal. If you want this to change, fix the problem at the source.
In defense of piracy, I remember back in the day I was at a concert for a Japanese rock band (L'Arc-en-Ciel) which is initially famous in the West for anime openings (GTO, FullMetal Alchemist, and later Gundam 00). The venue was packed. Everybody paid their ticket. They didn't just played the songs from animes, they played from their whole catalog and most people knew the songs. I can guarantee that everybody in the crowd pirated their over ten albums. But here we all were supporting an artist that, sure is big in Japan, but would have never had that amount of audience in the West without piracy. (That was long before Spotify, etc, and the only legal way to get their CDs was from imports for €40-50.)
The thing that worries me about that is the "updated licensing agreement", which implies that that licensing agreement, too, could expire and put us right back where we started. There has to be some kind of legal protection that PURCHASED content is no longer subject to licensing between 3rd party entities.
There are some games on Steam that the licence agreement between development studio/publisher and the licence holder expired/was not renewed and while one is unable to purchase that game/content anymore, those who did purchase it allready, still have acces to that content.
They also usually state in their EULAs that they can change the contract at any time for any reason, so even if you read through the legal and technical jargon and understood it, they could update it later to be completely different and you might not even know until they screw you over.
Yup, though what happened now is on the same lines as someone threatening to steal your stuff in a week, then when you get upset at it they decide they changed their mind, so I'd hold them as accountable as someone who only threatened to steal from you, which would still be bad.
No but it's okay because they tell you about it on page 22. I mean, if I tried to sneak something into a contract like that, I'd be sued and jailed. But since they're huge, it's perfectly fine.
I wouldn't steal a car from a dealership, but I would totally be fine with visiting someone who bought the car legally and is willing to let me use their magic cloning machine
@@0LoneTech I'm still amazed they won the Blueray war vs HDDVD. After losing with Betamax and Minidisc I thought for sure they were going to lose that one too.
@@knightdtd Many people are too just too plain thick to realise major corporations are openly pissing in their faces... but the more and more people such as Louis announcing their corporate transgressions to the less aware will eventually have an effect on their future customer base.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Agreed, I was just being facetious. It'd be nice if what you quoted were reality, and people like Louis are greatly increasing the probability of that becoming true.
The fun one I had to deal with... I got some movies on Amazon US... then I swapped to Amazon UK and they tried to tell me they cannot transfer it over because of licencing... like, okay then, I will be joining Captain Sparrow for the foreseeable future.
This is why im a strong advocate of backing up digital content that i pay either on Cd/DVD or external drives, especialy games. Not only is it a way to preserve them (disc rot), but also insurance in case companies decide to have a "different interpretation" of purchase.
Yeah, if companies want to redefine what "purchase" means on their end then the consumer has every right to redefine what "payment" means. It's obvious that corporations have a powerful grip on the world and they know it which is why they pull this crap. There is virtually no accountability for the big and powerful ones. So, yeah. Everyone should pirate anything and everything they can because that's what "purchasing" actually is now.
unilateral change of terms IS legally possible from both parties. Just file an affidavit stating the new terms, with a clause about needing to reply by certain means by certain date to opt out.
"Grip on the World" - change that to "grip on the USA". In the European Union, corporate ToS or EULAs are invalid before the Law, precisely because companies have an unfair amount of power vs the average customer.
@@KnightofAges Sony pulled the same thing in Germany and Austria not too long before this with Studiocanal, except in that case they didn't even walk back the decision. I don't know the reason why, but AFAIK they haven't gotten in any trouble for it.
Well said as always. My opinion: Always buy physical media where you can, always have a 'pirate' copy of everything you think you own to hand. Indeed feel free to 'try before you buy' ...the vendor sure as hell doesn't give a crap about it's customers these days so be as certain as you can they can't screw you, either by selling something that isn't fit for purpose or stealing it from you after the fact.
If what you mean by "pirate" copy is a personal backup of said item I paid for ie (Ripping my Switch games and backing them up to PC for example) thats not even "pirating" anyway. If I paid for the item in question it's perfectly legal and falls under personal use
@@FantomMisfit This depends on the country. In the UK ripping your purchased CDs is illegal, even for personal use. It was legal for a brief period in 2014/2015 when an exception was introduced in the law to allow for that, but this was challenged successfully by the music writers' and musicians unions and this exception was *revoked* by the government following a High Court ruling in 2015. Ever since then ripping purchased CDs for personal use has been illegal again in the UK. Not many people know this; in 2014 they heard it had become legal, and stopped following the subsequent legal wrangling.
Thank you for the good work everyone, remember never to let them live it down. Cancel your subscriptions, purchase on other platforms or pirate. We gotta teach them, that even trying scummy scammy things will cause permanent damage to their stocks.
Just a supporting comment to what Louis is saying, i had the pleasure of talking to him on the phone once, he is literally like this in life. Honest to the bone and doesnt sugar coat the reality. Dealing with him and his business was the easiest and one of the most pleasant experiences.. Thanks bossman Louis!
How come "more government" is the only solution you people ever come up with, which is all we ever get, and then you still wonder why shit continues to deteriorate?
@@snex000 Ok what's your solution? If you got an idea I'm all ears. what other recourse do we have? if it's not a law to protect us as consumers . Companies use laws against us as consumers all the time! That's why we are moving toward a model of being unable to own anything anymore.
@@snex000 Government in and of itself isn't the problem. You have to have some kind of enforcement body for your rules and regulations or else they don't mean anything.
@@zepfred77 Yes more government is good but it must truly be run by the people for the people, the problem is the current government is not that kind of system so the only time a law like that would be passed is once real people step in.
I do suspect they will slowly remove content over time one show at a time hoping no one catches on then offer a lame excuse as to why they did it for that particular show once it is noticed, then wait longer and repeat.
Literally the standard protocol for anything controversial and they want to stand by it. They'll wait for it to calm down unless profits say otherwise. Then they'll cleanup the mess by DMCAing everything related to the event. NBA, NFL, Banks, etc does this to maintain a good rep.
This man is the most underrated content creator on this platform. I hope he protects himself from nefarious entities that might wish him harm. Just so everyone's aware, Louis did not and does not intend to unalive himself.
The problem is the lack of consumer protection. In Europe, the clause re-defining "purchase" as "temporary license" in the middle of fine print would be deemed "surprising" and be stricken -- especially since it doesn't even specify under which circumstances a revocation is to be expected, and on what time-frame.
I haven’t seen a halfway ethical software company in about 10 years. I’m old at 35 but still. Every tech company and media company has turned from service oriented to exploitation oriented. They’re fine being hated because they’ve monopolized everything of use or value. The fact there are only two major operating systems being used in the world for the last 25 years tells you everything. Society is no longer about innovation or improvement but about a vampiric need to drain customers of their money and their sanity. Piracy is a perfectly legitimate action under the circumstances. “Business” is a thing of a past, every business seems like a scam now.
It's a form of market capture and monopoly (or close to it). It's really hard to challenge Microsoft or Apple. Intellectual property and contractual law in the form of copyrights, TOSs, patents etc. and many other sets of laws protect their status and further growth. They're in essence immortal and too big to fail.
The ironic thing about the rootkit fiasco is that Sony themselves violated copyright when they made it. They used some code from open source software without complying with the terms of the copyleft license.
I'm old enough to have witnessed the degradation of morals and what is right or wrong especially in the technology space. I remember in the early 90's a company absolutely getting roasted for sending an email when that companies software was installed on a server, and rightly so because nowhere in the documentation was this mentioned. Fast forward to 2023 and almost every company is thousands of times worse.
@@cristiplopeanu How is this funny? It's a recollection, like reading a log file. People pointing out differences in products and companies that degrade the concept of ownership and in the process point to past norms are presenting evidence of change. CLEARLY they are aware of the differences between things in the past and things now. That's why "history" is a thing.
The computer system I used in college couldn't do any of that. The reason being that the punched cards didn't last very long if you ran them through the card reader too often.
@@cristiplopeanu Your comment is the most big brain thing I've read today. He is literally pointing out that things are different. I guess you felt the need to speak up and share your brains with everyone, eh? God help us if companies are now full of brains like you. I highly suspect they are.
@@wifine1951Yeah, for real. I've had to replace every single one of my PlayStations at least once during their life, even if I didn't play them all that much. I have no plans to ever buy a PlayStation 5.
It is war - War against the CORPORATE criminal MAFIA CORPORATIONS do not feel guilt nor have loyalty to their customers. Thus customers should not have the same feelings towards CORPORATIONS. People have learned and discovered that CORPORATE entities are exploiting their customers. APPLE CORPORATION is at the top of the list - and one has to see that the people are foolish and ignorant - allowing themself to be sodomized by APPLE CORPORATION. These uneducated people are so stupid that they do not know the difference between APPLE and Apple So let the fools be exploited - They are beyond help APPLE is a CORPORATION ( i.e. CORPORATE Entity ) Apple is a fruit Knowing the difference is not difficult for anyone who has even half a functioning brain.
Thank you for promoting transparent and trustworthy business practices! And for being a business owner with some sass. Keep fighting the good fight. 5:26 'Do I have the legal right to do that? Absolutely. Am I lower than a piece of dog shit for doing that? Yes.'
The thing, too, is companies are really pushing to break the perception on this. They want people to think that "purchase" means "permission" rather than "ownership." It's surreal to think that within the next five years, we may actually need a "Right to Ownership" movement. In the United States, of all places. 🤣🤣😭
There already needs to be one. There is no precedent set for passing down digital goods, like a PlayStation Network account full of games, from a decedent to a successor. You are entirely at the whim of the company. If you don't already have that person's password and access to all their stuff needed for 2FA, everything on that account is lost.
It's easy to see this horrible corrupt trend coming to the electric vehicle market too, as per other videos. They're essentially large moving cell phones you can sit inside.
