I'm glad piracy is making a comeback.

The video game industry does this bullshite where you're no longer buying a game when you download it, you're buying a license. Then the company can just shut down the servers and you have nothing, all while charging the same amount as a physical copy.

Sometimes the high seas of piracy have a legitimate point

Friend of mine in a foreign (Arab) country registered his NF in Indonesia. He pays like $3 or so per month while not living in Indonesia

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I'm glad piracy is making a comeback.

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Not only do they charge too much, but they make it difficult to access.

For example, the ESPN app is the worst app ever created. I am relatively good with technology, so it's no problem for me. But my elderly parents can never access LSU games. It's a constant battle.

I have no sympathy for media companies and any revenue they lose from piracy.

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I have no sympathy for media companies and any revenue they lose from piracy.

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Just wait for the lunacy to begin if ATSC 3.0 with encryption gets mandated.

In a nutshell, some broadcasters want to send an encrypted signal over the airwaves. ATSC 3.0 would require a decoder box or chip in your TV to access a central server for a key to unlock the signal requiring an internet connection. Imagine trying to watch TV during a hurricane and your unlock key needs the internet to watch local news.

The goal for the broadcasters is to limit users from taking their signal and retransmitting unauthorized feeds to various streaming sites, which is why they don't want gateway devices like the HDHomeRun to operate that way. But deep down, the real reason for this boils down to money, broadcasters make a killing from Cable TV and IPTV retrans fees, they get nothing from Over the Air viewers. The more they can lock down their signal means more opportunities to milk additional funds from Cable and IPTV providers.

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The video game industry does this bullshite where you're no longer buying a game when you download it, you're buying a license.

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Buy from GOG whenever you can.

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And that's what makes GOG special—it's a digital-only storefront, of course, but it allows you to download offline installers without DRM. Your offline installer can be transferred between machines, backed up in the cloud, burned to a disc, saved to an external HDD—you can do whatever you want with it so long as you don't violate the EULA or basic copyright law. A game publisher can't take an offline installer away from you, and the installer will continue to work if GOG goes out of business.

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It will go the way of airlines, where the actual users who pay for the service have zero rights, even after they've paid for the service.

When you allow corporate entities to write their own legislation, this is what you get.

I am a hard capitalist by nature (and common sense), but we given businesses free riein to purchase their own laws.

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I don't have this problem with my physical copies of Rome: Total War, Civilization 4, NCAA 2007, and NCAA 2014

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Actually, a lot of physical media from that era has become unplayable due to requiring key codes for installation while companies stopped allowing new installations to work. So, even if you have the original box with an unused key code, the website required for verification no longer exists or functions, so you can’t install the game. An already installed game will continue to work, but you can’t reinstall it on another device, even if the device can physically run the game (which a lot of times they can’t because newer OS aren’t always compatible with old games). Literally, up until a new version was released last year, The Sims 2 had become uninstallable for several years.