Oh but it’s not buying! The big “Buy” or “Purchase” button might have said so, but if you’d have careful read through 35 pages of user agreements, you’d see that you only rent the license to stream it.
Which obviously is total bullshit and the whole fucking system should be burned to the ground.
This is precisely why I refuse to buy digital games. (And it extends to other media, but games are where I actually spend money)
I’ll pay for a rental service designed to be a rental service (ps+, for example) but will not buy individual games digitally. Who knows when they will become unavailable for some reason, and I can no longer download a copy. It’s bad enough when servers are shut down within 2 years of launch, but when the whole game gets pulled, then what?
I’ve decided I’m not even bothering with the next generation of consoles. So few things are even released on disc, with half the consoles being digital only, that it’s not even worth it. I’ll pirate instead.
This is where the law needs to step in, it should be illegal to call it “Buy” if you are just leasing it. It’s absolutely misleading to most consumers.
The previous comment is more like shorthand, rather than literal truth.
It’s faster to say piracy isn’t stealing if purchasing isn’t ownership than it is to say “if a company can simply reverse a permanent access license at any time then pirating media from them is perfectly ethical and should not be considered a crime”
It’s bad shorthand though. In this context, there was never any “buying content” happening, nor was piracy ever “stealing”. It’s just misrepresentation of both sides.
That’s fair, but I feel like the point is that many people go through a process where
You pay money
The buttons on your screen say “buy” “purchase” “check-out” or something else to that effect
That feels like buying media, so according to the common “consumer” (hate that word) brain, you are spending money to buy content.
At the same time, media corps have been trying to teach us for years that piracy is exactly the same as stealing.
The whole point of the shorthand is to explain that these are not facts, they’re misconceptions, AND both of these misconceptions exist for the same reason, corporate propaganda.
It doesn’t just feel like it, it says it. What it is is false advertising. If you don’t get to keep it forever, the button should say something along the lines of “rent until we decide to stop hosting it”.
Because you’re bitching about it. Either there’s a better way to express the precise picture you’re describing, or your central argument is fundamentally flawed, and it’s an effective shorthand.
Sure, there’s nuance. Shorthand is used to convey a nuanced thought quickly. That’s literally the point.
It is stealing. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics here. You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.
You can’t reason with him. He is an anti-piracy troll.
For him, any comparison made to help him understand is a logical fallacy and any evidence presented against his argument is “irrelevant” as he puts it.
It is like arguing with a trump-like narcissist lol. “My argument counts and yours is wrong, but if yours is right then it is irrelevant, made up, and/or a straw man. If I don’t understand something then it is an attack and I will insult you and instantly label you inferior.”
It’s sad honestly and just like them all he is all “think of the poor artists who created the media you love” while conveniently ignoring that in the music industry, many/most artists don’t even get royalties because the record labels swindled then forced them to sign their lives and works away getting a couple pennies on the dollar.
Video game industry is salaried. All profits go to the corporations outside of indie games. Movies, outside of the big name stars, earn almost poverty wages and absolutely 0.00% of what gets sold because the studios are so incredibly corrupt.
Not to mention dead artists where unless they were extremely smart, their families are likely earning 0% of sold media.
Also not getting into the fact that copyright used to be very short until large corporations bribed lawmakers constantly and for so much corrupt money that they changed copyright to extend an extreme amount of time, otherwise things from the 90s would already be public domain if there wasn’t so much blatant bribery and corruption done by the people you are “stealing” from.
Unless you are pirating things from Dolly Parton or someone who was business savvy enough to not get cheated by the studios, you are not stealing from the artists in any crazy mental gymnastic stretch of the imagination.
Piracy, at the very worst, is stealing from long time hard criminals. There is not a single big record corporation that has not committed a multitude of thefts, blackmail, drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and worse. That isn’t even getting into the crimes of porn studios and movie studios. Disney mass murdered animals on camera for views as one example.
No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it. If they’re not entitled to your money, then you’re not entitled to the product of their time, effort, and labor.
If i could just teleport into your house so i could liberate your keyboard, i would. Because your take is so collosally stupid that it actually angers me that you have it.
Like real, palpable rage that this insipid argument still exists in this world, after all this time.
An ad hominem would be if i avoided your point and instead attacked you as a person. I attacked the point itself as frivolous and years-debunked. Please… Listen… Your keyboard is suffering under the weight of false premise. Free it, please
You did not address the point at all. Nothing has been debunked. It cannot be debunked because it’s true - you are stealing something someone created, which they made in order to get paid and make a living, because you are ingesting it and not paying them.
