Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com
First off: transition update. Not much, but I figured it worth mentioning I've got an increased appetite. Pretty understandable development considering HRT is essentially a second puberty. Also did get me thinking. One of the benefits of second puberty is that, as an adult, no one is gonna yell at me for keeping snacks in my desk. Not that I was the type to do that as a teen, but it is nice to be able to sate my hunger when I need to.
I also do have more to say on the topic of digital media ownership thats not just shilling for GOG who have no intention of paying me for my effort. First off I want to direct some attention to Ross Scott's Stop Killing Games initiative. Ross Scott is a youtube creator primarily known for his scripted Machinema series Freeman's Mind. In the past few years, however his focus has shifted to "ending the practice of publishers destroying videogames they have sold to customers." The crux of the issue are games that require some sort of online connection or authentication. Once the publisher no longer supports one of these games then the game is no longer playable even to people who have bought it legitimately. This is what is meant by publishers killing games. Publishers making legitimate copies of games inaccessible by pulling support. In my last post I covered how this is perfectly legal in that when you buy a piece of software you are actually buying a license to access it, and that license can be revoked for any reason covered in the EULA (end user license agreement). The thing is this has a potential to be made illegal in some countries and there is currently an EU citizens initiative to draft a law that will require publishers to ensure that videogames sold remain functional after support ends. As I'm US based (as you could probably guess from my US centric political talk) theres not much I can do but if you or someone you know lives in the EU consdier following the instructions on the stop killing games website to sign the initiative.
On the film and TV front things seem a lot less dire but no less frustrating. The rise of streaming services has led to a drop in interest in physical media. Unfortunately, this means that access to the film and tv is dependant not an a license agreement you have with a publisher or distributor, but rather, a license agreement between the distributor and the streaming platform which you have no influence over. So your access to things is far from guaranteed. People are starting to wake up to this as more and more streaming services appear fragmenting movie libraries across multiple subscription services turning streaming into more complicated cable. The solution to this is to keep buying physical, but as demand decreases, the price for both the hardware and the indvidual movie and TV releases increases. Already physical media collections are the domain of freaks like me who have hundreds of VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4k Blu-Ray releases when it used to be every household has a modest collection of 10 to 20 tapes, and maybe a veritable library of TV programs on home recordings (remember when you could just DO that? Record TV and keep it on a tape forever?). We're pretty much at a point where access to film and television might be the most tightly controlled of any popular entertainment medium. That being said there is some benefit in that accessibility is virtually guaranteed dispite that.
Anyway, those are some miscellanious thoughts on digital media. Kinda rambly with no real point beyond be careful where and how you buy somthing. It might just get legally stolen from you.
Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com