@@bruce-le-smith Exactly! I've mentioned this before in other comments on this channel and people are like, "OkAy LoSeR", "ThAt'S nOt HoW vEhIcLeS wOrK", "YoU'rE jUsT pArAnOiD". But look at the legislation on them. Three states have already passed laws requiring 24/7 GPS tracking so they can track your mileage and add it to your taxes (I believe it's $0.07 per mile driven). I'm sure they'd "never" use it for anything else. It's creepy, man. Mass surveillance is oozing into mass control. And companies are just hoping we'll stay in our homes with smiling faces and just be happy with it.
Something I find interesting about this too is that when Playstation did used to have digitally "purchasable" movies & shows, you were typically given the option to "buy" or "rent". In recent years I'm finding that the only real differences between the two options were the cost and the timeframe of your rental. This wouldn't just be Sony either. I'm 100% positive this applies to any service that provides digital content.
Yeah like on Prime. Rent or buy a movie. It's likely the same. Ypu have a day or whatever to watch if you rent, but probably have until they take it back if you "own" it.
This. It's not even close to a Sony only problem but it seems people are just now learning about the dangers of digital downloads whenever you'd think they would have figured all of it out before they spent money on something they have never tried. It's almost like people are stupid... I have known about this problem for at least 10 years, before I ever bought my first digital game.
You are a master at communicating these ongoing ethical issues in the modern business landscape. Thank you for your constant and continual dedication to insisting upon business integrity.
I remember the rootkit affair... I also remember you could disable auto-play in Windows, and that was one of the first things I did whenever I installed Windows to anyone 🙂
In France we react to this rookit affair by making DRM for music illegal (and legal to remove it) and then put a tax on each megabyte of memory (now Sony have to pay dozens of euros on each console to the French governement). Sony and Universal was condemn to refund 1 million of customer and to destroy their CDs with rootkit at their own expense. People was so furious that they think and debate to instaure a "global licence" which was a permit to pirate. They panicked but it was only a proposal, nevertheless it resulted in a right to private copying, that is to say the right to copy for preservation purposes something previously purchased. Made legal via a tax paid on all blank recordable media.
"one of the first things I did whenever I installed Windows" Also un-hide file extensions, so you can tell the difference between .exe and .txt, .xls and .csv, .html and .doc, etc.
After getting burnt by this once, I will never again spend any money on DRM'd content. It needs to be law that if a company removes your access to something you purchased, they are required to refund you.
Better still, require require inflation be factored into that refund. Assuming a constant 3% inflation, it takes about 23 years for prices to double, so if you paid $50 back in 2001, your refund in 2024 should be $100.
This is why I've been buying DVD versions of some of my favorite cartoons, and buying physical CDs; as well as doing a bit of "sailing" if ya know what I mean. Subscription services these days are scams.
They know nobody has the time or desire or, often, the legal acumen to read through all of those service agreements. Of course they hide the meaty stuff we want to know as far into it as possible. It's not unexpected that corporations will cheat us out of every last dime whenever they can. I've never paid for anything on streaming as far as ownership. I pretty much assumed something like this would happen. If you can't hold it in your hands, you don't own it. I've been collecting DVDs and CDs for a while and now looking for a good DVD CD player.
With VIMEO ON DEMAND being the only exception for indie films. DRM free MP4 downloads available with every purchase on top of unlimited streaming rights.. Unlike Amazon I will always be happy to give VIMEO my money.
I lost a whole bunch of skins i PURCHASED on rainbow six siege during one of their updates. Filed a report. Lost some rare battlepass skins that i loved. Some halloween skins that are 1 offs every year. For a game i spent 2300 hours on. I immediately quit and have not played in almost 2 years now
@@Seasniffer69 They don't care if you quit the game. When I was at the university we had a lecture made by a guy from IBM about selling stuff. He said that product does not matter, it can be as crappy as you want, as long as advertisement is good you will sell stuff. I then asked him: "If I bought something from you and found its crap, I will never buy from you again". His answer was: "Who cares? You already bough."
"Funny" how much all these corporations seem to think acting against their customers is a good move. Keep it up Louis I've been watching you and learning for years, you are THE Man mate, and greetings from Australia.
I don't usually leave comments, I just feel it needs to be said that you are a champion for calling all these companies out. I always look forward to your educated content. I switched from apple to android because of you.
Not Louis but as a moderator here I genuinely appreciate the comment being wholesome and just overall positive among all of the negativity that's posted in the comments for the topic he's covering in this video.
I think companies are preying on young people who are going to grow up in a world where a purchase isn't a purchase and that's normalized. It will just become the way it is. It wasn't always this way. You can fight for consumer rights and transparancy.
Amen to that, brother! Besides, I am of the age now that nothing amuses me more than annoying younger folks who think they know everything and that ability falls under the public domain!
Seriously. I pirate content from (dis)services like Netflix all the time and feel nothing, because from what I hear, the creators won't get payed either way.
I had a lot of commercials come up during your video that had no skip option available and several of them were in foreign languages. I even went into my settings to check & make sure that my default language hadn't been changed!
Back in the 70s and 80s, I bought an album on vinyl and later on cassette, and again on cassette when the first one got eaten by a player. I felt zero guilt about pirating that album in the late 90s.
Same. 99% of all the MP3's I have, or had. Were all albums or cassettes I had bought. Then either lost, gotten stolen, or destroyed. Zero guilt about torrenting them.
I discovered Louis' channel recently and I am so impressed with his knowledge, honesty and dedication to a cause that helps all of us. I have been annoyed by this bullying of large corporations which has markedly increased for the last 20 years or so. I fail to understand why consumers, in general, seem so nonchalant about this obvious lack of respect and appreciation. After very negative personal experiences, I have sworn never to do business again with two large Canadian corporations (unless I had no other option) for similar behavior. Instead, I found small ISP who use their infrastructure to deliver me the same performance but much better customer service, all at a lower price. Thanks Louis, you're my hero! 🙂
@@davesilver5493 The legal definition of theft is depriving someone of their property. No one was deprived of anything therefore no theft occurred. Piracy is not theft.
@@davesilver5493 I'm not a sovereign citizen, I just understand the law better than you do. The legal definition of theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property. No one was deprived of any property therefore no theft occurred. Case closed.
The BMG rootkit scandal turned me from a Sony audio equipment junkie into a pirate that never bought another piece of hardware or media from the company. I wish more people felt the same way,
I agree with your point to not use the word purchase on a sale if at some point in the future I will no longer own the purchase content. As you stated, using that terminology is a bait and switch for the customer. Keep fighting the good fight.
Have lived by the motto that "if purchasing doesn't mean ownership then pirating doesn't mean theft" most of my adult life.... I knew it would come back to haunt everyone that unfortunately played by the rules set by the content providers. Happily have a digital media library based solely on ripped albums and movies from physical media (an iTunes was shutting down I think the only "paid downloads" we're from some U2 album that had been gifted me years before). ...and I still own multiple blu-rays and games all on disc all of which I can sell trade or gift whenever I please. I will continue to buy discounted used as well as sail those seas whenever necessary. I always check out on the few programs I might buy and then I'm told that I'm not allowed an upgrade etc etc and it's easy to brush off when you banked so many other less onerous and much cheaper options (and can easily do the upgrade by sailing the salty seas).
It has already happened many times... through service closures, bans, license changes, and several other gimmicks and malarkey they have pulled over the years. Of course... nothing so ironic as when 1984 was retroactively joinked from Customers Kindles by Amazon... Considering the premise of that Title... it's like a self fulfilling prophecy in regards to how obtuse and brazen corporations are now.
Makes me appreciate my huge VHS, book, and dvd collection. Can't be easily taken away. Also can't be censored later, like many digital versions of movies are
My new hobby is trawling charity shops, petrol station stands, discount DVD aisles and buying anything that takes my fancy. My DVD/Blu-Ray collection will likely double in the next few weeks. Also bought a Blu-Ray/DVD external drive to make sure and "digital copies" are mine to do with as I wish. As with everything these days, if something is sold as a "convenience" it almost certainly removes your rights.
Consider their storage too. Try to keep them out of direct UV light between 55-70 degrees Fahrenheit and 30-55% relative humidity without big fluctuations. It's easy to forget the discs are a complicated sandwich of plastic and metal that can warp and/or separate. Just sharing in that spirit of helping other viewers avoid wasting their money.
This was a warning to everyone. You better learn to start datahoarding your media offline. If it happens to you again and you lose everything you "bought". Itll be on you this time. This should be a wake up call. I wont feel bad for it happening to people again. This would be like staying in the same neighborhood after you continue to keep getting broken into over and over and your stuff stolen.
When I tell people I have hoarded 30TB of video games and 4K adult movies, they give a weird look. So, they will eventually all be behind paywalls, drms and tons of ads.
@mystic_scythe Something I have done since the 90's... Collect and store everything, programs, videos, documents, operatingsystems, fonts... everything
Love your work Louis, I’ve been an advocate for owning what you pay for since digital distribution became a thing and people called me mad. Glad to see a vocal representative and a community that shares the same mindset
@@Clarissa1986 Think it was in the Early adoption when people didn't think companies would do that. I had a few call me an idiot because I said I was afraid of the companies removing movies and games I bought. a few years later they realized that if companies think they can get away with it, they would make you buy the same content repeatedly at the full price.
I absolutely love how scathing and blunt you are in matters like these. It needs to be said this way to drive the point home. Keep fighting the good fight!
This is an additional reason why I prefer to buy physical media for movies, tv shows and video games. When a store digital front decides they want to remove something from their library due to obligations with developers, etc or shuts down said store front, its the consumer who's left short changed.
Exactly. Physical media, or a digital copy in a common format (i.e. not a proprietary format that only works with specific devices or software) that I can easily backup etc.
I think its about time that these corporations receive a class action law suit by consumer protection agencies for using the incorrect terminology of "purchase" "sale" "buy" etc. when it actually means lease, rent, gain temporary access to, subscribe. And they should be fined according to their yearly revenue billions if necessary for deception.