That’s not what ad-hominem is, “dude”. It’s still a superficial attack rather than an attack of the argument if there’s no substance to it to actually dispute the argument.
I’m not arguing the legal or criminal semantics. I’m arguing the dishonest justification and misrepresentation of piracy. Piracy is stealing. You’re stealing income from the creator if you ingest their work without paying for it. I don’t care if people pirate things but admit that it’s stealing and move on.
Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. It doesn’t matter how many levels of abstraction or semantics you hide it behind, you’re gaining from something made by another person without returning that gain (whether financially or otherwise) to that person.
How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with? Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money. This is especially the case if the consumer has previously purchased a license to consume the product, and then the company decides to take (or steal) it away. No moral qualms with pirating the same content then.
It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact. It’s not like a physical BluRay, where if you steal it from a store, you are making that store lose money due to that physical stock being stolen.
And lastly, how is the company not stealing from consumers when they pull shit like this?
Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money.
Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).
Taking away licenses is wrong. I’m not disputing that. But that doesn’t magically make stealing something that actual people created right.
Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).
Are you making an ethical, moral, or legal statement here?
Ownership of intangibles in this context exists only as a means to support a particular political arrangement. I think you may be assuming others here share your politics; there is no objective moral standard for exclusive ownership of intangibles.
By that argument, there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value. If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not. If you don’t agree to that premise, then there’s no point in discussing this with you.
there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value.
You’re right, there is no moral imperative for people to create (or share) intangibles, but nobody is claiming they have no value.
If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not.
Again, is this a ethical, moral, or legal statement? It strikes me as a uniquely ideological statement, but you’ve not elaborated.
Everyone arguing that it’s not stealing is making the claim that it has no value.
Why does it matter? I would consider it moral and ethical but have no care whether it’s a legal one. I’m not disputing the legality of anything here (since I believe that the subject of the OP is also illegal - “Buying” something denotes ownership and, therefore, taking it away is also stealing).
Additionally, I do not have objections against piracy and think there are many legitimate reasons for it. I am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealing.
How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with?
Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.
Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money.
They are if you take something they created.
It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact.
I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. You’re copying something someone else created, for the express purpose of generating income, without their permission.
I don’t know how these justifications can be described as anything other than “mental gymnastics” because they obviously make zero sense and personally benefit you.
I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. You’re copying something someone else created, for the express purpose of generating income, without their permission.
Who said anything about generating income off of pirated work?
Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.
The definition of theft according to MW: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
If you do not deprive the original owner of the property (such as: copying), it is not definitionally theft. Legally speaking, it is considered copyright infringement.
You hit the nail on the head. That’s why they’re downvoting and arguing. It personally benefits them to steal.
I’ve said it several times here…I don’t care if people pirate stuff. There are a myriad of reasons to do so. My issue is with the dishonesty of pretending it’s not stealing. Keep doing it, I don’t care, but own up to what you’re doing and admit it’s stealing.
It’s mental gymnastics because they need to be able to continue stealing but don’t want to feel bad about it.
LOL they know it’s stealing. Some of them will even blatantly admit it with no guilt.
Here’s the question though: if you click the button that says “buy” and give them money, but you don’t actually own it, have they stolen from you?
If you “bought” a printer and then like a year later the company comes back and says “actually no” and takes your printer back, is that stealing? And if you go back to that company’s warehouse and take it back from them, is that also stealing? 🤔
Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).
Digital media should be bought the same way as physical media.
If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and I have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Would make sense if the artist was independent, but corporations pay either a wage or a salary. It is rare for an artist to be paid a percentage of revenue for that product, so the only ones who would be affected by piracy are the corporations who did not directly create the art.
If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.
That would be great, but that is not the case for the vast majority of media. Generally-speaking, media is encumbered with DRM, which prevents the consumer from being able to copy the data or watch it in any way they deem fit (see: streaming services requiring hardware DRM for 4K streaming, even when they charge extra for it)
Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).
So, given that this is not an option for the vast majority of content, the only alternative where consumers maintain full control over their own media-playing devices is to download a DRM-free copy.
As Gabe Newell famously said, piracy is a service issue. Steam also has the same problem of lack of ownership and DRM, though, so its users are at the mercy of Valve to not revoke access to purchases.
