"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
*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.
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
@@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.
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.
"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.
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.
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."
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.
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!
The fact they even tried this is infuriating. Those who actually made that decision or so far removed from reality it goes beyond words. How the hell did they expect people to react? Did they actually think people would go along with this quietly? You need to do an interview with the person who actually made this decision.
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 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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
I love how in addition to making stupid corporate moves like this, there's no mention or seeming effort to compensate in other words if you're taking it away from me give me my money back... And maybe even a little extra is a goodwill gesture. These corporations do not care about you at all. We are just a resource to be harvested. 👽
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.
With physical media, it used to be that you buy a copy and have access to and can run the media as long as you maintain the physical disk well and the hardware to run it still works. You own the copy of the media and the license to use it as long as you can. With digital media, it's like the company retains ownership of the copy and you simply rent access to the copy for as long as they allow you to. But you still pay the same price or even more than you would for a physical copy.
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.
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.
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.
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 you are intelligent to point this out that big companies can legally change the definition of what purchase means, essentially lying saying you can purchase to own this digital content but in reality no you don’t own it and can be taken away from you at anytime, that doesn’t sound like a good deal at all, what’s even more messed up is they are slowly but surely stopping production of physical media taking away the ability to own what you purchased it’s so wrong, which is why I buy lots of DVDs and blu-ray before we can’t anymore, keep up the good work my friend, I’m a viewer from Australia 🇦🇺 who hates this stuff as much as you do.
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.
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!
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).
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.
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.
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 RU-vid 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)_/¯
You are right in Australia at least. 'Purchasing' and 'Buying' are two defined words under consumer rights, and different to 'leasing' and 'renting'. They are covered by basic rights under consumer law called "consumer guarantees" that a company cannot take away with contrary contracts or licensing agreements, if it provides services in Australia. Products must also be fit for a stated purpose. 'Buying' a movie or music means that you own that movie or music. Regardless of any contrary EULA. If that product is taken away it is reasonable to conclude that it is no longer fit for the purpose intended and the purchaser has a right to a refund of the purchase price.
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.
In the UK, such terminology is not legally enforeceable unless it's clear and obvious to the ordinary customer, and unfair terms & conditions are also not legally enforeable - at least in principle (it's up to a court to decide the particulars of a case).
Amazon do the same. Even here in Germany. You can "rent" the content or "buy" it. But they can take it away from you anytime. That's NOT buying. That's fraud. I don't "buy" anything I really don't own afterwards. And own means "I have an unencrypted copy on my HDD".
I want to share with you what happened to me the day of Christmas. The EA shop was giving discounts of the last FIFA game so I choose to purchase for 21€, I have a nice pc with 3080 and a ryzen9 so every game runs as it should just fine. Not for the last FIFA game stutters everywhere, so the policy for ask a refund for them is that you have only one hour after purchased the game to request a refund, I want to say that only to download it it took me almost 3 hours, and this information about refund are not mention in the application of EA, but only on the website and the pages for the refund are highly hidden in the website so you lose lots of time before reaching the webpage for the refund so you aren’t anymore eligible
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 RU-vid by a country mile.
I would argue that clause is non-enforcable, as they are still calling it a purchase. A purchase is a term with legal meaning, and that is not 'revocable licanse to' etc etc.
@@GH0STST4RSCR34Mif it's a digital product, it's never stealing anyway, as theft is based on scarcity, which doesn't apply to something that can be readily duplicated. At best, you can argue about missed income.
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?
Like how California's Pizza Hut just fired all their drivers because they didn't like the minimum wage increase next week. Folks are gonna go elsewhere that delivers.
Truth this has been going on for quite some time because even in the old days and the time of compact discs if your disc was scratched or broken you would have to buy a new one - including all of the legal rights and entitlements that that involves to consume that media - again. What if you still have the CD cover, but want to download the album as a file? You paid the artist, recording company etc already. Now you have to pay them again?
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
100% agree. This is nothing new the first time I remember it coming up in a big way was when Bruce Willis got into a fight with Apple over the ability to leave the music he bought to his family in his will. That was over 10 years ago it was made clear to anyone that cared that you don't own any of the digital things you buy. I also remember the mentality from many in the piracy community being that cheap and easy streaming services were killing the need for piracy and that was fine. People also realized when things eventually went down hill and the streaming market looked like cable tv that it would just be a move back to piracy.
super doubt either of you numpties knew anything about that before videos were made covering it here on youtube. It's just funny to read this stuff. I grew up during Sony's heyday and nobody knew or cared about this thing (that affected like what, 5 CD releases in total, btw?). It's possible but the odds are so unlikely you just look like larpers.
@@andreivaughn1468 I read about it when it was current, it was a big issue at the time because nobody had ever tried such invasive copy protection. It doesn't really matter how many albums were affected if an album you wanted to buy, own, and enjoy forever was affected - that means you can't own that album without a demon attached. I don't buy Sony anymore, anyway. I have a small collection of PS3s that range from dead to having something seriously wrong with them, and repairing them is definitely on my backburner due to the difficulty, and how PS3 games run well in emulation now, anyway.
@@andreivaughn1468 Whats that got to do with anything? If they watched it on YT and decided to boycott Sony as a results it still is a boycott ... even more so IMO as an ancient incident is still affecting their sales (even if negligibly). I won't say what you look like...
