{"id":799,"date":"2010-01-26T18:47:56","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/t-machine.org\/?p=799"},"modified":"2010-01-26T21:48:17","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T20:48:17","slug":"once-again-im-forced-to-pirate-digital-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/2010\/01\/26\/once-again-im-forced-to-pirate-digital-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Once again, I’m forced to pirate digital content…"},"content":{"rendered":"

(…or else forgo it)<\/p>\n

(EDIT: To be clear: Piracy isn’t theft, but it certainly is illegal. Please do not misconstrue: I do not condone piracy; this post is a lament at the extent to which the retail industries encourage or coerce consumers to pirate content. I am still looking for a legal way to buy the digital data I want, and in the meantime, I have Spotify…)<\/p>\n

I want a single that came out 5 years ago. It’s available to purchase on iTunes …. in the USA.<\/p>\n

I’m “not allowed” to give Apple money to buy that track, because my account was originally created when I was sitting in the UK. IIRC, even when I’m physically in the USA next month, I will still “not be allowed” to give them money for this (but … who knows? Apple doesn’t bother explaining this stuff to the normal consumer)<\/p>\n

Switch to UK iTunes “mode”, and … Apple does not sell that track in the UK.<\/p>\n

So, once again, the music industry would prefer that I go and rip the MP3 than that I *give them money*.<\/p>\n

Do they care? Do they even know?<\/h4>\n

Of course not.<\/p>\n

They will *never know* that I did this. They have no mechanism to allow me to *tell* them that I attempted a purchase – and was rebuffed. This would cost them nothing, but … they can’t be bothered.<\/p>\n

Equally, when I rip the MP3, they’ll never know that I did. It has literally zero effect on their business. Because piracy is not theft: digital data is not physical property, and copying does not affect the original in any way.<\/p>\n

Sigh. One day, the digital industries will grow up. I hope I’m still alive to see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(…or else forgo it) (EDIT: To be clear: Piracy isn’t theft, but it certainly is illegal. Please do not misconstrue: I do not condone piracy; this post is a lament at the extent to which the retail industries encourage or coerce consumers to pirate content. I am still looking for a legal way to buy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}