GOG is one company who does it right, IMO. Sell only DRM-free copies of games, and allow people to download their copy and back it up to whatever media they want to put it on. This type of practice is rare in the media world, though. Most media companies require DRM on their product in order to license it out.
Also on the first point, independent producers of content generally don’t put DRM on their work anyway, so no reason not to buy their work.
This is an entirely separate and dishonest argument.
My point about DRM is highly relevant in this case, because a consumer cannot own something that is encumbered with DRM. They are renting a license for that product, even if the button they click on says “purchase”, since, hidden in the EULA somewhere, the company decided to redefine the word “purchase”. The company will always be able to revoke that license without notice or permission from the consumer, let alone a refund or any kind of compensation.
Again, it is not relevant because I’m not arguing against the OP. I am only arguing against the dishonesty and mischaracterization of piracy as being something other than stealing.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Are you saying that if I pirate a movie from 2019, the actors have not been paid for their screentime yet and won’t be paid until I buy the movie in, like, 2028?
I’m starting to think that everybody’s thinking about this the wrong way. But I think really needs to happen is they need to be sued to oblivion with a class action lawsuit. They can say whatever they want in their user agreement and do their best to get away with it but if it’s not enforceable in court then it needs to be shot down and shot down completely. This needs a class action lawsuit. There need to be several class action lawsuits. One against them, one against Sony and so on.
They have a lot of money and they might win in court maybe but they should at least be challenged in that venue.
If buying isn’t ownership then pirating isn’t stealing
Oh but it’s not buying! The big “Buy” or “Purchase” button might have said so, but if you’d have careful read through 35 pages of user agreements, you’d see that you only rent the license to stream it.
Which obviously is total bullshit and the whole fucking system should be burned to the ground.
This is precisely why I refuse to buy digital games. (And it extends to other media, but games are where I actually spend money)
I’ll pay for a rental service designed to be a rental service (ps+, for example) but will not buy individual games digitally. Who knows when they will become unavailable for some reason, and I can no longer download a copy. It’s bad enough when servers are shut down within 2 years of launch, but when the whole game gets pulled, then what?
I’ve decided I’m not even bothering with the next generation of consoles. So few things are even released on disc, with half the consoles being digital only, that it’s not even worth it. I’ll pirate instead.
This is where the law needs to step in, it should be illegal to call it “Buy” if you are just leasing it. It’s absolutely misleading to most consumers.
Licensing isn’t ownership, and pirating isn’t stealing, it’s copyright infringement.
The previous comment is more like shorthand, rather than literal truth.
It’s faster to say piracy isn’t stealing if purchasing isn’t ownership than it is to say “if a company can simply reverse a permanent access license at any time then pirating media from them is perfectly ethical and should not be considered a crime”
It’s bad shorthand though. In this context, there was never any “buying content” happening, nor was piracy ever “stealing”. It’s just misrepresentation of both sides.
That’s fair, but I feel like the point is that many people go through a process where
That feels like buying media, so according to the common “consumer” (hate that word) brain, you are spending money to buy content.
At the same time, media corps have been trying to teach us for years that piracy is exactly the same as stealing.
The whole point of the shorthand is to explain that these are not facts, they’re misconceptions, AND both of these misconceptions exist for the same reason, corporate propaganda.
It doesn’t just feel like it, it says it. What it is is false advertising. If you don’t get to keep it forever, the button should say something along the lines of “rent until we decide to stop hosting it”.
Come up with something better then.
Why?
Because you’re bitching about it. Either there’s a better way to express the precise picture you’re describing, or your central argument is fundamentally flawed, and it’s an effective shorthand.
Sure, there’s nuance. Shorthand is used to convey a nuanced thought quickly. That’s literally the point.
Lol “bitching” about it.
Weird logic. Pointing out something that isn’t accurate but gets parroted anyways means I need to come up with a better thing to parrot.
There’s no logic here. You’re right and they’re just throwing a tantrum because it means they’re wrong.
Infringe me harder daddy ©👄©
It is stealing. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics here. You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.
It is not stealing. The mental gymnastics are when you try to claim that it is.
It’s just as much “stealing” as me not watching it at all.
I’m infringing on their copyright, absolutely, but I’m not taking anything away from them that they could otherwise profit from.
You can’t reason with him. He is an anti-piracy troll.
For him, any comparison made to help him understand is a logical fallacy and any evidence presented against his argument is “irrelevant” as he puts it.
It is like arguing with a trump-like narcissist lol. “My argument counts and yours is wrong, but if yours is right then it is irrelevant, made up, and/or a straw man. If I don’t understand something then it is an attack and I will insult you and instantly label you inferior.”