If companies insist in their ToS that a purchase is a "license" and can be ended as they see fit or at a set period, it should no longer be called a purchase, as that is misleading, it needs to be calling licensing or renting first and foremost. They obviously dont do that though because they know itll scare customers away.
I would love for you to do a video on “Dark patterns” or “Deceptive design patterns.” You may not have heard the term, but you’ve _definitely_ experienced them. Just think of the last time you got a popup to sign up for emails from some scummy retail site that says “No I’d rather pay full price” or junk software bundled with something completely different (and the ‘skip’ option is hidden in 2pt font).
imagine if this was how purchasing physical art from an artist, a painting for example, worked; that they just have a clause that you sign and "agree" to allowing them to break into your house with any means they deem necessary to physically take possession of the painting whenever they feel like it.
Thank you very much, more voices like yours are needed. In Europe we call it American business model (happening all over the world, don't get me wrong) which is in real language description of crime. Rip off customer any way you can, cheating, deceiving hiding behind ULA or whatever, it's just not honest. And who will in the end trust this companies? Less and less people obviously.
@@ixian_technocrat Haha. No. European companies have long been capable of their own terrible behavior. Though US consumer protection is definitely lagging currently.
I'll second that about Sony, Louis. The specs on Sony audio equipment are often double what a bode plot reveals. And Sony has no respect for their customers regarding warranty, but we are learning. Thanks for the continuing education. Salute from Canada.
An early warning about this came with law frameworks like DMCA in various countries. If you bought a CD or DVD, these companies wanted to restrict your ability to rip that content to files on your computer and play it that way. Suddenly you had committed copyright theft.
Glad you’re talking about this. With Amazon and their latest stunt, I don’t feel so bad about d/l’ing ‘backup’ copies of the content I have already purchased.
They haven't forgotten. They just thought they were at the point of being a monopoly that didn't require caring anymore. Give them 5 years, it will resurface.
Yup. They'll just use another term to make it seem reasonable to unsuspecting buyers. People are so easily fooled by words. Corporations and marketers have known this for over a century. As long as you can make people feel good by manipulating words and images, they'll let you do just about anything to them. There's a reason why mainstream politics is what it is - people don't care about what's true as long as it gives them the tingles.
Luckly that EULA example shown is illegal and not binding in the EU. If they say Purchase, than its purchased. Hope they really try to force such thing in the EU. ^^
@@test-rj2vl not true. everybody inside the EU can directly write a email (there is also a well documented guide by the GOV, howto and all mail adresse are listed) to commite who is in charge of consumer rights to handle such stuff. already did that many times. one example was, where google was trying to force their web-drm inside chrome
People keep saying this. Can you tell me... when this happened last year with Sony and StudioCanal which law was used to prevent content removal? Nope? Happens all the time, there's no additional protection in the EU. It's a myth.
I remember the Sony rootkit debacle. Sony used to be my go-to brand when buying electronics but I have not bought anything from them since then, not even the PlayStation. For their movies on DVD/BluRay, I’d wait until I could get them used. They lost a customer for life with that stunt.
They know people don't read the EULA, so instead of placing a button saying "rent for indefinite time" they write "purchase" and then call it what it is in the place they know the customer won't read.
Too bad an EULA isn't legally binding if it can't be read up front (before use of the product), and, of course, law will always take precedence over any clauses contained in an EULA
If i could love this video, i would. Companies must hate your videos 😂 as all they want to do is steal from their customers and you call them out on it. I applaud your channel and your efforts. Best content on TH-cam by a country mile.
This is why I like physical media. My fiancé loves the convenience of buying movies on Amazon and has a huge digital library. I told him he doesn’t really own any of that once and then reiterated it when this news came out. And I said the same when Best Buy announced they’d stop carrying physical media next year. I am hoping this one plays out in court to set a precedent that stops them from doing this. It is totally stealing.
I think the terminology you use is very apt and warranted. I think practices like this normalize predatory behavior in society so people believe it's acceptable to treat other this way because it's so ubiquitous. I'm glad someone is taking a stark stand against it because we as consumers need to hear someone speak up amongst the waves of defenders that say we should have read the contract or "that's just how it is." It's shit practice and it feels more common than not.
Ironically, you can see the same methods applied by predatory people of all kinds, albeit sometimes just on a smaller scale. But gradually normalizing abusive behavior is "domestic abuse 101"
The argument that "you had the opportunity to read the EULA and reject it" holds no water. 1. My days are 24 hours long, and I have many responsibilities to worry about. I simply don't have the time to read all agreements I enter in, let alone understand them in-depth. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter - companies can just hire extra people to make the EULA's longer and more difficult to read. 2. Software and digital services are now so embedded in our society that, a lot of the time, you don't even have much of a choice in practice. The law should make it simple: 1. If there's anything in your EULA that a normal person might find counter-intuitive, questionable, or downright unacceptable -> then you are obliged to spell this out clearly to the customer before they enter into the agreement. If you don't, it's null and void by default. 2. The language used in these agreements must be understandable by the layperson with basic knowledge about the field. You most certainly cannot redefine words to mean something completely different from what the layperson would automatically assume it means. 3. Unnecessarily long terms are null and void by default.
Speaking of which, it's pretty damn suspicious that Blu-ray burners and HVDs never took off. It's not easy to back up things that range from 20-150gb across a ton of 4.7gb DVD-Rs.
@@ohnoitschris you're right it's not. I have several 5 tb external hard drives. I'm at the point now where I'm scared about HD failure. I need to backup some of my older hard drives. 🤷
I rip audio tracks from TH-cam all the time. On the back label of every CD I ever bought, there was a promise of "a lifetime of enjoyment." Well, I'm holding the record companies to that promise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That was so brutally honest, love it. Very refreshing in the era of youtubers bleeping swear words and carefully choosing their every word to stay on the good side of the platform.
i find it morally ok to 'pirate' things after the official sales have stopped. like ps2 games just to name one example. though id prefer to call it 'digital archeology'
It's fucked up how my experience with many pirated games is better than my experience with games I've legally purchased. No drms, No need to log in, No Anti theft bs. No required online connectivity.
I've been moving more and more further away from this whole renting media thing the more I've been using tech I've just switched to Linux to escape windows spying, I've made a local backup drive for my steam library with some cracked files so they run without steam incase something with them happens, I made a plex server and digitized my dvds It's been both actually really freeing, fun, and educational, as it's taught me about networking, server infrastructure, remote video encoding, mass storage, and things like new operating systems, and I'm excited to see what else I'll learn through sticking it to 'the man' Thank you Louis, for encouraging me to invest in things like an ancient but repairable thinkpad, and open source technologies, and for fighting in the political space to make future tech better
The damage has already been done. I’m buying physical copies of my media and ripping them to my own private cloud streaming server. I’m buying physical books and getting a digital copy (for when I absolutely can’t crack open a physical one). The only thing I can’t buy and own are games due to DRM but I’ll find a way!
Piracy is there for you! After you purchased a game, at least for me you are morally(and should be legally) justified to pirate the content you bought. DRM does nothing but make a practice for hackers(hacker in a good way, not bad one).
Games are actually pretty easy if you just go back a generation or two. May need some modification of your game systems but it's very doable if you know how to solder.
I've been doing the same with my CD collection, DVD collection of my favorite cartoons, and political science books to no propaganda machine can revoke my access. As some wise man once said "You're not paranoid if they're after you."
What sony did regarding their rootkit was true. I worked there at the time. It was a death bell ringing for them, since they had to recall all their CDs during the busy retail season. Lots of money lost for them that year, and frankly they never recovered since MP3s were gaining heavy traction at the time.
Learn that CORPORATIONS are DEAD entities -- and the DEAD do not care about the living. So get the point. One has to beat them at their own game. It's war. The people have to collectively fight the CORPORATE criminal MAFIA As that famous British Sheikh (what's his name ?) said Oh Yes - I remember now Sheikh Speare said "" All is fair in Love and War ""
@@ambiarock590 Spotted the retard that can’t even make an argument. Why did you even reply, retard? Did you genuinely think your retarded thoughts were worth sharing? How many women have you had sex with, retard?
I remember when game discs on PC in the early millenia to mid millenia had Securom (Another corporate based rootkit). Also the USB metal thumbdrive for Xenoblade Chronicles X collectors edition has a Sony DRM rootkit (few tracks from the game) that can infect the computer with some covert DRM/rootkit like what you described Louis. I personally dont see piracy as stealing if corporations want to screw over people.
![PASULOL รามเกียรติ์ ตอนที่ 4 นนทกพบรัก [Ramakien Ep.4: Nonthok in love]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tMUQgmZzf_A/mqdefault.jpg)
If buying isn’t owning it, then pirating isn’t stealing.
Louder, I didn't hear you.
@@rossmanngroup I miss physical media, I want it back.
@@rossmanngroup*If buying isn't owning it, then pirating isn't stealing!!*
"You wouldn't download a car".
Like hell I would, especially when I pay for it, and the sellers decide that I should no longer have it... While keeping my money.
This, this, this and more this.
I love that making a COPY of their content is "theft", but them TAKING AWAY things you paid for is apparently "fine".
Agreed. If I paid for a $30 Minecraft Java account back in 2013, and Mojang decides to delete your account if you do not migrate (maybe because you dont trust Microsoft), thats stealing. Yet people justify it with the EULA bs and how you were given time. Doesnt matter about time anyways, its stealing
@@bumblebeegamerreal Reminds me of a couple years ago where a similar thing happened with an mmo called black desert online, people lost accounts with thousands of dollars of purchases and gear that took thousands of hours to get on it because of that.
legal vs illegal. they couldn't care less about morality.
@@bumblebeegamerrealI think it's because so many people view the government as their parent rather than something that is supposed to be made up of a group of peers that are operating according to how everyone collectively comes to agree on or they are subject to consequences just as anyone else would be.
