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Comment by not_the_fda | Hacker News Reader

I used to never pirate, paid for everything.

I was dumb and bought Mythbusters on a PS4 many years ago. Can no longer watch it, they removed the content. Have HBO Max, they had Mythbusters on it, started watching it again. Midway through they started to remove content.

I bought a show, and can no longer watch it, can't even watch it on a streaming service, that I pay for, that owns the rights to the content.

I'm full on pirate now. I gave them money and they removed my ability to watch the content I paid for.

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Plus with Mythbusters in particular the best version is only available illicitly. That is the fan-edit that removes all the fluff, and just streamlines the show into just the core Myths (inc. setup and testing).

Same with Top Gear - The Superleggera fan edit - and Avatar The Last Airbender - the fan upscale project.

"If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing."

And for a great illustration of the complexity of our current situation, see this videogamedunkey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhv7bgmz64

That's a fiendish retort to the IP and copyright lawyers for attacking the older saying: "piracy isn't theft, it's piracy. Theft removes the original. Piracy takes a copy."

Now if I can't access my copy, somehow it's not to be recognized as theft.

What's going on with MythBusters that is leading to "removing the content"?

Despite all the buttons you clicked that say, "Buy! Buy! Buy!" you actually only ever leased access to the show.

But if the buttons said, "Lease! Lease! Lease!" everyone would go "WTF!" so they say, "Buy!" instead and no one reads the small print.

Is it piracy if it’s content you purchased in the past but access was removed? In my mind, it’s absolutely not.

This is just plain double-dipping bullshit.

If you bought a VHS you don't have automatic rights to a BluRay copy.

But you do have the right to transcribe your VHS copy to bluray yourself. Format conversion is not illegal.

For VHS yes but breaking DRM on Blu Rays is illegal and you have to do it to copy them. However, to my knowledge no one has ever been prosecuted for breaking the DRM on a blu ray. Unless they shared the copy online.

Isn’t this discussion about that’s ethical and moral, rather that what’s legal?

Morals and ethics have no place in a court of law. Or, another way to think about it: morals and ethics cover human-to-human transactions. Legality covers human-to-corporate interactions.

Because corporations are not people. They are composed of people, but the people of a corporation are fungible and to consider them differently is, to my mind, a huge error.

So is it unethical or immoral to copy your VHS tape you bought to a BluRay disc?

No. AHRA format transfers only apply to music audio recordings. Video and audio-books aren't covered and can't be duplicated in any way without authorization. Technically even music transfers are illegal without implementing an SCMS type system to prohibit further generational copying but that has never been enforced.

It's the other way around dude, many of these "digital purchases" were high quality, but pirating doesn't always have this quality.

Pirating is often higher quality because you're not streaming it. Always fun to realize that your streaming service has dropped you to 720p when the network is congested.

Says who, or why not?

This seems like an obvious case of governmental corruption if the answer is "some law that 99.999% of people are harmed by, but makes a handful of hollywood billionaires richer".

If the current laws are bad (and they are) we should get rid of them with more consumer friendly ones. If congress is too corrupt to pass those laws, we as citizens should nullify them by collectively refusing to enforce them, whether as jurors, prosecutors, or employees of media or telecom companies.

>Is it piracy if it’s content you purchased in the past but access was removed? In my mind, it’s absolutely not.

I agree with you more than wholeheartedly :)

Allow me to re-interpret your one statement in the opposite way from what you intended anyway ;)

Well for someone who's not at all part of a paid-media consuming class, when they do make a copy from someone who has paid, there is no booty lost by anyone.

But if you are functioning as part of a paid-media consuming class, and you paid fair & square for the material as you see fit, and then it's taken away completely, you are "absolutely" the one who has been pirated, fully plundered and lost all the booty there was to lose.

No doubt about the depth of the bullshit.

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