It’s sad honestly and just like them all he is all “think of the poor artists who created the media you love” while conveniently ignoring that in the music industry, many/most artists don’t even get royalties because the record labels swindled then forced them to sign their lives and works away getting a couple pennies on the dollar.
Video game industry is salaried. All profits go to the corporations outside of indie games. Movies, outside of the big name stars, earn almost poverty wages and absolutely 0.00% of what gets sold because the studios are so incredibly corrupt.
Not to mention dead artists where unless they were extremely smart, their families are likely earning 0% of sold media.
Also not getting into the fact that copyright used to be very short until large corporations bribed lawmakers constantly and for so much corrupt money that they changed copyright to extend an extreme amount of time, otherwise things from the 90s would already be public domain if there wasn’t so much blatant bribery and corruption done by the people you are “stealing” from.
Unless you are pirating things from Dolly Parton or someone who was business savvy enough to not get cheated by the studios, you are not stealing from the artists in any crazy mental gymnastic stretch of the imagination.
Piracy, at the very worst, is stealing from long time hard criminals. There is not a single big record corporation that has not committed a multitude of thefts, blackmail, drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and worse. That isn’t even getting into the crimes of porn studios and movie studios. Disney mass murdered animals on camera for views as one example.
No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it. If they’re not entitled to your money, then you’re not entitled to the product of their time, effort, and labor.
Then why is digital piracy legally considered to be copyright infringement instead of theft?
That’s irrelevant. I’m not arguing the legality of it.
If i could just teleport into your house so i could liberate your keyboard, i would. Because your take is so collosally stupid that it actually angers me that you have it.
Like real, palpable rage that this insipid argument still exists in this world, after all this time.
Ahh yes… the tried and true ad-hominem. No actual argument against the point, just childish name-calling and insults. Grow the fuck up.
An ad hominem would be if i avoided your point and instead attacked you as a person. I attacked the point itself as frivolous and years-debunked. Please… Listen… Your keyboard is suffering under the weight of false premise. Free it, please
You did not address the point at all. Nothing has been debunked. It cannot be debunked because it’s true - you are stealing something someone created, which they made in order to get paid and make a living, because you are ingesting it and not paying them.
Stop being dishonest.
Saying your argument is stupid isn’t attacking you, dude.
That’s not what ad-hominem is, “dude”. It’s still a superficial attack rather than an attack of the argument if there’s no substance to it to actually dispute the argument.
That’s a valid opinion. It doesn’t change the fact that the crime is copyright infringement, not theft.
I’m not arguing the legal or criminal semantics. I’m arguing the dishonest justification and misrepresentation of piracy. Piracy is stealing. You’re stealing income from the creator if you ingest their work without paying for it. I don’t care if people pirate things but admit that it’s stealing and move on.
No it is not. By any definition.
You can think it’s morally wrong, that’s fine. But it simply, factually is not stealing.
That’s the only point I’m making.
Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. It doesn’t matter how many levels of abstraction or semantics you hide it behind, you’re gaining from something made by another person without returning that gain (whether financially or otherwise) to that person.
A friend bought a movie, invited me and 12 other people to watch it. Are we supposed to be legally required to say no?
How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with? Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money. This is especially the case if the consumer has previously purchased a license to consume the product, and then the company decides to take (or steal) it away. No moral qualms with pirating the same content then.
It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact. It’s not like a physical BluRay, where if you steal it from a store, you are making that store lose money due to that physical stock being stolen.
And lastly, how is the company not stealing from consumers when they pull shit like this?
Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).
Taking away licenses is wrong. I’m not disputing that. But that doesn’t magically make stealing something that actual people created right.
Are you making an ethical, moral, or legal statement here?
Ownership of intangibles in this context exists only as a means to support a particular political arrangement. I think you may be assuming others here share your politics; there is no objective moral standard for exclusive ownership of intangibles.
By that argument, there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value. If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not. If you don’t agree to that premise, then there’s no point in discussing this with you.
You’re right, there is no moral imperative for people to create (or share) intangibles, but nobody is claiming they have no value.
Again, is this a ethical, moral, or legal statement? It strikes me as a uniquely ideological statement, but you’ve not elaborated.
Everyone arguing that it’s not stealing is making the claim that it has no value.
