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what’s funny is about 1/3rd of my movies i have on my JF server i have at one point had on vhs, blueray, dvd, or netflix. i unsubbed to netflix and amazon a few months ago once i got my jellyfin server to be reliable enough. 100% wouldn’t look back.
This shows us that the entire (modern) concept of buying digital goods is flawed
But what is it’s an NFT?
For games, always buy from GOG if you can. Unless it’s a game I really want I only buy from GOG.
if it’s not on GOG, you can also check itch.io!
iirc all games there are DRM-free as well (tho I could be wrong)
But then you should also back up the optional downloadable install files for each game. Just using the launcher is not a fail proof way to keep your game collection
Indeed, there are many tools to do that, one of them of my own making: https://github.com/RikudouSage/GogDownloader
But even if you don’t back them up, at least you signal that DRM-free is important to you by buying there.
Many Steam games are actually DRM free. You can just copy the game folder onto a flash drive, sometimes modify a single file, and then run it from the flash drive in any PC.
You should still buy from GOG first imo, but I wouldn’t entirely count out Steam.
Well, it’s still a hack, not something officially supported, I wouldn’t really consider them DRM-free when you still need Steam to run the game officially.
I’m not ruling out Steam either, they’ve done a lot of good for gaming and I buy games there if I really want them and there’s close to no chance they’re coming to GOG (like the recent Dragon Age), but more and more often I decide that I don’t actually want that game that much.
…or Humble Bundle if they offer the actual software download.
Not if they just offer Steam keys.
In my opinion.
Bandcamp, even though it’s ownership is questionable at this point, still has Bandcamp Fridays where the artist gets 100% of the sale, and they let you download DRM-free high quality FLAC files.
This is for all those who don’t like this, and want to demand DRM-free files.
For mainstream things there is 7digital, qobuz and a few others where you can get drm free files including flac most of the time.
sometimes, especially with niche artists, there aren’t that many high quality flacs out there in the first place
Yeah, the one thing that keeps me on spotify
I usually go with Bandcamp, SoundCloud and YouTube (latter two in rare cases) downloads when I can’t find it as a Torrent or on Soulseek (using Nicotine +)
I used to think this way, but then I found out that Disney is actively censoring media that they’ve bought the rights to, so now my argument is that you should pirate stuff to keep the original art available
Like what exactly?
Macross 7 by Disney directly, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Simpsons by various other rights holders, and probably more that I’m not even aware of
Right now it’s just one plotline in Macross 7 that involves sexual assault, and some “offensive” episodes of Always Sunny and The Simpsons. From what I’ve read, the Macross one makes the show better, but I’d rather not set a precedent that lets them clip out every gay and trans character to please the current administration
Its wose mentionning that this comic name is inspired by “Still this film”. A 2 parts documentary from 2006/2007 about our freedom restriction implied by copyright laws and intelectual property non-sense. From TBP team, before TBP AFK. Very interresting to see. Sadly 20 years after, nothing has changed…
Of course it’s free to “steal”, magnets are hidden in this messy website: https://stealthisfilm.org/Part1/ https://stealthisfilm.org/Part2/
Fuck yeah Randall is based af.
Just gonna leave that here:
https://github.com/rmcrackan/LibationSyncs and deDRMs your Audible library in a configurable interval. Also works headless on your server
i don’t buy audible anymore but i had a sizable library from before and this works great!
A lot of books only get Audible Originals, so I don’t really get around it. This way I can still keep it on my own server and serve it through Plex.
Title says “Steal This Comic” so I did.
Sue me.
iTunes sells drm-free music downloads. The still do, if you go to the iTunes Store and not the Apple Music streaming surface.
There are better options out there though, like BandCamp.
256kbps AAC is still proprietary, but you can convert it to an MP3 with something like dBPowerAmp
How is AAC proprietary?
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is patented and requires a license for legal use.
I mean so is MP3. If you really want to be a non-proprietary purist you need to rely on Opus for a lossy audio compression, which is not as widely supported in music players as MP3 or AAC.
MP3’s licenses and patents have expired.
Don’t do this. You will lose quality every time you re-transcode an audio file. AAC is supported by basically everything now.
Also MP3 is a pretty bad format all things considered. The most efficient format is Opus, it’s open source and transparent at 160kbps.
