You seem to have trouble understanding the fact that people can buy things and share them with those who can’t.

I’ve already given you an example of the game Mindustry, which people buy on Steam (16k reviews): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127400/Mindustry, even though it’s released under a free software license and you can get it for free on Itch: https://anuke.itch.io/mindustry and you can get its source code on GitHub: https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry.

The only reason why the industry is surviving is because most people understand that they need to pay for the entertainment they consume.

Weird, huh? For some reason the internet and Bittorrent hasn’t changed that.

They never hacked your computer, you agreed to everything. So what’s the problem then? It’s just a file that can be shared.

A lot of people don’t have a problem with that. I do, which is why I don’t use proprietary software. If I took a photo of myself (or of anything else) and posted it publicly on social media, I would do it under a free license, so that people could share it. I do that with software that I make. But that doesn’t mean I want to share everything - there are many things I want to keep private, so I will not post them publicly. There is no contradiction here.

I’m not talking only about you. I’m talking about how senseless the “I can share files with anyone” is. If that were true, companies could really fuck their customers, but thankfully it isn’t logical, thus it is illegal.

I’m pretty sure companies already legally sell user data, though? Laws don’t define what is logical or what is moral.

Imagine if a single person could buy a movie and then place it in their Facebook to share with their friends. And then their friends share with their friends. And so on… because it’s just a file, nobody is stealing, copying information isn’t stealing! … Who would make a movie under those conditions?

People already share movies online and it’s very easy. You don’t have to pay for any digital file ever, but people choose to do it anyway. Copying files is not stealing, because it’s not a physical object - you can make an infinite amount of copies at no cost.

If you want to own the movie, you need to buy a real copy. If you are buying a digital copy, you do not own the movie. There is already a solution for your problem, real copies.

Movies sold on DVD and Blu-ray contain DRM. You can’t make copies (even for personal use) without breaking the DRM, which is illegal. If there was no DRM, you could at least make copies for personal use, which would be an improvement, but you still wouldn’t own the files.

So sure, if you want a bunch of industries to die, keep believing and convincing others of that.

Copying and sharing files only keeps getting easier and those industries haven’t died. People even sell things like games and books under a free license. One such game is Mindustry - I bought a copy myself and I can legally share it with anyone. This game is even available for free on some platforms, but people buy it anyway.

The only reason you can watch your pirated movie is the fact that other people actually pay for the content. So you’re really stealing from people who now have to pay more to access the content.

You can’t steal something that’s infinite. I would pay for the movies though (even if they aren’t released under a free license) if there was a way to buy them without DRM. But there isn’t and I’m not going to support unethical practices with my money.

There could be a website where you would be able to buy DRM-free movies and you could download them. We have such stores for music, books and games. But the movie studios are greedy, so they choose to abuse people with DRM.

Remember Kim Dotcom? He had a file sharing website and the police raided his house with guns like he was a dangerous criminal. There is a video of it on YouTube.

Only if it’s a file that’s already publicly available. When you buy a movie, why shouldn’t you be able to share it with others? I’m not saying that you should be able to hack a filmmaker’s computer and publish movies they’ve never released, though.

The scenario you described can’t happen to me anyway, because I only use Free Software. You can learn more about it here: https://piped.video/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM

They shouldn’t collect data in the first place.

“Piracy” is a propaganda term. We shouldn’t use it. There is nothing wrong with sharing files.

True :D

I haven’t heard of AMPRnet before. Sounds interesting.

As for emergency communications, in an actual emergency (risk to life and limb kind of deal) any person, whether qualified or not, has legal permission to use any radio they find.

I wasn’t sure about that, so that’s good to know!

Mail detector sounds like a perfect use for LoRA. But I suspect that there is no security by default and anyone would be able to send you such a message if they were mean :).

I was thinking about this WiFi idea, because I think it could be useful in case of an emergency. I think there should be services hosted inside of cities. I mean in their local networks. It could be local government websites and maybe things like a Lemmy instance where people could talk. Even stuff like Open Street Map could maybe be useful. So if the city was for some reason cut off from the internet and the mobile network, most people would still be able to communicate and have access to information. It would be like having a tiny backup of the internet (at least whatever is possible to self host). I think it’s a big oversight to only rely on the internet.

Something like this could maybe be also useful in countries with authoritative governments, which sometimes cut off internet access in the entire country. In the long term the government would probably find out and try to stop it, though.

But as you’ve explained, making something like this would require many people working together and ideally should probably be handled by a local government instead. It’s not something I plan on doing, it just seemed like a cool idea to think about.

I might try playing with LoRA for some other project some day, if I can legally use it without a license. But if I can’t encrypt the messages, then I would probably prefer to use WiFi (for short distances) instead.

In your case, to have emergency communications with your family, maybe CB radio or satellite phones would be a solution?

Thanks for a very detailed explanation! So it seems that this is almost impossible. Except for maybe a small part of a city.

The lack of encryption, privacy and anonymity in HAM radio would be an issue for me. Just like in mobile phones. But since you can use end-to-end encryption over WiFi (and some weaker, less useful encryption is used in mobile phones), maybe there are exceptions. I’ve heard of LoRA, but I wouldn’t want to use it, unless I’m allowed to encrypt the messages. It also seems that the message length is very limited, so using something like PGP might not always be possible.

You know HAM radio? It’s kinda interesting, because people can use it to talk to each other and it technically doesn’t require any infrastructure. But there are also repeaters in cities that can increase the range.

I’ve been wondering why people don’t try to do something similar with WiFi? Some kind of city-wide WiFi network with repeaters. It’s probably difficult and I’m not sure if it would have any practical use. But the advantage over HAM radio is that it’s encrypted and doesn’t require a license. I imagine that people could use it to chat with each other and share stuff without having to rely on social media or the internet.

The Free Software movement. So the idea that people deserve certain rights when using computers, so that they can control their own devices.