It will probably be unpopular to say so: But learn how to strip DRM. If you paid for it, you should own it.
That's facially nonsense. I pay for my apartment--it doesn't mean I own it.
You pay for the specific rights you purchase. It's morally wrong to bargain for one set of rights and use a broader set.
> If you bought it, you should own it.
If the "real" meaning if the transaction is "rent till we decide you can't anymore", then it shouldn't be misrepresented as a purchase.
it is a purchase, you purchased the rights to some piece of content for some period of time.
The real question is: are people aware of the terms of the deal? Are the aware of the specific rights they are purchasing when they buy DRM content? I think they are.
Explicitly presenting it as "renting" decreases the attractiveness, that's why DRM inclined distributors mislead their users with avoiding the usage of the "rent" term. But it only strengthens my point - since they rely on implicit perception of buying to attract people, people should treat this interaction as buying and these distributors should not complain when their DRM is scraped.
A license can be purchased, even if it does not carry all of the rights associated with the underlying product. A license can also be leased, in which case the license is of a limited duration.
A purchase of a DRM-protected good is a purchase of a license to use an IP on the condition that the usage is subject to a rights management policy. This is not a rental, because the license is not time-limited in the acquisition agreement itself. (Thus, even if the DRM servers were disabled the next day, it would not have been a lease--the terms of the acquisition agreement itself are what matter.)
That was my point above - when people buy, they don't care to buy any "licenses". They buy content. Those who sell it, fool them with selling a license, while making them think they actually buy what they want to buy (i.e. the content). I.e. in essence they lease them the content, while making people think they buy the content.
The key differentiating characteristic of renting vs buying is that in renting ownership of the expected good has not changed or has not fully transferred.
When you buy a good, legal ownership (whatever that means in any given jurisdiction) of that specific good has been transferred in full.
Entities using DRM are exploiting not the ownership transfer but the expectations for that good. The corporate, as it almost always is, transfers ownership of a substitute good which requires a license/renting to access the expected good.
The end users therefore have not bought the expected good, but a substitute good plus an access license "option". With DRM, this "option" can be (technically or legally) revoked or is callable at any time thereby disabling access or removing the expected good.
So, the obvious solution is not to buy a substitute good + callable option when you actually want the underlying (expected) good. Otherwise, you are just creating demand for substitute goods and all the fancy methods to create the callable options.
I can sell you an easement on my land. It's a purchase, not a rental. But it can be a very limited right nonetheless (e.g. Just the right to cut across the grass to the road). I can sell you a car on the condition you don't repaint it. I can sell you a piece of land on condition that you only use it for a certain purpose. These are all purchases within the common use of the term, even though they effect a partial transfer of rights.
In general, the whole notion of attempting renting the content obscuring it as a sale is not a honest way of doing things. And using DRM to enforce those rental limitations makes it even worse, since it uses unethical preemptive policing methods to do it.
Whether that means abstaining is a personal choice.
I don't really have an answer for this. I feel guilty every time I buy a Blu-Ray, but I haven't stopped buying them either.
edit: and, oh, yeah, video games. Not all of them, but most of them.
And you can add to the list: rentals... Rent movies; hulu is free; pandora; etc.
At the end of the day it is entertainment. You really don't NEED any of it. And the free stuff is good enough.
I can assure you, you will not die if you don't get to play the latest version of Sim City (or any version of it for that matter).
I paid nothing for Hulu. They are more than welcome to delete anything and everything.
Or do you somehow imagine that those who give you something for FREE are required to do so indefinitely in the future?
But in any case, it's not just about deleting or not. Being only able to watch on other than "blessed" devices is important too, unless we want to further cement software monoculture.
You say: the problem is the DRM. Get rid of the DRM and we won't have the problem.
And that is a perfectly valid point.
But there is another solution you are completely missing: Why are you paying for DRM'd media?
No one is forcing you to purchase it. Someone created something, and they decided they wanted DRM in it. You (or more accurately, those customers) looked at it, saw the DRM, and said: here's my credit card number.
If you don't like the terms they are providing the service on, DON'T GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY!
So then you bring up Hulu. Hulu uses DRM. What are the solution here. 1) Go argue with Hulu about their DRM; or 2) Stop using it.
If you don't like the terms of a free service, stop using it. It really is that simple.
I don't give Hulu money. It's free. I think in exchange for free videos, they can put DRM in it. I didn't buy the videos, I know they aren't mine. I don't expect access to them in the future. If they go overboard with the DRM, then I'll stop visiting their site.
I don't think the history of music publishing supports that claim.
On the other hand it may be unique, e.g. the normal smallest granularity is a 3-5 or so minute song, AND the 33 RPM vinyl LP allowed publishers to move away from that (the 78 and 45 RPM formats weren't very long at all). Some of what we're seeing is a rejection of what turned out to be a fairly short lived business model.
On windows, navigate to:
Users\USER\AppData\Local\temp\acro_rd_dir
And create a >hard< symbolic link for the .tmp file you will find there, renaming it to .flv . I am sure, on a mac, the location name is similar.
Close the browser window, the tmp file will be deleted and the flv will no longer be locked for access, and is now yours.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbo...