If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase … I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.
I don’t think this particular line of thought makes for a very good argument without more info. The other case makes sense. But for this one, people aren’t obligated to sell you things. If you own something sentimental or private to you that I want, you’re not obligated to sell it to me if I want it and I’m not justified in stealing it from you if you don’t want to sell it.
For ex: Think of embarassing photos of yourself, private letters between you and others etc.
I think more info was given with the examples they used though. They reveal that the problem is with copyright, where a company can both stop you from buying something from them and stop you from buying it elsewhere by still technically owning it.
More if it’s something that was available but only from one specific location several years ago and it’s no longer available or incredibly difficult to find for purchase. A good example would be certain old console video games that can be emulated now but have long since gone out of print and are either unavailable for purchase as digital or insanely expensive or unavailable for original hard copy.
There’s issues with “right to repair” too but that’s a different discussion, I think.
With their original comment,
If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase (false scarcity by removal fro market) or if despite purchasing a physical object, say a car, I can’t fully use it or repair it without special software I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.
I’m only talking about the first case of the or here. I specifically pointed out the other case that you are referring to was not something I had an issue with.
Edit: And how does this change anything? Companies aren’t any more obligated to sell people things than individuals. There are instances where it may be beneficial for a company to choose not to sell certain products, for example if a better product exists that should succeed the old product or when a certain product is later discovered to be harmful in some way.
I feel like the same kind of argument can probably extend to either intellectual property or real physical objects. With physical objects certain limits have to apply of course (like me withholding things you need to survive could potentially justify your theft).
With intellectual property, if you write stories for yourself to pass the time you aren’t obligated to share/sell those stories to me and it would be wrong for me to break into your home and make copies of them if you chose not to sell/share them with me.
Why breaking into someone’s home?
See, since I’m your buddy, you tell me bits and pieces of the stories you’re writing for fun. And I, a Hollywood mogul, take those ideas, hand them off to a development crew and put out a movie based on your ideas. You get nothing.
This is normal in Hollywood. Also, I underpay my development crew because capitalism. They hate me but my stockholders think I’m okay. Original content creators like you? Well, there’s a reason the writers are on strike, since screenwriting pays so poorly it’s downgraded to hobby.
It’s a problem especially in the record labels, in which most artists have their content signed away for a pittance because that was the only way to get heard which is changing through the internet, which is why the RIAA is eager to speed up enshittification of social media. And there are some interesting conspiracy theories about why Kim Dotcom was arrested in 2012 days before he rolled out a new music distro system that had dozens of major Hip Hop artists involved that allowed artists to get music out for free and then keep all their touring proceeds. But that died with the Megaupload seizure. Remember that?
If you really want to shill for folks like Disney and Sony and Time Warner, feel free, but you can expect your content to enshittify as well (as it has been for years now). I’m sure Fast and Furious XIII will be awesome.