Government is not supposed to be above it's citizens that's a dictatorship, it's supposed to operate in accordance to what the population agrees upon. I don't agree with what the population does always on things such as psychiatry, I view it as an industry in desperate need of regulations and to be more like Finland's in that a therapist needs to be seen first, then a psychologist and then of need be a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs. I think that the majority of people who are considered I'll are only temporarily so because of abuse and being trapped in a cycle without a way out or help available that won't lead to self incrimination in the process or just a lack of being able to get any goals achieved such as what happened to me with not being able to secure a relationship with someone that was intimate on the level of boyfriend/girlfriend or dating, or a job that wasn't a dead end job which could lead into working with technology like working in an Amazon warehouse for awhile waiting for an opportunity then moving up from within by being present at work and offering solutions from your own independent expertise as an extensive hobbyist and enthusiast of technology.
I later learned even Amazon outsources it's IT infrastructure to India so... I don't know what I want to do now especially since that time I suffered a chemical lobotomy which left me with me permanent cognitive deficits and memory impairments.
@@joegame4576 Legal is whatever they can pay politicians to put in the law.
Just to hammer this home, this is not a "you never owned it, this was just a long term rental" issue. The language in this purchase agreement said PURCHASE. it was purchased content, and they clearly said that in the press release as well. They knew they were taking something you owned.
Also remember when they demonstrate how you can lend your PS4 games to your friend by lending them the disc? This was done to dunk on Xbox One by the way.
The people who complain about this are just bootlickers who believe CEOs are always right no matter what they do.
IT seems to me that attempting to redefine a word that is in common usage, with a widely accepted meaning, would be perfect grounds for a class action suit. (I'm pretty sure that "lying about your product, or intentionally misrepresenting the terms of sale for your product, for the purpose of making money" is still legally defined as "fraud" in most courts.)
The shameful thing is that when a person dies, people used to inherit all their purchased books and movies. Not the case with Amazon Kindle or movie digital purchases. Estates should be able to resell a decedents digital purchases 💪
Yup.
Same with purchased games on Steam.
Can you legally inherit individual pieces of digital media in your country? Would you then be able to inherit a computer, but not the software on it, which was 'given' to someone else?
I decrypt my amazon kindle books using the calibre and plugins.
@@Leonvolt28 You're partially correct. I don't think Steam allows for the full on transfer of accounts, however Steam doesn't delete unused accounts, and does have a Family Sharing feature.
If you account is set to be shared with family members, I don't know of any instance where Steam would have revoked that after a family member's death.
There is no explicit example on this on their FAQ from what I saw, but it might be worth trying to contact Steam support in the case of an unexpected death. They get a bad rap, but they might be willing to posthumously activate Family Sharing with proof.
If you say purchase, then take it away, I should get a refund
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony lawyers noticed that some state or country DOES require refunds if you lie to your customers, and walking this back was the cheaper option.
I'm sure that's what happened
if sony wanna operate in the EU, yea :P
Refund? They should return the stolen goods and compensate the victims. This is them doing some of that in hopes they won't be forced to do it all.
They were absolutely about to be sued
Yeah, *this* country requires that. No matter what the EULA says, it's plain and simple false advertisement. If the FTC didn't get around to suing them you could be sure they would have been hearing from dozens of the state attorneys general. And if you come up against fraud like this in the future immediately contact your state AG.
Not sure if it’s the same in the US, but in Europe we pay a special tax of about 6% on ALL storage media, including the storage in your computer iPad etc. This tax is to compensate content creators in the case of piracy. So, since we are pre-emptively taxed, found guilty without a trial, I think piracy is allowed, since we’re actually paying for it.
They did this in Canada too.
Totally agree
piracy MUST BE legal, since the government is no part of it!!! What a crock. "We're helping the content creators!" Load of shit. Who collects the interest in the money? Where/what account is tat monies held? Probably Gennie (the general fund) where amyone can SPEN it.
Canada and Europe make me sad
@@MrClickbang357 Yeah this is always the scam. They institute a general tax with the justification that it is for the "poor little people", then insiders in government always spend it on themselves and the people like them.
There's a word for what these companies are doing:
Scam.
100%
You misspelled 'fraud'.
@@MarkZickefoose It's both fraud and scam
It's what corporations do when they have a monopoly, and the corrupt government doesn't apply anti-trust laws and consumer protection laws against these corporation.
No "Crimes against Humanity"
There needs to be massive, billion dollar class-action lawsuits over this (followed by boycotts).
I can't boycott Sony! I've never spent money with them in the first place
More like trillion, most of the money always goes to the lawyers
The last thing Sony needs right now is another lawsuit. They're already seeing a lawsuit in the ballpark of what Microsoft spent for Zenimax Media, because of their monopolistic practices regarding the sale of digital games.
Hey, did you notice that there aren't many class action lawsuits anymore? There's a reason everything pivoted to arbitration and thereafter all the products went to crap.
Indeed!!!
You are 100% correct that I am unwilling to pay for a subscription to get back the thing I previously paid for. Also, if you get to redefine the word "purchase" on page 22, do I get to redefine the word "payment"? I think so?
PIRACY IS ALSO THE ONLY REASON WE HAVE ANY ACCESS TO SOME MEDIA CONTENT. Studios and publishers will let so much be lost to history if they don't feel like selling it anymore: movies, shows, video games, music, books.
this is completely true - it's not piracy if it's not accessible
This is an excellent point ... charging extraorbitant money by bundling stuff together is one thing but sitting on stuff and not making it available is on other level of evil.
Or if they feel like censoring it via de facto digital book burning.
I sailed the high seas and got my copies of the SciFi channels Dune and Children of Dune miniseries since it was out of print and unavailable on any streaming service. Plus I was not going to pay $60 for used old stock dvds
Yeah, some companies **cough** Nintendo **cough** that go to war over archival and preservation of shit they don't care enough to even make available...
I just knew someone was going to mention the rootkit scandal eventually, and I'm glad you did. I feel like that didn't get *enough* controversy and people don't bring it up enough. People, Sony installed viruses on their customer's computers. That's insane. Frankly, there should've been arrests and extended jailtime over this, and Sony should've been destroyed then and there. If I put a virus on your computer without your consent, even if it technically doesn't do anything, I can go to jail for years; a corporation does it on a mass scale and nothing happens. Rules for thee, not for me.
Yeah, I am one of those who remember that, it made some headlines in some magazines back then. I never wanted to pirate music but for a long time my parents made me buy pirated CD/Cassette instead, and in other times I just can't find the CDs of those South American artists I wanted. I could get them from itunes for some of them but it has annoying DRM on them as well. So at least for Sony ones, sorry I will just grab it from Limewire or Kazaa without any guilt.
Also what that rootkit Sony put are:
1: Anything but harmless, it is a trojan which can allow others to access your PC from the backdoor.
2: Very poorly written and not secure, all a hacker need is to put $ in front of the file names of the payload for them to be let through.
I purchased some games for my nieces and nephews for Christmas, I thought I’d been conned when they opened the cases as there was no game inside, then realized they contained a download code. No-one understood why I was irritated by this but I ordered a physical product to own, if I just wanted a download then I would purchase through the online store
I dunno what game you bought but in general modern games do not fit on disks even when you get real physical disk it’s just a pretty place to store your digital liscense as the product is something like 100 GBs of data. This truth is VERY convenient for the ppl who publish games but it is true
@@alexphelps7042 they could do read-only flash drives?
@@alexphelps7042 Then add more disks, or ship on USB drives if it's cheaper. I remember games that came on 4+ disks because they couldn't fit on one, 100GB would take like 22 disks but then they could just charge more for the physical copy. I own the full Stargate SG-1 boxset, 10 seasons, it has a stupid number of disks and I never have to check with a server to see if I still have the right to play the content on the disks. The only reason they don't even try is because they can potentially milk you more in future with online DRM.
Yep 15 years ago I purchased World of Warcraft and the CD was just an install of the downloader that proceeded to DL the game from their server.
@@alexphelps7042they could easily still fit an installer on the disk and let you install it to your drive before being able to play. In fact, this was even still commonplace back in the Xbox One & PS4 days. When they realized they could get away with hurting resales even more and funneling more money into themselves, they stopped doing it.
I still have massive respect for Nintendo for fitting the entire game as it released on cartridges.
How come they're allowed to call it "buying" or "purchasing" the product? That should be illegal. Also, if you pirate something you already own, it's not piracy. You steal from me, I steal the same thing back, only you don't even lose anything, I just get what I paid for. That's just making sure I don't get screwed. If they call it anything else, they're lying.
You will own nothing and you will be happy
Downloading something you already own is legal (though a bit of a gray area). Seeding it isn't, because you're illegally distributing it. That's where they get you.
Government insistence on a made-up thing called "intellectual property" is how we got to this situation and you somehow think more government is the solution...
@@Netist_ similar deal to roms. you can dump your own but uploading is when cough nintendo cough gets pissy
@@Netist_ im sure its at worst overlooked around the world; i only ever got 1 email from my isp asking about a thing and that was because it was warner brothers and it was only a couple months old...
dont make money off it and youre all good
“Companies have forgotten to not screw over the customer” nothing truer has been said. Shame a lot of customers are used to being screwed over now.
If the contract says "license" but the "button" is classified/says as a "Buy/Purchase" then I consider that to literally be "false advertisement" by the very definition of the meaning. when I pay for a "temporary" movie on Amazon... it says... "rent" not "buy" The "buy" is a different button!
You can consider whatever you want. The government will side with them, not you.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Exactly, the reasonable lifetime of the licensed product/or forever.
People just want to play semantics on "purchase" vs "licensed stream".
