You’re absolutely right that Locke isn’t gospel, so let’s strip the 17th century philosophy away entirely and look at the modern reality. You don’t need Locke to tell you that server hosting, database management, and daily security patching require ongoing human labor and cost money every single month.
You also make a great point about historical patrons owning the art they funded. In modern digital media, the publisher or the studio IS that patron. They funded the millions of dollars to build it, so as you pointed out, they own it. The consumer paying a $60 entry fee isn’t the patron; they are just buying a ticket to access the patron’s digital venue.
If you demand perpetual, lifetime ownership of a digital service for a single upfront payment, you are demanding that the patron provide uncompensated server space and engineering labor for you for the rest of time. That isn’t consumer rights; that’s just entitlement.
The fact that you bought a ticket to watch a movie in a movie theater does not entitle you to watch that movie whenever and however often you want.
I need to preface that I don’t know how to say this any better and I’m also short on time so I’m going to ask your forgiveness for my bluntness and any offence this may come across as. I promise you im not attacking you and you are just going to have to accept it. Again my apologies but here we go…
Your logic is screwed up and I’m having a hard time trying to sort out where your flawed logic is, so I’m gonna need some grace and more self reflection from you than is probably expected, I hope you can accomodate my shortcomings in this.
It’s not an attack, you seem to make a well thought out argument, which is more than I usually see. Credit to you and I do respect you for it.
All work created by a creator CAN be owned by someone else.
A horseshoe is no different from movie on DVD or SD card from an ownership standpoint.
I disagree that recording performances is a technological anomaly. Because it requires entirely too narrow a perspective.
The only different between someone writing a book describing a play and a recording is the medium used to record it. That medium is a physical thing.
We can’t literally record thoughts, not in any meaningful or useful ways at the moment but we ARE close to that. There is a research experiment where they recorded someone’s brain activity while they dreamt and were able to play that recording back to some degree of success.
In a hobbesian sense (as you described it, I’m not claiming mastery on the mans philosophy just trying to meet you where you are) you cannot own someones thoughts that use used to make a creation, whether it be a performance or a recording of the performance. The only difference between a horseshoe and a performance of a okay or music, is that not many people cared to bottle up the performance of a blacksmith making the horseshoe. Until YouTube.
Owning the horseshoe doesn’t give you rights to the performance of its creation, neither does owning a copy of the recording of the performance grant you ownership of the horseshoe.
There are different things at play from start to finish. And they are treated differently. I don’t think anyone is making the same arguments that you are claiming and refuting, and that’s why I think there is a flaw in your arguments logic.
Owning a game on a disc or cartridge is not equivalent to owning the right to a performance. It doesn’t give you ownership of anything other than what you purchased. In this case that we are discussing owning a game IS owning the code that exists on the physical medium, be it a hardrive, a paper printout, a disc. Ownership of that specific copy of that specific code is what ownership of a digital creation is. It’s an ordered number of 1s and 0s. It’s a copy of a pattern that is absolutely useless to anyone who can’t read binary on the medium purchases. Ownership does not require usability, but it MUST provide a product that is tangible, regardless of its usability to the owner.
Im not understanding why you are using the examples of right to a performance the way you are using them and I think what I’ve written here should be enough to explain what I understand about the situation. My ability to communicate my thoughts clearly and precisely to you, anyone else reading this and also to myself are perhaps insufficient, but that doesn’t automatically invalidate my understanding just because I can’t explain it well, or that I’ve made errors in my attempt to communicate them in this medium
I see what you’re getting at, but your argument is built on an illusion of ownership that has never actually existed in the video game space.
You claimed that “owning a game IS owning the code… Ownership of that specific copy of that specific code.” That is fundamentally false. In the software industry, end-users have never owned the code, the pattern of 1s and 0s, or the game itself. You only ever purchased a non-exclusive, revocable license to execute that software.
The physical disc or cartridge was never the game, it was just a plastic delivery vehicle that doubled as a physical DRM key. The First Sale Doctrine gave you the right to resell that piece of plastic, but it never gave you ownership of the intellectual property printed on it. EULAs have made this explicit since the 1980s.
If you acknowledge that gamers only ever purchased a license to play, then the shift to digital-only isn’t some grand moral failing or a theft of consumer rights. It is strictly a logistical shift in distribution. The transaction hasn’t changed, you are still just buying a license to execute code. The only difference is that studios are delivering that license over a network instead of burning it onto a piece of plastic.
You can certainly argue that losing the ability to trade in used plastic discs is inconvenient or annoying. But calling an operational shift in supply chain logistics “immoral” is applying heavy ethical weight to a simple reality: you can’t lose ownership rights you never possessed in the first place.
