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
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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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.)
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 spot
bandcamp (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.
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.
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.
Every day that passes I think more and more that I should have a local backup copy of my whole GOG games collection.
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.
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
This shows us that the entire (modern) concept of buying digital goods is flawed
But what is it's an NFT?
Louis Rossmann shouts this from the YouTube rooftops all the time. Why not Randall?
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.
☝️🔥
He's gotten a bit less edgy over the years. Mostly in good ways.
Fuck yeah Randall is based af.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I haven't played Minecraft since they took it from 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.
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
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.
Just gonna leave that here:
https://github.com/rmcrackan/Libation
Syncs 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.
For games, always buy from GOG if you can. Unless it's a game I really want I only buy from GOG.
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.
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.
...or Humble Bundle if they offer the actual software download.
Not if they just offer Steam keys.
In my opinion.