At no point was anyone able to download(store locally) the content in question, it was always a streamed product but bEcAuSE iT sAY PuRcHasE tHEn sOnY sToLE It FrOm tHeM.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M Imo, that's a terrible definition by the way you could swap "Buying" with "Renting" and it's equally as correct. As far as the public is concerned:
"Renting" = Temporarily buying or purchasing a product or property.
You could argue it's not the official definition but this is what the customers will think when "Buy/Purchase" and "Rent" are put before them and it WILL impact their decision to know what they're getting before they spend their money.
There is a reason every company has "Buy" or "Purchase" buttons but never a "Buy a license" or "Rent" button for the same stuff: Customers want to own their content, companies want as much money from you as possible and owning stuff is counter-intuitive to the company's goal.
This ☝️
Except for the fact that EVEN IF YOU 'BUY' a digital movie on Amazon, they STILL reserve the right to DELETE that movie for ANY reason at ANY time! So it literally means NOTHING!!!
I can't wait to see your thoughts about the new Prime Video announcement. Adding adverts to a paid service under the guise of "it helps us pay our bills" gotta be the most ridiculous thing I've seen from a BILLION dollar company in a while lmaooo
Awesome comment, sir! I don't use Prime Video, but it fits in with the increasingly pathetic approach of large corporations.
Prime video was for years now the only streaming service I thought was “worth it” considering I am a prime user, adding ads will be really lame.
@@user-iv1in2bd2w Use the ONLY power you have at your command and cancel your membership, and let them know why you're doing it. When enough people leave the ads WILL be removed.
Honestly most of what Amazon puts out is dogwater anyways, not even worth piracy, much less watching with ads
Hey, they can only afford to buy 15 mansions instead of the 20 they could before inflation. It's hitting them really hard!
Thank you for mentioning the Rootkit shenanigans. People forget, or as you said may simply have been too young. Sony has a *history*. Sony has a *track record*. If you think piracy is bad, then by all means - don't pirate. But good lord, don't give your money to Sony.
As Cory Doctorow said "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing."
Discovery throwing horrendous ads on programming while paying was the cancel point for me. I pay to avoid ads, i don't pay to see them even if you give me a few $ discount. Crazy to me.
@mystic_scythe quit paying for netflix a few months ago.i was paying it for my parents but i had to say enough after their recent price raise
Amazon is now adding ads to movies & TV but you can pay an extra few dollars for "LIMITED AD'S"! Even if you pay more you still get ads, wtf. Thinking about canceling, this is ridiculous.
My mother has a Rocku stick that is used for TV. It requires a subscription (cuz of course it does) and still has ads. I go out of my way to avoid ads, and sure as hell ain't gonna pay to see ads.
Thank God there's someone out there like you saying these things. This world needs more people like you.
its funny being able to watch this all come full circle. I remember when netflix first launched, outside of not having to rent movies. It was that you could watch all this content on one platform for one price. Instead of paying for multiple channel packages including stuff you didnt want. And now here we are with streaming services doing the exact same thing cable companies did.
Netflix was the chosen one. It was said that it would destroy cable, not join it.
Was.
Back when you could get Netflix on your Wii, but you needed a seperate disc to do so
Back when Netflix had "watch parties" @@samtinkle9076
@@GH0STST4RSCR34M true but to their point it does seem to be the first one that the vast public ever associated along with the idea
Netflix definitely marketed it as a platform for you to see your "favorite" shows for one price. They had nickelodeon, cartoon network, pretty much all of the Fox animated content, comedy central, just to name a few that you would've had to purchase channel packages to see back in the day. Granted Hulu did launch streaming before Netflix but they were exclusively Tv shows. @@GH0STST4RSCR34M
Years ago, I said that this was going to happen. That every network would have its own streaming service And that subscribing to more and more streaming services would increasingly cost more than cable, or buying your favorite shows and movies on DVD.
*FOR THE "YOU ONLY BOUGHT A LICENSE" PEOPLE:* No, you didn't "only buy a license." Companies have gaslit you into thinking this over the decades and it has worked wonderfully, but that's not how a *purchase* works. If I pay to *PURCHASE* a digital product, the company has no right to revoke access to the digital product. *That's clawing back the sale.* It doesn't matter what is stated in their click-wrap agreement fine print. It doesn't matter if they disclaim the warranty of merchantability or claim that I'm purchasing a revocable license. *If they put out a product to be bought and I pay to buy it, I own my copy of that product.* End of story.
We need to remind folks that the entire point of the license you do see on purchased media is to prevent you from using that copy for commerical purposes. It's license that lets you watch the media in private, but not to show on a big projector and sell tickets to others for a viewing. _That's_ the fine print-- and it was not about the company being able to claw the media back from you.
And yet, you don't. The government will side with them, not you.
@@snex000 First sale doctrine. Your statement is invalid.
@@JodyBruchon You can spout whatever nonsense you want. Simple fact is, if they want to delete it, they will delete it, and there's jack shit you can do about it that won't label YOU as a criminal.
If you want this to change, fix the problem at the source.
@@snex000 Aww, poor baby can't defend points. Keep crying, your tears are delicious!
In defense of piracy, I remember back in the day I was at a concert for a Japanese rock band (L'Arc-en-Ciel) which is initially famous in the West for anime openings (GTO, FullMetal Alchemist, and later Gundam 00). The venue was packed. Everybody paid their ticket. They didn't just played the songs from animes, they played from their whole catalog and most people knew the songs.
I can guarantee that everybody in the crowd pirated their over ten albums. But here we all were supporting an artist that, sure is big in Japan, but would have never had that amount of audience in the West without piracy. (That was long before Spotify, etc, and the only legal way to get their CDs was from imports for €40-50.)
The thing that worries me about that is the "updated licensing agreement", which implies that that licensing agreement, too, could expire and put us right back where we started. There has to be some kind of legal protection that PURCHASED content is no longer subject to licensing between 3rd party entities.
The Darth Vader school of capitalism.
I have altered the TOS. Pray I don't alter it further.
@@Praisethesunson#asthmaticbreathing
There are some games on Steam that the licence agreement between development studio/publisher and the licence holder expired/was not renewed and while one is unable to purchase that game/content anymore, those who did purchase it allready, still have acces to that content.
Darth Vader comes to mind
They also usually state in their EULAs that they can change the contract at any time for any reason, so even if you read through the legal and technical jargon and understood it, they could update it later to be completely different and you might not even know until they screw you over.
"purchase"
This was theft, plain and simple. They need to face the same consequences as someone who breaks into your home to steal your DVDs.
Yup, though what happened now is on the same lines as someone threatening to steal your stuff in a week, then when you get upset at it they decide they changed their mind, so I'd hold them as accountable as someone who only threatened to steal from you, which would still be bad.
No but it's okay because they tell you about it on page 22.
I mean, if I tried to sneak something into a contract like that, I'd be sued and jailed. But since they're huge, it's perfectly fine.
bam wham, that's a scam
I wouldn't steal a car from a dealership, but I would totally be fine with visiting someone who bought the car legally and is willing to let me use their magic cloning machine
"It can take YEARS to build up a good customer relationship..... it WILL take a single dishonest action by the trader to destroy that relationship".
Sony are literally infamous for repeated bad acts like this. They never cared.
@@0LoneTech I'm still amazed they won the Blueray war vs HDDVD. After losing with Betamax and Minidisc I thought for sure they were going to lose that one too.
Google, Apple, Amazon, **insert any big corporation** making decision to ruin the relationship time and time again: wait you guys are still here?
@@knightdtd Many people are too just too plain thick to realise major corporations are openly pissing in their faces... but the more and more people such as Louis announcing their corporate transgressions to the less aware will eventually have an effect on their future customer base.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Agreed, I was just being facetious. It'd be nice if what you quoted were reality, and people like Louis are greatly increasing the probability of that becoming true.
The fun one I had to deal with... I got some movies on Amazon US... then I swapped to Amazon UK and they tried to tell me they cannot transfer it over because of licencing... like, okay then, I will be joining Captain Sparrow for the foreseeable future.
I see ye wish to sail the seven seas, wise choise me laddie!
This is why im a strong advocate of backing up digital content that i pay either on Cd/DVD or external drives, especialy games. Not only is it a way to preserve them (disc rot), but also insurance in case companies decide to have a "different interpretation" of purchase.
Yeah, if companies want to redefine what "purchase" means on their end then the consumer has every right to redefine what "payment" means. It's obvious that corporations have a powerful grip on the world and they know it which is why they pull this crap. There is virtually no accountability for the big and powerful ones. So, yeah. Everyone should pirate anything and everything they can because that's what "purchasing" actually is now.
unilateral change of terms IS legally possible from both parties.
Just file an affidavit stating the new terms, with a clause about needing to reply by certain means by certain date to opt out.
Mainly if they're pulling the kind of bs EA pulls. I won't buy any more EA games
"Grip on the World" - change that to "grip on the USA". In the European Union, corporate ToS or EULAs are invalid before the Law, precisely because companies have an unfair amount of power vs the average customer.
@@KnightofAges Sony pulled the same thing in Germany and Austria not too long before this with Studiocanal, except in that case they didn't even walk back the decision. I don't know the reason why, but AFAIK they haven't gotten in any trouble for it.
Well said as always.
My opinion: Always buy physical media where you can, always have a 'pirate' copy of everything you think you own to hand. Indeed feel free to 'try before you buy' ...the vendor sure as hell doesn't give a crap about it's customers these days so be as certain as you can they can't screw you, either by selling something that isn't fit for purpose or stealing it from you after the fact.
If what you mean by "pirate" copy is a personal backup of said item I paid for ie (Ripping my Switch games and backing them up to PC for example) thats not even "pirating" anyway. If I paid for the item in question it's perfectly legal and falls under personal use
Eg: every Marvel and DC movies
@@FantomMisfit This depends on the country. In the UK ripping your purchased CDs is illegal, even for personal use. It was legal for a brief period in 2014/2015 when an exception was introduced in the law to allow for that, but this was challenged successfully by the music writers' and musicians unions and this exception was *revoked* by the government following a High Court ruling in 2015. Ever since then ripping purchased CDs for personal use has been illegal again in the UK. Not many people know this; in 2014 they heard it had become legal, and stopped following the subsequent legal wrangling.
