Asklemmy

Your friend's situation brings up the question of ownership. Do you actually own a persistent thing if you can't later sell it and pass ownership to someone else?

I think media companies want to ideally have us think of their products as candy bars, we buy it and consume it. If we want that experience again, we have to buy another. They want us to buy the opportunity to read, look, listen every single time, or buy a pass that gives access for a limited time.

But a lot of us consider media like a personal, well loved library or museum. We buy books and things in order to revisit again and again. We replace or repair if worn out. If it's one of a kind, we take actions to safeguard it. We search for rare and unique things and acquire from other private collectors if it's no longer publicly available. The value of our collections increase if the media stops being published and goes out of circulation.

But these entities would rather see everyone's personally owned copy spontaneously combust just because they didn't want to sell it anymore. And it's what they have done to digitally sold and DRM'd media, or by deleting from streaming services while also cutting the creators off from being able distribute independently.

We are at a major crossroads as to what ownership and ongoing availability and access means. Piracy is currently a failsafe until property can be safely bought and protected - for the purchasers.