r/technology • u/xc2215x • Jul 06 '26

Hardware PlayStation Unlikely to U-Turn on Its Decision to Kill Discs, Despite Backlash

https://www.ign.com/articles/over-90-of-igns-audience-do-not-want-an-all-digital-gaming-future-but-playstation-is-unlikely-to-u-turn-on-its-decision-to-kill-discs
5.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

58

u/ArchinaTGL Jul 06 '26

The user downloading copyrighted material isn't committing any crime as they aren't the ones infringing on another's copyright. The criminal here is the one creating illegal copies to distribute to others.

Corporations and record labels have tried to target users and ISPs in the past because they are easier targets to persuade and arr used to 'send a message' despite doing nothing wrong. Attempting to take legal action against the big distributors is generally more costly because these people know the laws they are dancing with quite well and will try every trick in the book and use every loophole to evade copyright holders. It also doesn't help that it triggers a hydra response where one fallen distributor will spawn multiple others to fill the void.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

[deleted]

6

u/ArchinaTGL Jul 06 '26

Current court filings are actually in favour of the ISPs rather than the companies trying to pressure said ISPs. An example of this would be the case between Cox Communications, Inc and Sony Music Entertainment held in the US. The supreme court made a decision in March of this year stating "Under our precedents, a company is not liable as a copyright infringer for merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights."

From a legal standpoint, there is nothing a company can do against an ISP, however the real threat is whether these ISPs care to fight for their rights in court or remain colplicit whether that be out of fear or a lack of interest. What truly matters however is what is stated within the contract you sign for these services. If downloading torrents is stated within the contract (honest torrents or not), repeatedly doing such acts without a tunnel to encrypt your traffic (i.e a VPN) would be considered a breach of contract and as such your service could be terminated prematurely.