It absolutely did give me ownership of the software on everysingle NES game I bought. NO ONE can tell me I don’t own that plastic and can use it in anyway I want so long as I do not distribute copies or derivatives works of it. But I can create and make as many copies of it as I want as long as I keep them to myself and I can make whatever changes I want to it assuming I have the skillset to do so. They do not have to provide me any assistance, nor am I entitled to assistance to do these things, but as the owner I certainly can do these things
Owning something doesn’t mean there aren’t conditions, but I absolutely own those 1s and 0s on that piece of plastic. No one can delete them or take them or prevent me from using them in anyway.
This ISNT a 1980s thing either. Copying what’s on my Plastic NES cartridges is no different than is no different than forging a copy of the Mona Lisa if I owned it. Distributing that copy in any way is currently prohibited, but I can paint it as long as I don’t try to claim it’s the original.
Owning a NES cartridge might also give me a limited license to certain things but I OWN that copy of 1s and 0s even if I can’t copy it and sell it or give them away. I didn’t sign a EULA when I bought Chrono trigger. YOU may have, but I didn’t
You are confusing physical possession with intellectual ownership. You absolutely own the plastic cartridge, the silicon board, and the physical state of the ROM chip. Because it is an offline, physical object, no one can remotely delete it. But you do not own the code, and you never did.
Under copyright law, ownership of a copyright is strictly separate from ownership of the material object the work is stored on. You own the material object. Nintendo and Square own the 1s and 0s.
You claim you never agreed to a EULA for Chrono Trigger. You didn’t have to click an “Accept” button on a screen because the 1990s operated on shrink-wrap licenses. If you look at the back of the original Chrono Trigger box and inside the manual, the publishers explicitly laid out the terms of your limited license to use their intellectual property. The law didn’t require your signature; breaking the shrink-wrap seal on the box or booting up the cartridge was legally recognized as accepting those terms of use.
Your house metaphor actually proves this point perfectly. If you buy a house, you own the wood, the drywall, and the land. But you do not own the architect’s copyrighted blueprints. You can paint the walls inside your house, but you cannot legally take the architect’s design and build an identical replica of that house on another lot.
You possess a physical artifact that grants you perpetual, offline access to execute a licensed piece of software. That is a great feature of the physical media era, and it is exactly why no one can take it away from you. But claiming you own the actual 1s and 0s because you hold the plastic is like claiming you own a novel’s copyright because you bought a hardcover at the bookstore.
Also the patrons of the people and organizations that produced these works have often been owned by those who funded them, stop kidding yourself
You’re absolutely right that Locke isn’t gospel, so let’s strip the 17th century philosophy away entirely and look at the modern reality. You don’t need Locke to tell you that server hosting, database management, and daily security patching require ongoing human labor and cost money every single month.
You also make a great point about historical patrons owning the art they funded. In modern digital media, the publisher or the studio IS that patron. They funded the millions of dollars to build it, so as you pointed out, they own it. The consumer paying a $60 entry fee isn’t the patron; they are just buying a ticket to access the patron’s digital venue.
If you demand perpetual, lifetime ownership of a digital service for a single upfront payment, you are demanding that the patron provide uncompensated server space and engineering labor for you for the rest of time. That isn’t consumer rights; that’s just entitlement.
The fact that you bought a ticket to watch a movie in a movie theater does not entitle you to watch that movie whenever and however often you want.
I need to preface that I don’t know how to say this any better and I’m also short on time so I’m going to ask your forgiveness for my bluntness and any offence this may come across as. I promise you im not attacking you and you are just going to have to accept it. Again my apologies but here we go…
Your logic is screwed up and I’m having a hard time trying to sort out where your flawed logic is, so I’m gonna need some grace and more self reflection from you than is probably expected, I hope you can accomodate my shortcomings in this.
It’s not an attack, you seem to make a well thought out argument, which is more than I usually see. Credit to you and I do respect you for it.
All work created by a creator CAN be owned by someone else.
A horseshoe is no different from movie on DVD or SD card from an ownership standpoint.
I disagree that recording performances is a technological anomaly. Because it requires entirely too narrow a perspective.
The only different between someone writing a book describing a play and a recording is the medium used to record it. That medium is a physical thing.
We can’t literally record thoughts, not in any meaningful or useful ways at the moment but we ARE close to that. There is a research experiment where they recorded someone’s brain activity while they dreamt and were able to play that recording back to some degree of success.
In a hobbesian sense (as you described it, I’m not claiming mastery on the mans philosophy just trying to meet you where you are) you cannot own someones thoughts that use used to make a creation, whether it be a performance or a recording of the performance. The only difference between a horseshoe and a performance of a okay or music, is that not many people cared to bottle up the performance of a blacksmith making the horseshoe. Until YouTube.
Owning the horseshoe doesn’t give you rights to the performance of its creation, neither does owning a copy of the recording of the performance grant you ownership of the horseshoe.
There are different things at play from start to finish. And they are treated differently. I don’t think anyone is making the same arguments that you are claiming and refuting, and that’s why I think there is a flaw in your arguments logic.