Why does it matter? I would consider it moral and ethical but have no care whether it’s a legal one. I’m not disputing the legality of anything here (since I believe that the subject of the OP is also illegal - “Buying” something denotes ownership and, therefore, taking it away is also stealing).
Additionally, I do not have objections against piracy and think there are many legitimate reasons for it. I am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealing.
Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.
They are if you take something they created.
I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. You’re copying something someone else created, for the express purpose of generating income, without their permission.
I don’t know how these justifications can be described as anything other than “mental gymnastics” because they obviously make zero sense and personally benefit you.
Who said anything about generating income off of pirated work?
The definition of theft according to MW: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
If you do not deprive the original owner of the property (such as: copying), it is not definitionally theft. Legally speaking, it is considered copyright infringement.
No one. The person who did the work did so with the intention of generating income.
Does it really matter? What’s the important differentiation there?
You hit the nail on the head. That’s why they’re downvoting and arguing. It personally benefits them to steal.
I’ve said it several times here…I don’t care if people pirate stuff. There are a myriad of reasons to do so. My issue is with the dishonesty of pretending it’s not stealing. Keep doing it, I don’t care, but own up to what you’re doing and admit it’s stealing.
It’s mental gymnastics because they need to be able to continue stealing but don’t want to feel bad about it.
LOL they know it’s stealing. Some of them will even blatantly admit it with no guilt.
Here’s the question though: if you click the button that says “buy” and give them money, but you don’t actually own it, have they stolen from you?
If you “bought” a printer and then like a year later the company comes back and says “actually no” and takes your printer back, is that stealing? And if you go back to that company’s warehouse and take it back from them, is that also stealing? 🤔
Wait, do you think people that pirate things all have the same beliefs or something? Such a weird way to logic. 😅 Truly, that’s a new one.
No I just think some of them are more honest about it than others.
Well that’s certainly a convenient way to validate your own beliefs. lol
“Everyone that disagrees with my worldview just isn’t being honest!”
Stay scientific, friend
Well that’s certainly a good way to misrepresent someone else’s beliefs. LOL
“I’ll just make up some bullshit they didn’t even say or imply and put it in quotes like they did!”
Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).
Digital media should be bought the same way as physical media.
If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.
Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.
Would make sense if the artist was independent, but corporations pay either a wage or a salary. It is rare for an artist to be paid a percentage of revenue for that product, so the only ones who would be affected by piracy are the corporations who did not directly create the art.
That would be great, but that is not the case for the vast majority of media. Generally-speaking, media is encumbered with DRM, which prevents the consumer from being able to copy the data or watch it in any way they deem fit (see: streaming services requiring hardware DRM for 4K streaming, even when they charge extra for it)
So, given that this is not an option for the vast majority of content, the only alternative where consumers maintain full control over their own media-playing devices is to download a DRM-free copy.
As Gabe Newell famously said, piracy is a service issue. Steam also has the same problem of lack of ownership and DRM, though, so its users are at the mercy of Valve to not revoke access to purchases.
GOG is one company who does it right, IMO. Sell only DRM-free copies of games, and allow people to download their copy and back it up to whatever media they want to put it on. This type of practice is rare in the media world, though. Most media companies require DRM on their product in order to license it out.
Also on the first point, independent producers of content generally don’t put DRM on their work anyway, so no reason not to buy their work.
This is an entirely separate and dishonest argument. I’m not arguing anything related to DRM or the structure of the market that creates some content.
My point about DRM is highly relevant in this case, because a consumer cannot own something that is encumbered with DRM. They are renting a license for that product, even if the button they click on says “purchase”, since, hidden in the EULA somewhere, the company decided to redefine the word “purchase”. The company will always be able to revoke that license without notice or permission from the consumer, let alone a refund or any kind of compensation.
Relevant Louis Rossmann video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GZUCwVRLs
Again, it is not relevant because I’m not arguing against the OP. I am only arguing against the dishonesty and mischaracterization of piracy as being something other than stealing.
Are you saying that if I pirate a movie from 2019, the actors have not been paid for their screentime yet and won’t be paid until I buy the movie in, like, 2028?
👆
I’m starting to think that everybody’s thinking about this the wrong way. But I think really needs to happen is they need to be sued to oblivion with a class action lawsuit. They can say whatever they want in their user agreement and do their best to get away with it but if it’s not enforceable in court then it needs to be shot down and shot down completely. This needs a class action lawsuit. There need to be several class action lawsuits. One against them, one against Sony and so on.
They have a lot of money and they might win in court maybe but they should at least be challenged in that venue.