Recently (or maybe not so recently, depending on when I finish this essay) it was announced that Sony would be discontinuing Funimation's video service and folding it into Crunchyroll. Now this is annoying enough since Crunchyroll has always been trash, and they already killed off the excellent RightStuf Anime commerce site. I never really liked Funimation that much, but anything that strengthens Crunchyroll is to be despised. However the reason why I'm putting this as a "general" essay rather than an "anime" essay is that it ties into the points made in this essay (which I accidentally deleted, oops!) The thing is that Funimation offered "digital copies" of various anime. You could get them using codes found with purchases of physical media, though I think you could purchase them from the site too. As you can see in the FAQ (it's towards the bottom of the page) the plan for dealing with these digital copies is "fuck you, there are no digital copies on Crunchyroll." Now if you're someone who's on Neocities in the first place, I know what you might be thinking:
And yeah, that's true. But this really does get down to questions of ownership on both moral and practical levels. Keep in mind that the digital copies were not sold as a subscription service. That is, it wasn't like you paid a monthly fee and you would gain access to the video for as long as you kept paying the fee. It was a one time thing, and then (as Funimation's slogan went) you could watch "anywhere, anytime." Except not now obviously.
Now people can argue that the slogan couldn't have been meant literally. For example, suppose that you got a digital copy and then planned to pass down the account to your great, great grandchildren. In that time Funimation might got out of business, or the internet could become nonfunctional, or the video format might not be compatible with modern computers. There is no way that Funimation can possibly predict this stuff happening. But that's not what is happening here. Both Funimation and Crunchyroll are owned by Sony. In fact, Sony acquired Crunchyroll in a merger several years ago. Obviously Sony had the capability to continue the digital copy service, since they had done so for years. Instead they simply decided to discontinue it, due to preferring the branding and streaming only model of Crunchyroll.
Keep in mind that Sony could have offered to allow people with digital subscriptions to download DRM free versions of the video (or at least versions that could be watched without connecting to any external servers.) They have those files, and they have the record of everyone who "owns" a digital copy. But they chose not to, and they chose not to simply because it would be inconvenient for them to do so.
Getting back to the idea of physical being king, Funimation of course produced a lot of physical media. That isn't affected by this decision. But believe me, if Sony could cause your discs to self destruct remotely, they would. Every time you watch a bluray (ironically a Sony invention) is a time that you are "denying" them streaming money.
Something to consider about all of this is the idea of "digital copies" in the abstract. Now normies probably weren't getting digital copies of anime very much. But I do know normies who have purchased copies of movies on Amazon. In terms of video games, purchases on Steam, Epic Game Store, etc. are similar. This is often done for trivial reasons, like "I didn't want to find the DVD and put it into a player so I just bought a copy of the movie instead." When normies do this, they usually do so with the expectation that they will have perpetual access to the product. That is, after all, how it works with any other movie purchase (as opposed to a streaming subscription.) But the truth is there is no guarantee that you will be able to access your media long term. When it comes to a company like Amazon you'd have to be foolish to trust them, especially as Amazon alredy has taken "purchased" movies away from users. Apple has done similar things. However when people get stuff on Steam they might actually trust Valve. The trouble is, Funimation was actually pretty trustworthy with their own digital copies. As far as I can find, they never removed them and they were making good on their promise to keep them available. But they got put into a larger corporate structure where the new owners couldn't care less about the promises previously made by the company. Such a fate could happen even to the likes of Valve, especially if big names like Gabe Newell left.
Thus your only real defense is to look for options where the company can't revoke your access, even if they wanted to. When it comes to music and movies this often means physical media. However, as said in the previous essay (or at least it will be again when I rewrite it) what matters is not so much that the media is physical, but that you own it in the sense that you can use it without restriction. Many bands distribute music digitally through basic MP3 files (or maybe OGG) that you can copy as many times as you like. These are as good as physical, especially since if you really want a physical copy you can just burn a disc. Similar if you get video files in a format you can control, that's as good as physical. The ultimate security for media is the humble book. Since you need a player to listen to a CD, DVD, bluray, etc. in theory you could run into a situation where you could not access your media, if your old players broke and the new ones had retroactive DRM control. For the book, as long as you have eyes you can still read the words on the page, regardless of what has happened to the company that printed the book.