Is that BMG?
@@maidsandmusesThe UK has some of the dumbest laws I've ever heard.
Thank you for the good work everyone, remember never to let them live it down. Cancel your subscriptions, purchase on other platforms or pirate. We gotta teach them, that even trying scummy scammy things will cause permanent damage to their stocks.
Just a supporting comment to what Louis is saying, i had the pleasure of talking to him on the phone once, he is literally like this in life. Honest to the bone and doesnt sugar coat the reality. Dealing with him and his business was the easiest and one of the most pleasant experiences.. Thanks bossman Louis!
Thank you!
There should be a law that requires companies to refund people for their purchased content if they no longer make it available after purchasing it.
How come "more government" is the only solution you people ever come up with, which is all we ever get, and then you still wonder why shit continues to deteriorate?
@@snex000 solution?
@@snex000 Ok what's your solution? If you got an idea I'm all ears. what other recourse do we have? if it's not a law to protect us as consumers . Companies use laws against us as consumers all the time! That's why we are moving toward a model of being unable to own anything anymore.
@@snex000 Government in and of itself isn't the problem. You have to have some kind of enforcement body for your rules and regulations or else they don't mean anything.
@@zepfred77 Yes more government is good but it must truly be run by the people for the people, the problem is the current government is not that kind of system so the only time a law like that would be passed is once real people step in.
They're just going to do it quietly later, in the hopes that no-one notices
This so much. They wont relent
Yup, they give up the battle and wait to later win the bigger battle or war they are waging against us.
I do suspect they will slowly remove content over time one show at a time hoping no one catches on then offer a lame excuse as to why they did it for that particular show once it is noticed, then wait longer and repeat.
Reminds me of PayPal
Literally the standard protocol for anything controversial and they want to stand by it. They'll wait for it to calm down unless profits say otherwise. Then they'll cleanup the mess by DMCAing everything related to the event. NBA, NFL, Banks, etc does this to maintain a good rep.
This man is the most underrated content creator on this platform. I hope he protects himself from nefarious entities that might wish him harm.
Just so everyone's aware, Louis did not and does not intend to unalive himself.
No
No
The problem is the lack of consumer protection. In Europe, the clause re-defining "purchase" as "temporary license" in the middle of fine print would be deemed "surprising" and be stricken -- especially since it doesn't even specify under which circumstances a revocation is to be expected, and on what time-frame.
I haven’t seen a halfway ethical software company in about 10 years. I’m old at 35 but still. Every tech company and media company has turned from service oriented to exploitation oriented. They’re fine being hated because they’ve monopolized everything of use or value. The fact there are only two major operating systems being used in the world for the last 25 years tells you everything. Society is no longer about innovation or improvement but about a vampiric need to drain customers of their money and their sanity. Piracy is a perfectly legitimate action under the circumstances. “Business” is a thing of a past, every business seems like a scam now.
Me pirating software is simply good business.
oss left chat
It's a form of market capture and monopoly (or close to it). It's really hard to challenge Microsoft or Apple. Intellectual property and contractual law in the form of copyrights, TOSs, patents etc. and many other sets of laws protect their status and further growth. They're in essence immortal and too big to fail.
*CAPITALISM*
And yet you probably still think the government should enforce "intellectual property rights," just not like this.
The ironic thing about the rootkit fiasco is that Sony themselves violated copyright when they made it. They used some code from open source software without complying with the terms of the copyleft license.
I'm old enough to have witnessed the degradation of morals and what is right or wrong especially in the technology space. I remember in the early 90's a company absolutely getting roasted for sending an email when that companies software was installed on a server, and rightly so because nowhere in the documentation was this mentioned. Fast forward to 2023 and almost every company is thousands of times worse.
hello sir, would you like to purchase an extended warranty for your extended warranty? Or maybe a support contract
What's funny is that people go a lot in their past memories, yet they fail to understand how different things were in the past than they are now.
@@cristiplopeanu How is this funny? It's a recollection, like reading a log file. People pointing out differences in products and companies that degrade the concept of ownership and in the process point to past norms are presenting evidence of change. CLEARLY they are aware of the differences between things in the past and things now. That's why "history" is a thing.
The computer system I used in college couldn't do any of that. The reason being that the punched cards didn't last very long if you ran them through the card reader too often.
@@cristiplopeanu Your comment is the most big brain thing I've read today. He is literally pointing out that things are different. I guess you felt the need to speak up and share your brains with everyone, eh? God help us if companies are now full of brains like you. I highly suspect they are.
i have zero scruples about ripping off any company willing to rip off their customers
That’s why I stay away from Sony products. They’re shit and PlayStation is only keeping them afloat
@@wifine1951Yeah, for real. I've had to replace every single one of my PlayStations at least once during their life, even if I didn't play them all that much. I have no plans to ever buy a PlayStation 5.
I'm pirating sony games and movies right now!!
It is war -
War against the CORPORATE criminal MAFIA
CORPORATIONS do not feel guilt nor have loyalty to their customers.
Thus customers should not have the same feelings towards CORPORATIONS.
People have learned and discovered that CORPORATE entities are
exploiting their customers.
APPLE CORPORATION is at the top of the list -
and one has to see that the people are foolish and ignorant -
allowing themself to be sodomized by APPLE CORPORATION.
These uneducated people are so stupid that they do not know
the difference between APPLE and Apple
So let the fools be exploited - They are beyond help
APPLE is a CORPORATION ( i.e. CORPORATE Entity )
Apple is a fruit
Knowing the difference is not difficult for anyone who has
even half a functioning brain.
Thank you for promoting transparent and trustworthy business practices! And for being a business owner with some sass. Keep fighting the good fight. 5:26 'Do I have the legal right to do that? Absolutely. Am I lower than a piece of dog shit for doing that? Yes.'
The thing, too, is companies are really pushing to break the perception on this. They want people to think that "purchase" means "permission" rather than "ownership."
It's surreal to think that within the next five years, we may actually need a "Right to Ownership" movement. In the United States, of all places. 🤣🤣😭
There already needs to be one. There is no precedent set for passing down digital goods, like a PlayStation Network account full of games, from a decedent to a successor. You are entirely at the whim of the company. If you don't already have that person's password and access to all their stuff needed for 2FA, everything on that account is lost.
@@ohnoitschris Agreed. Better sooner than later.
It's easy to see this horrible corrupt trend coming to the electric vehicle market too, as per other videos. They're essentially large moving cell phones you can sit inside.
@@bruce-le-smith Exactly! I've mentioned this before in other comments on this channel and people are like, "OkAy LoSeR", "ThAt'S nOt HoW vEhIcLeS wOrK", "YoU'rE jUsT pArAnOiD". But look at the legislation on them. Three states have already passed laws requiring 24/7 GPS tracking so they can track your mileage and add it to your taxes (I believe it's $0.07 per mile driven). I'm sure they'd "never" use it for anything else.
It's creepy, man. Mass surveillance is oozing into mass control.
And companies are just hoping we'll stay in our homes with smiling faces and just be happy with it.
Right to repair is the right to own.
If you are not allowed to repair something you own, do you really own it?
Something I find interesting about this too is that when Playstation did used to have digitally "purchasable" movies & shows, you were typically given the option to "buy" or "rent". In recent years I'm finding that the only real differences between the two options were the cost and the timeframe of your rental. This wouldn't just be Sony either. I'm 100% positive this applies to any service that provides digital content.
Yeah like on Prime. Rent or buy a movie. It's likely the same. Ypu have a day or whatever to watch if you rent, but probably have until they take it back if you "own" it.
@@katherinelangford981 Yeah, exactly. Buying digitally is more or less "you can use this until we say otherwise"
This. It's not even close to a Sony only problem but it seems people are just now learning about the dangers of digital downloads whenever you'd think they would have figured all of it out before they spent money on something they have never tried. It's almost like people are stupid... I have known about this problem for at least 10 years, before I ever bought my first digital game.
You are a master at communicating these ongoing ethical issues in the modern business landscape. Thank you for your constant and continual dedication to insisting upon business integrity.
I remember the rootkit affair... I also remember you could disable auto-play in Windows, and that was one of the first things I did whenever I installed Windows to anyone 🙂
"That was one of the first things i did whemever i installed windows to anyone"
You installed windows in peoples heads? How did you accomplish this?
In France we react to this rookit affair by making DRM for music illegal (and legal to remove it) and then put a tax on each megabyte of memory (now Sony have to pay dozens of euros on each console to the French governement).
Sony and Universal was condemn to refund 1 million of customer and to destroy their CDs with rootkit at their own expense.
People was so furious that they think and debate to instaure a "global licence" which was a permit to pirate.
They panicked but it was only a proposal, nevertheless it resulted in a right to private copying, that is to say the right to copy for preservation purposes something previously purchased. Made legal via a tax paid on all blank recordable media.
"one of the first things I did whenever I installed Windows"
Also un-hide file extensions, so you can tell the difference between .exe and .txt, .xls and .csv, .html and .doc, etc.
@@scootza1 What do you think Democrats run on?
IIRC, it was disabled by default after that incident.
After getting burnt by this once, I will never again spend any money on DRM'd content. It needs to be law that if a company removes your access to something you purchased, they are required to refund you.
Better still, require require inflation be factored into that refund. Assuming a constant 3% inflation, it takes about 23 years for prices to double, so if you paid $50 back in 2001, your refund in 2024 should be $100.
They'll just bribe I mean lobby tons of money to the law makers.
It's that simple. Content or refund!
@@Roxor128 I.... I fux wit u... :>
This is why I've been buying DVD versions of some of my favorite cartoons, and buying physical CDs; as well as doing a bit of "sailing" if ya know what I mean. Subscription services these days are scams.
