I’d like to get the community’s feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we’re really doing is purchasing a “license” to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.
Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn’t the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?
P.S. I know there’s pirating and all, but that’s not the focus of my question.
Maybe it’s not just what the rich want.
OP is unhappy about how little control we have over some of our property. The catch is that this property is also the property of someone else. Media is (mostly) the intellectual property of someone, and the owners can decide over it. So, in order for OP to have more control over “digital property”, one would need laws that limit control over property. Tough sell.
If you look at threads on AI, you will find them full of people who want expanded intellectual property. I doubt those are all bots or shills. I think they just want control over their own property, without considering that they are forging their own chains. When you increase the power of property, you increase the power of the rich and diminish your own.