Video games are trickier because by their very nature they require the use of a computer to experience. The situation is worse than something like a DVD, because there at least you can get a player that simply reads the disc (maybe with some region restrictions) and does nothing else. A computer is going to allow a lot more operations, or else it couldn't run the game at all, and these give room for DRM. A modern computer is going to need to be regularly updated, and any update could kill your abiliity to play the game. Worse, most games have online components for which you are entirely at the mercy of the company running the servers. Now consoles used to offer something like the DVD player for games, since they were systems with set specs, which were not updated, and which were designed solely to play games of one type. As long as your system and cartridge work, you can pop an NES game into an NES and play it fine, regardless of what Nintendo thinks. Unfortunately modern consoles are often glorified computers, complete with installs, updates, internet connections, etc. They are in fact even worse than computers since computers are still general purpose devices, whereas a console can be designed purely to screw you out of playing your games later. Indeed, this has happened with multiple digital game stores. For games you are only really free if you have a DRM format that you can copy as you like and which requires no connection to an external server.
Most large game companies are deadset on not doing this, even telling gamers straight out to their faces that the things that they have purchased are not things that they "own." Here is a meme that shows both Ubisoft's most infamous statement and the common response:
Now I've said on other pages that I'm not advocating piracy, and I'm not doing that here. Look for options where the creator allows you to actually own things, and ignore the rest. I would instead like to talk about this on a practical level. In the last essay on this topic we looked at how gamers are mistaken in thinking that getting a physical disk is the same as owning a physical copy in a meaningful way (If that video hasn't been rewritten yet, wait for it to come back in the future.) They say "that's why I buy physical copies in a real store" even though the types of practices the Ubisoft exec is talking about apply every bit as much to those copies too. The same thing is going on here. The natural gamer reaction for years to anything shady being done by a company is "just pirate it." So they say that now without thinking about it. And I'm as frustrated by this as Ross is. Let's put aside the morality for a moment, is it even possible? Say that the game stores its content on a company owned server and uses the client software only for running the basic game. How do you pirate that? The only real way to do it is to get a copy of all the files on the company server. Absent something like a massive hack (which I am also not advocating) the only way to do this would be to play through the whole game, including all easily missable side content, and then either snatch the files or reverse engineer them. This might be technically possible, but can you think of even a single time where people have done it? Furthermore, if you lose access to the servers then your chance is gone. Everyone mourned the unnecessary loss of Darkspore when they turned off the servers, but it's not like the game has been "pirated" and is available again. It's gone, unless someone leaks the files, and even then you'd have to have someone run a dedicated server to get it.
The mistake here is accepting the idea that you should start with digital copies that you could lose, and then assume that there's some way to fix it afterwards if things go wrong. And people do very much make that assumption. I've heard it said many times that should Valve stop supporting Steam, then they will arrange things so that you gain access to all of your games in a permanent offline mode. I've never found an official statement on this, but many people believe this. Of course, to some extent the idea is impossible. Many games on Steam use DRM from other companies, which Valve would not be able to remove. If that DRM is specially tied into Steamworks on top of that, then you're out of luck. Now what is possible is that Valve might get rid of their own DRM, but honestly I doubt it. If things were dire enough for Valve that they had to shut down Steam, likely they would have enough else on their plate that getting rid of DRM (which could break the games anyway, if done incorrectly) would be low on their priority list. As I've said above, Gabe Newell and other standbys might not even be around any more at that point. You might think of things this way: there have been many "online only" games which could have been made DRM free before the company that made them died. How many actually had that happen?
When we're talking about Steam in particualr you are safe with games that don't actually require Steam. here is a list of such games. Some need minor modifications, as listed in the notes, but as long as you can run it without Steam running, you are safe. No piracy fix in the future is necessary, because you already have everything that you need.
Outside of games there are generally good options avaialble that you can control. For books, physical books, or DRM free .pdf or .epub files are all that you need. For music, CDs (or I guess LPs and tapes) still work fine, and you can often get DRM free .mp3, .ogg or similar files. Movies on DVD or Bluray (or I guess VHS) are safe. They are less frequently distributed in DRM formats by their publishers when compared to music or books, though it is unlikely that pirates will cease distributing such files (not that I'm advocating for piracy.) When it comes to appliances, just make sure that it runs without connecting to the internet, and then never have it touch a network. I can understand why you would connect a smart TV online, though I'd never do it personally (instead I use independent peripherals to guarantee that the TV itself won't be "updated" into uselessness.) But I have no sympathy for you if you connect your fridge, microwave or washing machine to the internet and then get screwed over by a firmware update. What sort of functionality were you expecting to get from an online connection in the first place? Physical tools and machines are so naturally independent of their developers that the developer has to try to screw you over, and you can usually avoid this. Smart phones may be an exception, but you shouldn't be using a smart phone in the first palce (though that's a different essay.)
Viewed like that, things are simple. Make sure that you actually own what you own, right now. If it's impossible for companies to disable your products, then you can't get screwed in the future. Don't assume that you will be saved by a benevolent corporate decision or clever pirates in the future, make sure that you own what you own right now.
March 9, 2024