I am so glad we have quality and hard working people like you Louis. Please keep up the amazing work. And I wish you all the for 2024!
They know nobody has the time or desire or, often, the legal acumen to read through all of those service agreements. Of course they hide the meaty stuff we want to know as far into it as possible.
It's not unexpected that corporations will cheat us out of every last dime whenever they can.
I've never paid for anything on streaming as far as ownership. I pretty much assumed something like this would happen. If you can't hold it in your hands, you don't own it.
I've been collecting DVDs and CDs for a while and now looking for a good DVD CD player.
probably better off making a HTPC
@@firecrow7973what? I'm a low-tech person.
What does reading through it matter if they can change them at any time at their discretion...and then every single eula have the same terms.
@@beejls Home Theater PC. A small form factor computer that you connect to a TV and use as a media player.
and lewis knows he can just make videos complaining and cash in
kinda wild how the whole digital music purchase industry went drm-free to avoid situations like this but TV/movie companies refuse to even consider it
With VIMEO ON DEMAND being the only exception for indie films. DRM free MP4 downloads available with every purchase on top of unlimited streaming rights.. Unlike Amazon I will always be happy to give VIMEO my money.
They did? Not anymore.
I lost a whole bunch of skins i PURCHASED on rainbow six siege during one of their updates. Filed a report. Lost some rare battlepass skins that i loved. Some halloween skins that are 1 offs every year.
For a game i spent 2300 hours on. I immediately quit and have not played in almost 2 years now
@@Seasniffer69 They don't care if you quit the game.
When I was at the university we had a lecture made by a guy from IBM about selling stuff.
He said that product does not matter, it can be as crappy as you want, as long as advertisement is good you will sell stuff.
I then asked him: "If I bought something from you and found its crap, I will never buy from you again".
His answer was: "Who cares? You already bough."
@@hubertnnn i was more agreeing with the dangers of digital purchases and our rights to retain our purchases indefinitely
"Funny" how much all these corporations seem to think acting against their customers is a good move. Keep it up Louis I've been watching you and learning for years, you are THE Man mate, and greetings from Australia.
I don't usually leave comments, I just feel it needs to be said that you are a champion for calling all these companies out. I always look forward to your educated content. I switched from apple to android because of you.
Not Louis but as a moderator here I genuinely appreciate the comment being wholesome and just overall positive among all of the negativity that's posted in the comments for the topic he's covering in this video.
Nice message & grats! I hope you consider using more open source & free software for your needs in the future as well.
I think companies are preying on young people who are going to grow up in a world where a purchase isn't a purchase and that's normalized. It will just become the way it is.
It wasn't always this way. You can fight for consumer rights and transparancy.
Feel free to continue commenting on his videos.
"you will own nothing and be happy" - I will pay for nothing and be ecstatic!
Amen to that, brother! Besides, I am of the age now that nothing amuses me more than annoying younger folks who think they know everything and that ability falls under the public domain!
This should be our counter slogan 😂
Seriously. I pirate content from (dis)services like Netflix all the time and feel nothing, because from what I hear, the creators won't get payed either way.
I had a lot of commercials come up during your video that had no skip option available and several of them were in foreign languages. I even went into my settings to check & make sure that my default language hadn't been changed!
Back in the 70s and 80s, I bought an album on vinyl and later on cassette, and again on cassette when the first one got eaten by a player. I felt zero guilt about pirating that album in the late 90s.
Same. 99% of all the MP3's I have, or had. Were all albums or cassettes I had bought. Then either lost, gotten stolen, or destroyed. Zero guilt about torrenting them.
Reminds me of my Google play music purchases.
I discovered Louis' channel recently and I am so impressed with his knowledge, honesty and dedication to a cause that helps all of us. I have been annoyed by this bullying of large corporations which has markedly increased for the last 20 years or so. I fail to understand why consumers, in general, seem so nonchalant about this obvious lack of respect and appreciation. After very negative personal experiences, I have sworn never to do business again with two large Canadian corporations (unless I had no other option) for similar behavior. Instead, I found small ISP who use their infrastructure to deliver me the same performance but much better customer service, all at a lower price. Thanks Louis, you're my hero! 🙂
You are calling a thief honest?
Get a life, idiot @@davesilver5493
@@davesilver5493 The legal definition of theft is depriving someone of their property. No one was deprived of anything therefore no theft occurred. Piracy is not theft.
@@dead_head what are you a sovereign citizen? Many spend time in prison for stealing intellectual property.
@@davesilver5493 I'm not a sovereign citizen, I just understand the law better than you do. The legal definition of theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property. No one was deprived of any property therefore no theft occurred. Case closed.
The BMG rootkit scandal turned me from a Sony audio equipment junkie into a pirate that never bought another piece of hardware or media from the company. I wish more people felt the same way,
I agree with your point to not use the word purchase on a sale if at some point in the future I will no longer own the purchase content. As you stated, using that terminology is a bait and switch for the customer. Keep fighting the good fight.
Have lived by the motto that "if purchasing doesn't mean ownership then pirating doesn't mean theft" most of my adult life.... I knew it would come back to haunt everyone that unfortunately played by the rules set by the content providers. Happily have a digital media library based solely on ripped albums and movies from physical media (an iTunes was shutting down I think the only "paid downloads" we're from some U2 album that had been gifted me years before).
...and I still own multiple blu-rays and games all on disc all of which I can sell trade or gift whenever I please. I will continue to buy discounted used as well as sail those seas whenever necessary. I always check out on the few programs I might buy and then I'm told that I'm not allowed an upgrade etc etc and it's easy to brush off when you banked so many other less onerous and much cheaper options (and can easily do the upgrade by sailing the salty seas).
Louis, how I wish I could have had someone like you in my family to look up to when tech talk happens at the annual event
Delay stealing from customers. I wouldn't be surprised if they try to quietly remove stuff once this new extension is up.
It has already happened many times... through service closures, bans, license changes, and several other gimmicks and malarkey they have pulled over the years. Of course... nothing so ironic as when 1984 was retroactively joinked from Customers Kindles by Amazon... Considering the premise of that Title... it's like a self fulfilling prophecy in regards to how obtuse and brazen corporations are now.
Incrementalism. Now we're aware it's a possibility, so 5 years from now when they do it everyone says "of course, why did you expect different?"
They're straight up betting on your "memory hole" to screw you over!!!😬
They'll do it again after the holidays
Makes me appreciate my huge VHS, book, and dvd collection. Can't be easily taken away. Also can't be censored later, like many digital versions of movies are
My new hobby is trawling charity shops, petrol station stands, discount DVD aisles and buying anything that takes my fancy. My DVD/Blu-Ray collection will likely double in the next few weeks. Also bought a Blu-Ray/DVD external drive to make sure and "digital copies" are mine to do with as I wish. As with everything these days, if something is sold as a "convenience" it almost certainly removes your rights.
Consider their storage too. Try to keep them out of direct UV light between 55-70 degrees Fahrenheit and 30-55% relative humidity without big fluctuations. It's easy to forget the discs are a complicated sandwich of plastic and metal that can warp and/or separate. Just sharing in that spirit of helping other viewers avoid wasting their money.
Been doing that since the 90s, never ever paid for a subscription. The result is, I have more top movies than Netflix, and my only problem is choice.
Always love my doses of Louis. It's gotten to the point where someone speaking confidently and with principle is viewed as refreshing.
Well especially these last 4 years. Chiden just says gheicndbwkal nebeucksmanw rhrusjdhci
MY BUTTS BEEN WIPED
This was a warning to everyone. You better learn to start datahoarding your media offline. If it happens to you again and you lose everything you "bought". Itll be on you this time. This should be a wake up call. I wont feel bad for it happening to people again. This would be like staying in the same neighborhood after you continue to keep getting broken into over and over and your stuff stolen.
@mystic_scythe Hoarding.
When I tell people I have hoarded 30TB of video games and 4K adult movies, they give a weird look. So, they will eventually all be behind paywalls, drms and tons of ads.
@mystic_scythe
Something I have done since the 90's... Collect and store everything, programs, videos, documents, operatingsystems, fonts... everything
@mystic_scythe same
Where do I start learning to data hoard. Fuck these guys.
Love your work Louis, I’ve been an advocate for owning what you pay for since digital distribution became a thing and people called me mad. Glad to see a vocal representative and a community that shares the same mindset
@@Clarissa1986 Think it was in the Early adoption when people didn't think companies would do that. I had a few call me an idiot because I said I was afraid of the companies removing movies and games I bought. a few years later they realized that if companies think they can get away with it, they would make you buy the same content repeatedly at the full price.
I absolutely love how scathing and blunt you are in matters like these. It needs to be said this way to drive the point home. Keep fighting the good fight!
This is an additional reason why I prefer to buy physical media for movies, tv shows and video games. When a store digital front decides they want to remove something from their library due to obligations with developers, etc or shuts down said store front, its the consumer who's left short changed.
Exactly. Physical media, or a digital copy in a common format (i.e. not a proprietary format that only works with specific devices or software) that I can easily backup etc.
Problem is that physical media is becoming obsolete. 😢
@@gregornu Tell that to people making and selling Atari games or NES games. There is always a market.
I think its about time that these corporations receive a class action law suit by consumer protection agencies for using the incorrect terminology of "purchase" "sale" "buy" etc. when it actually means lease, rent, gain temporary access to, subscribe. And they should be fined according to their yearly revenue billions if necessary for deception.
If companies insist in their ToS that a purchase is a "license" and can be ended as they see fit or at a set period, it should no longer be called a purchase, as that is misleading, it needs to be calling licensing or renting first and foremost. They obviously dont do that though because they know itll scare customers away.
I would love for you to do a video on “Dark patterns” or “Deceptive design patterns.” You may not have heard the term, but you’ve _definitely_ experienced them. Just think of the last time you got a popup to sign up for emails from some scummy retail site that says “No I’d rather pay full price” or junk software bundled with something completely different (and the ‘skip’ option is hidden in 2pt font).