Bandcamp only works if the band originated there. Most labels don’t sell anything through bandcamp. If a label doesn’t release digital lossless for me to buy it’s getting downloaded on Soulseek.
Qobuz and 7digital have pretty good libraries and high quality downloads.
Also PSA that Amazon Auto-Rip still exists for all CD and vinyl purchases you ever used your account for
I thought Libation merely broke the TOS, not violated the law (UK). Doesn’t matter, I’m on a different vendor now.
I believe that’s US law. (I’m not a lawyer, though.)
Louis Rossmann shouts this from the YouTube rooftops all the time. Why not Randall?
He’s gotten a bit less edgy over the years. Mostly in good ways.
Of course it’s real. This is maybe one of the least shocking beliefs from a webcomic like xkcd ever. Like 1/5 of all the comics are about hacker culture or Linux.
Okay but programing or Unix jokes are whole different cake than openly admitting piracy unless you’re Meta.
☝️🔥
Maybe you’re missing some context. This comic is about DRM. Back in the day there was a big fight between the companies and consumer advocate groups like the EFF over DRM because it’s awful for the people paying for DRM’d content.
It’s pretty easy to buy DRM-free content now for certain forms of media, esp. books and music, not so much for others. But my whole point here is that if you’re on the side of the EFF and FSF, you’re anti-DRM, which means that you’ll probably support piracy as long as DRM continues to fuck over consumers.
even IF you buy DRM free items it can still be taken away.
Source: “Sick Boi” by Ren on BandCamp got taken out of my library, should be in the #2 spotbandcamp (DRM free)
Spotify (not DRM free)
I understand it is a copyright thing (even though the artist did literally nothing wrong) but still! It fits the flowchart in the meme.
On Bandcamp you could have downloaded the files, the song could still be playable and you would still own it. DRM-free just allows you to download stuff so that if anything changes in the future you still have the original available, anything hosted can be changed at any time in order to stay out of trouble as a site owner. It still sucks that this is happening though
yeah I get why, it’s just such BS
If you buy something DRM free, you must keep an offline copy. They can take away the option to download it, but they can’t prevent you from playing the copy you already downloaded.
That sucks and all, but to be fair this is entirely on you. They sold you a DRM-Free file and you chose to not actually use it and to rely on their servers which you have no control over. This isn’t a “DRM Free” issue.
Personal ownership means you take personal responsibility for it.
Every day that passes I think more and more that I should have a local backup copy of my whole GOG games collection.
I have a reminder pop every few months to download the newest games that I bought from GoG. I’ve found it easier to download one or two, rather than a giant batch.
And where do you store them? Do you have a NAS? Or a big disk for backups?
I have a big storage server and a couple of backup drives for all my media
It fits the exact thing the comic shows. The comic said DRM free is the solution. I am showing that it is not immune to the same issues that DRM content has.
you chose to not actually use it
my hard drive broke. I had it downloaded and went to go redownload it
Also they advertise the app as streaming.This isn’t a “DRM Free” issue.
that’s what I was pointing out, that BandCamp has the same issues.
Overall I agree though, it is kinda on me to not have my download backed up.
my hard drive broke.
okay, so… back it up on 2 separate things then.
artists can choose to unpublish a song. that’s their prerogative.
I will never forgive Microsoft for just straight up deleting everyone’s (mine) MineCraft purchases and accounts, and then having the gall to tell us to buy it again. It’s still in my Microsoft Store purchase history, for Christ’s sake.
I’d sooner buy Skyrim 4 more times than buy back what was stolen from me.
I literally had to look this up just now. Such a high profile game did such a huge thing and somehow I am just now hearing about it? Insane, tbh.
I chose to pirate Minecraft back when Notch was charging $20 CAD for a game in which the health bar didn’t work, and I’ve been nothing but validated by every decision around the game since.
What about all the lost accounts due to the Mojang -> Microsoft account migration? Lots of people either didn’t get around to doing it, or was able to and that meant the game you bought was suddenly null and void as your Mojang account got deleted if you didn’t consent in time to migrate to Microsoft.
I haven’t played Minecraft since they took it from me.
It should be illegal to revoke or modify people’s purchases. All games should be able to be kept and played using the version you bought it at except maybe MMOs due to technical reasons. Forced updates and DRM need to be outlawed.