The words "purchase" and "buy" should be legally protected and defined so that when you buy a license, it is non-revocable. The EU is investigating this and will probably make laws 2024 regarding this BS.
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.
At least in Germany there is a difference between purchasing and renting something as you explained. But a rented thing has to be kept functional by those who get the rent. If you rent e.g. a PC-game you have the right that it stays runnable under the current windows version. That is a risk and a market limitation for the manufacturer, but renting software might be the better deal for the consumer if the conditions are suitable (as always in life). But renting agreements can be quitted ensuring a more or less short period of time for the other party to reorganize. In Germany it does not matter what the manufacturer call his agreement or provides as a headline (in jur. latin: falsa demonstratio non nocet); if it had been a purchase or a rent results from a legal analysis of the entire paperwork ("EULA"). Consumers are protected against weird ("suprising") clauses or clauses with "disproportional disadvantage" for them.
It isn't something I could say applies elsewhere, and is a harder road to travel even here, but there is a basis of consumer law in my country that says the agreement fine print cannot contradict the large print or make it otherwise untrue / misleading. It never ceases to amaze me that anyone would try to defend the practice.
The best part about this whole debacle is that Mythbusters are now coming out on RU-vid. They're being posted by the company that bought the rights for it.
Never forget that fact that this was even attempted. How is that any different than them walking into your house and taking the item you bought from them back? Well minus the break and enter part...
This was the reason cable companies rose to popularity. 🤦♂️ They died because they moved to online streaming companies. And now we are going full circle.
I haven't paid for cable or streaming services EVER. I get everything from the High Seas. Remember the days of " I've got 500 channels and there's nothing on!" and how much people complained about high cable prices so they ditched the cable provider for a streaming service. Well, now if you want to watch ALL the shows you like, you have to have multiple streaming services because they all have different content. So, you're all right back to where you started, paying $$$$ for cable and there's nothing on.
You should contact steam support about it(if you did not). While steam do have clauses that say "you have the ability to access the game, not own it", they keep the games you have in your library even after it's no longer available for purchase. One of the reasons Steam as a store is still going strong.
@@marckyle5895 That's not really the same thing though. Not that I am defending EA for their shit business practices, but a forced update is not quite the same thing as completely removing access to a product. As far as I know you can still play at least the offline portion of the games regardless of if the game is officially supported or not, or if the online servers are active or not. You really shouldn't buy EA games in 2023 anymore though, you're just asking to get screwed over.
Lmao I can’t wait to pay a subscription to the ecu implant in my brain to run my organs, then they tell me they aren’t supporting the liver software anymore 💀💀
"Fine print" should just straight up be illegal. There should be a minimum text size they're allowed to print information they're legally obligated to provide.
I’ve said it before when you mentioned this sort of thing but 2 years ago Sony had taken my video purchases away from me and said we no longer owned the rights to it even though I bought all my media content on Sony. I haven’t bought another game on PlayStation or been subscribed to them since
I wonder if the same will happen to EVs (essentially iPhones on wheels) i.e. - Due to updated ... agreements, your ability to drive your vehicle will be removed from Dec 31, 202x... or e.g. - Support for your vehicle battery management software will end on Dec 31, 202x... We advise that you permanently stop using your EV to reduce any possibility of injury, property damage, etc., due to uncontrolled thermal runaway in your vehicle battery pack that may lead to possible catastrophic fire.
It's funny you say "not screwing the customers over used to be obvious." I actually remember taking a marketing course (for like a week) and the guy teaching us said exactly that; that putting the customer first was a must, and you should make them want to come back. It's kinda sad that the first thing I thought during that lecture was "how long has this guy been out of the game," because even though I fully agree with him, that's not how businesses had been run for at least five years since I took that course. That was almost a decade ago.
I'm 67 and saw this coming years ago and warned people that it is always better to own the disk rather than trust big corp bean counters and lawyers. I was surprised by the negative reaction of the trusting and very ignorant younger generations. Those who don't learn history are condemned to repeat it.
I still very vividly remember how the Starforce DRM software that came with Painkiller literally destroyed my DVD drive. It locked the drive and then let the disc spin with what did sound like several 10.000 rpm until both the disc and the drive broke. I also remember that I was by far not the only person who had this happen to its drive and that not a single F was given by the publishers or the makers of Starforce.
These companies are ridiculous like this. Have a Skylight picture frame/calendar and now they charge a subscription to show your own photos on the device. It’s just a calendar now..time to build my own.
I love this whole “piracy is justified” chapter of your channel. Just a few weeks ago I wanted to buy gta 3 for my pc but there was no legal way to buy the game without paying for a bundle with two other games i already owned. They took all their old games off of steam so the fact I already paid for two of the games in the bundle didn’t count towards any kind of discount. It’s also just incredibly dumb that they wouldn’t allow you to purchase the individual games on their store front to begin with. There was no way I was paying 30 dollars for a game that at best is worth 10 dollars so I pirated and it. It’s the only time I’ve ever pirated a game but I was basically left with no other option that seemed fair to me. It’s good rockstar didn’t take the other two out of my library when they decided to take the 3d trilogy off of steam. Also I appreciate that they allow most of their games on pc to begin with. It’s kind of shocking how difficult the gaming industry makes it to legally obtain their products.
@@ordinaryhuman5645 I don't think it's even possible. I can still download clients to lots of games that shut down years ago (RIP Battleborn) and people still download GTA4 1.0 for Vostok FM using the steam console