This is one of the most solid explanations and breakdowns I've seen on TH-cam. Well done, Louis.
imagine if this was how purchasing physical art from an artist, a painting for example, worked; that they just have a clause that you sign and "agree" to allowing them to break into your house with any means they deem necessary to physically take possession of the painting whenever they feel like it.
Thank you very much, more voices like yours are needed. In Europe we call it American business model (happening all over the world, don't get me wrong) which is in real language description of crime. Rip off customer any way you can, cheating, deceiving hiding behind ULA or whatever, it's just not honest. And who will in the end trust this companies? Less and less people obviously.
Haha, yeah, blame America. Those European consumer protection laws didn't come about in a vacuum.
cant wait for the globalism to cannibalize itself
@@chaos.corner True, they came about as a response to all these American companies.
@@ixian_technocrat Haha. No. European companies have long been capable of their own terrible behavior. Though US consumer protection is definitely lagging currently.
I'll second that about Sony, Louis. The specs on Sony audio equipment are often double what a bode plot reveals. And Sony has no respect for their customers regarding warranty, but we are learning. Thanks for the continuing education. Salute from Canada.
People have so much more power together than they think, but on 99.7% of cases they just can't get themselves all together in unity.
An early warning about this came with law frameworks like DMCA in various countries. If you bought a CD or DVD, these companies wanted to restrict your ability to rip that content to files on your computer and play it that way. Suddenly you had committed copyright theft.
You should be able to make a copy and watch it where you want.
Glad you’re talking about this. With Amazon and their latest stunt, I don’t feel so bad about d/l’ing ‘backup’ copies of the content I have already purchased.
They haven't forgotten. They just thought they were at the point of being a monopoly that didn't require caring anymore. Give them 5 years, it will resurface.
Yup. They'll just use another term to make it seem reasonable to unsuspecting buyers. People are so easily fooled by words. Corporations and marketers have known this for over a century. As long as you can make people feel good by manipulating words and images, they'll let you do just about anything to them.
There's a reason why mainstream politics is what it is - people don't care about what's true as long as it gives them the tingles.
Luckly that EULA example shown is illegal and not binding in the EU. If they say Purchase, than its purchased. Hope they really try to force such thing in the EU. ^^
Yes, but try to enforce it. I think you need to personally know right people in order to do so.
@@test-rj2vl not true. everybody inside the EU can directly write a email (there is also a well documented guide by the GOV, howto and all mail adresse are listed) to commite who is in charge of consumer rights to handle such stuff. already did that many times. one example was, where google was trying to force their web-drm inside chrome
@@padtrick Nice, how did that web drm go? Any response?
@@test-rj2vl they emailed me that they are taking it seriously and looking into it. but i think i read somewhere google dropped it already.
People keep saying this.
Can you tell me... when this happened last year with Sony and StudioCanal which law was used to prevent content removal?
Nope?
Happens all the time, there's no additional protection in the EU. It's a myth.
Great vid! Thanks for speaking on this, we're lucky to have you.
Sadly, a lot of people don't seem to mind this trend and/or they know about it and just go along with it. Thanks for your continued reporting on this.
I remember the Sony rootkit debacle. Sony used to be my go-to brand when buying electronics but I have not bought anything from them since then, not even the PlayStation. For their movies on DVD/BluRay, I’d wait until I could get them used. They lost a customer for life with that stunt.
Feeling a lot of ❤ for Mr. Rossmann…nothing gets passed this man.
They know people don't read the EULA, so instead of placing a button saying "rent for indefinite time" they write "purchase" and then call it what it is in the place they know the customer won't read.
Too bad an EULA isn't legally binding if it can't be read up front (before use of the product), and, of course, law will always take precedence over any clauses contained in an EULA
If i could love this video, i would. Companies must hate your videos 😂 as all they want to do is steal from their customers and you call them out on it. I applaud your channel and your efforts. Best content on TH-cam by a country mile.
This is why I like physical media. My fiancé loves the convenience of buying movies on Amazon and has a huge digital library. I told him he doesn’t really own any of that once and then reiterated it when this news came out. And I said the same when Best Buy announced they’d stop carrying physical media next year.
I am hoping this one plays out in court to set a precedent that stops them from doing this. It is totally stealing.
PS Love your “EULA roofie-ing” terminology
I think the terminology you use is very apt and warranted. I think practices like this normalize predatory behavior in society so people believe it's acceptable to treat other this way because it's so ubiquitous. I'm glad someone is taking a stark stand against it because we as consumers need to hear someone speak up amongst the waves of defenders that say we should have read the contract or "that's just how it is." It's shit practice and it feels more common than not.
Ironically, you can see the same methods applied by predatory people of all kinds, albeit sometimes just on a smaller scale. But gradually normalizing abusive behavior is "domestic abuse 101"
The argument that "you had the opportunity to read the EULA and reject it" holds no water.
1. My days are 24 hours long, and I have many responsibilities to worry about. I simply don't have the time to read all agreements I enter in, let alone understand them in-depth. Even if I did, it wouldn't matter - companies can just hire extra people to make the EULA's longer and more difficult to read.
2. Software and digital services are now so embedded in our society that, a lot of the time, you don't even have much of a choice in practice.
The law should make it simple:
1. If there's anything in your EULA that a normal person might find counter-intuitive, questionable, or downright unacceptable -> then you are obliged to spell this out clearly to the customer before they enter into the agreement. If you don't, it's null and void by default.
2. The language used in these agreements must be understandable by the layperson with basic knowledge about the field. You most certainly cannot redefine words to mean something completely different from what the layperson would automatically assume it means.
3. Unnecessarily long terms are null and void by default.
This is why I download all digital content I buy. And yes it's possible to do this on ANY platform.
That should be part of the purchase The ability to download it. Good for you.
Speaking of which, it's pretty damn suspicious that Blu-ray burners and HVDs never took off. It's not easy to back up things that range from 20-150gb across a ton of 4.7gb DVD-Rs.
@@ohnoitschris you're right it's not. I have several 5 tb external hard drives. I'm at the point now where I'm scared about HD failure. I need to backup some of my older hard drives. 🤷
I rip audio tracks from TH-cam all the time. On the back label of every CD I ever bought, there was a promise of "a lifetime of enjoyment." Well, I'm holding the record companies to that promise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That was so brutally honest, love it.
Very refreshing in the era of youtubers bleeping swear words and carefully choosing their every word to stay on the good side of the platform.
Best channel on TH-cam right now, this sh*t needs to be said.
i find it morally ok to 'pirate' things after the official sales have stopped. like ps2 games just to name one example. though id prefer to call it 'digital archeology'
It's fucked up how my experience with many pirated games is better than my experience with games I've legally purchased. No drms, No need to log in, No Anti theft bs. No required online connectivity.
@@frespects9624 same 😂
@@avhiro *cough cough* Ubisoft
I appreciate you calling these companies out, keep it going!
I've been moving more and more further away from this whole renting media thing the more I've been using tech
I've just switched to Linux to escape windows spying, I've made a local backup drive for my steam library with some cracked files so they run without steam incase something with them happens, I made a plex server and digitized my dvds
It's been both actually really freeing, fun, and educational, as it's taught me about networking, server infrastructure, remote video encoding, mass storage, and things like new operating systems, and I'm excited to see what else I'll learn through sticking it to 'the man'
Thank you Louis, for encouraging me to invest in things like an ancient but repairable thinkpad, and open source technologies, and for fighting in the political space to make future tech better
The damage has already been done. I’m buying physical copies of my media and ripping them to my own private cloud streaming server. I’m buying physical books and getting a digital copy (for when I absolutely can’t crack open a physical one). The only thing I can’t buy and own are games due to DRM but I’ll find a way!
Piracy is there for you! After you purchased a game, at least for me you are morally(and should be legally) justified to pirate the content you bought. DRM does nothing but make a practice for hackers(hacker in a good way, not bad one).
Games are actually pretty easy if you just go back a generation or two. May need some modification of your game systems but it's very doable if you know how to solder.
I've been doing the same with my CD collection, DVD collection of my favorite cartoons, and political science books to no propaganda machine can revoke my access. As some wise man once said "You're not paranoid if they're after you."
What sony did regarding their rootkit was true. I worked there at the time. It was a death bell ringing for them, since they had to recall all their CDs during the busy retail season. Lots of money lost for them that year, and frankly they never recovered since MP3s were gaining heavy traction at the time.
Thank you for what you do! These businesses are such slimy entities.
They're playing the game laid out before them by absurd government rules.
Learn that CORPORATIONS are DEAD entities --
and the DEAD do not care about the living.
So get the point.
One has to beat them at their own game.
It's war.
The people have to collectively fight the CORPORATE criminal MAFIA
As that famous British Sheikh (what's his name ?) said
Oh Yes - I remember now Sheikh Speare
said "" All is fair in Love and War ""
@@snex000Spoken like a pleb blind to economic power.
@@snex000 Spotted the incel
@@ambiarock590 Spotted the retard that can’t even make an argument.
Why did you even reply, retard? Did you genuinely think your retarded thoughts were worth sharing? How many women have you had sex with, retard?
I remember when game discs on PC in the early millenia to mid millenia had Securom (Another corporate based rootkit). Also the USB metal thumbdrive for Xenoblade Chronicles X collectors edition has a Sony DRM rootkit (few tracks from the game) that can infect the computer with some covert DRM/rootkit like what you described Louis.
I personally dont see piracy as stealing if corporations want to screw over people.
I got so fed up with Netflix, Amazon, etc. streaming “services”, I started sailing the high seas several years ago. So tired of the BS.
Too late, everyone now realizes they CAN and WILL do that again.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ You hit a lot of great points here. Companies are using very deceptive practices nowadays with INTENT!