Thank you, dear madam or sir!

If they call it a “sale” rather than a “licensing” then I consider myself entitled to remove the DRM (which I do to all my Kindle ebooks, for example) or to download a cracked copy for archiving (which I do to some games I wish to keep, if I haven’t bought them on GOG or another DRM-free platform). Common sense and ethics dictate that I am in my right to do this.

If companies are relying on a technicality - an obscure one to the general public, even though techies have been aware of this issue for over a decade - to hoodwink people and charge actual-purchase prices for mere licensing, then I am relying on the implicit tenets of morality, good faith and common sense to bypass their malicious and bad faith distortions. Artificial scarcity be fucked, I paid what they claim is a fair price for what they claim is the purchase of a digital good, so I shall treat it with Animus Domini just as I do with any physical purchase. This includes lending to others as per the First Sale doctrine.

The fact that the seller consciously chose to contradict themselves, calling it a purchase out in the open and a licensing deal in the fine print, should it ever work to someone’s disadvantage, should obviously be to the disadvantage of the person who intentionally made the blunder, not to good faith third parties. This is a well-established principle of legal ethics and Civil Law which is adopted by legal scholars the world over. Whether or not they have failed to apply it to these specific cases is wholly irrelevant to its validity, and I apply it to my own dealings with a perfectly clear conscience.

I legally purchase all my media, and I will use any and all means necessary to protect my good faith acquisitions, including those which are incontroversially illegal for those who have not purchased that piece of media, such as downloading cracked software, because this is simply done to remedy an inexcusable omission on the part of those who claim to have sold me a copy of that software but don’t provide me with the possibility to archive my copy locally. So long as these transactions are referred to openly as purchases, sales, etc. I shall continue to act in this way to enforce their overt nature over the malicious mischaracterization contained in their licensing.

In other words, slimeballs, have the guts to call it licensing and renting. Until you do, I and many like me will continue to make your lies come true and there is realistically nothing you can do to stop us.

+1 for Syncthing

In the same vein, my friend frequently tells his fiancé to quit being a f*ggot when he doesn’t want to eat something unusual or complains about mild annoyances. Which always draws hilariously confused looks from nearby straights who don’t know them very well.

Nipple Batman made balconies useless?

Removed by mod

No, crimes exist for whoever isn’t in power. There are several crimes that can only be committed by rich people, such as those related to banking and the stock market, formation of cartels* and monopolistic/anti-competitive practices, etc. But conveniently the criminals are only prosecuted when they are the political or commercial opponents of whoever happens to be in charge at the time.

*Not the drug kind, the “a small group of companies with a combined market majority conspires to fix prices while pretending to compete with each other” kind

It puts the lotion in the basket.

It doesn’t really make any sense since first and second person pronouns aren’t gendered. When I refer to “you” it means “whoever I’m talking to” without implying anything about the person or persons other than that I intend my message for them. There’s just no reason to change that. Not “no good reason” but “no reason”.

If you’ve never watched the movie 12 Angry Men, do yourself a favor and watch it. You are going to love it and it has everything to do with your comment.

I think this is an example of where the left-right axis isn’t the most adequate way of viewing things. The Fediverse in general is anti-authoritarian. You can be all the way from a far-left anarchist to a far-right anarcho-capitalist and still be anti-authoritarian, just like both tankies and nazis are authoritarian.

But isn’t that exactly what they were saying? If you go on X, for example, you can literally be banned for using the word “cisgender”. Musk considers it a slur. Here, you can voice any opinion.

However there’s a different between agreeing with some right-wing policies and being a full-on MAGA fascist. Full-on MAGA fascists shrivel up and die when exposed to any discourse that hasn’t been heavily censored and editorialized in their favor. So naturally they’ll avoid places where different opinions are shared. This alone is enough reason to call this place an echo chamber, because a (sadly) very prevalent set of opinions isn’t represented here.

And I can, for example, get away with referring to MAGA fascists as MAGA fascists knowing full well that not a single one of those Trump-fellating pussies will say anything against me for it, and even if one does, the community will not have their back.