Owning a game on a disc or cartridge is not equivalent to owning the right to a performance. It doesn’t give you ownership of anything other than what you purchased. In this case that we are discussing owning a game IS owning the code that exists on the physical medium, be it a hardrive, a paper printout, a disc. Ownership of that specific copy of that specific code is what ownership of a digital creation is. It’s an ordered number of 1s and 0s. It’s a copy of a pattern that is absolutely useless to anyone who can’t read binary on the medium purchases. Ownership does not require usability, but it MUST provide a product that is tangible, regardless of its usability to the owner.
Im not understanding why you are using the examples of right to a performance the way you are using them and I think what I’ve written here should be enough to explain what I understand about the situation. My ability to communicate my thoughts clearly and precisely to you, anyone else reading this and also to myself are perhaps insufficient, but that doesn’t automatically invalidate my understanding just because I can’t explain it well, or that I’ve made errors in my attempt to communicate them in this medium
I see what you’re getting at, but your argument is built on an illusion of ownership that has never actually existed in the video game space.
You claimed that “owning a game IS owning the code… Ownership of that specific copy of that specific code.” That is fundamentally false. In the software industry, end-users have never owned the code, the pattern of 1s and 0s, or the game itself. You only ever purchased a non-exclusive, revocable license to execute that software.
The physical disc or cartridge was never the game, it was just a plastic delivery vehicle that doubled as a physical DRM key. The First Sale Doctrine gave you the right to resell that piece of plastic, but it never gave you ownership of the intellectual property printed on it. EULAs have made this explicit since the 1980s.
If you acknowledge that gamers only ever purchased a license to play, then the shift to digital-only isn’t some grand moral failing or a theft of consumer rights. It is strictly a logistical shift in distribution. The transaction hasn’t changed, you are still just buying a license to execute code. The only difference is that studios are delivering that license over a network instead of burning it onto a piece of plastic.
You can certainly argue that losing the ability to trade in used plastic discs is inconvenient or annoying. But calling an operational shift in supply chain logistics “immoral” is applying heavy ethical weight to a simple reality: you can’t lose ownership rights you never possessed in the first place.
It absolutely did give me ownership of the software on everysingle NES game I bought. NO ONE can tell me I don’t own that plastic and can use it in anyway I want so long as I do not distribute copies or derivatives works of it. But I can create and make as many copies of it as I want as long as I keep them to myself and I can make whatever changes I want to it assuming I have the skillset to do so. They do not have to provide me any assistance, nor am I entitled to assistance to do these things, but as the owner I certainly can do these things
Owning something doesn’t mean there aren’t conditions, but I absolutely own those 1s and 0s on that piece of plastic. No one can delete them or take them or prevent me from using them in anyway.
This ISNT a 1980s thing either. Copying what’s on my Plastic NES cartridges is no different than is no different than forging a copy of the Mona Lisa if I owned it. Distributing that copy in any way is currently prohibited, but I can paint it as long as I don’t try to claim it’s the original.
Owning a NES cartridge might also give me a limited license to certain things but I OWN that copy of 1s and 0s even if I can’t copy it and sell it or give them away. I didn’t sign a EULA when I bought Chrono trigger. YOU may have, but I didn’t
This is no different than owning a house
You are confusing physical possession with intellectual ownership. You absolutely own the plastic cartridge, the silicon board, and the physical state of the ROM chip. Because it is an offline, physical object, no one can remotely delete it. But you do not own the code, and you never did.
Under copyright law, ownership of a copyright is strictly separate from ownership of the material object the work is stored on. You own the material object. Nintendo and Square own the 1s and 0s.
You claim you never agreed to a EULA for Chrono Trigger. You didn’t have to click an “Accept” button on a screen because the 1990s operated on shrink-wrap licenses. If you look at the back of the original Chrono Trigger box and inside the manual, the publishers explicitly laid out the terms of your limited license to use their intellectual property. The law didn’t require your signature; breaking the shrink-wrap seal on the box or booting up the cartridge was legally recognized as accepting those terms of use.
Your house metaphor actually proves this point perfectly. If you buy a house, you own the wood, the drywall, and the land. But you do not own the architect’s copyrighted blueprints. You can paint the walls inside your house, but you cannot legally take the architect’s design and build an identical replica of that house on another lot.
You possess a physical artifact that grants you perpetual, offline access to execute a licensed piece of software. That is a great feature of the physical media era, and it is exactly why no one can take it away from you. But claiming you own the actual 1s and 0s because you hold the plastic is like claiming you own a novel’s copyright because you bought a hardcover at the bookstore.
I very much am not confused about this, you just aren’t willing to consider other view points and keep shifting the goal posts.
I thought this was an interesting conversation. You have shown me that I was wrong about this conversation.
You aren’t worth any more of my time.
And that’s sad
You’ve expressed a lot of contradictory opinions and wishes, but you have not countered any of my premises with facts or logical argumentation.
I’m sorry that you find that so frustrating.