Crunchyroll

I don't hate physical nor digital media. I don't hate streaming or services which provide access to streamed content.

I hate shitty business people. Those who think that paying once for something isn't good enough.

This is exactly that. You paid for the media. You should continue to have uninterrupted access to that content.

The whole idea of ownership is getting muddied by all this "pay for access" and "pay for license" nonsense. It's one thing of you're paying to use a service and that service licenses things. Sure. Like Netflix licensing access to a show. End users of Netflix don't need to buy the show again from Netflix, they are paying for access to the platform and can use the Netflix license to watch the show. You're paying for a service, that service has content that's licensed, you're not paying for the content.

My problem is that licenses are not ownership of the thing that they license. They're not supposed to be. Even back in the days of DVD, movies had a small section of the package that was a "proof of purchase" (usually a small tearaway section inside the case) which physically represented the license for that copy of that media. You had a physical copy and a license all in one. You can have a license and no copy of the licensed content, and you can have licensed content without a license, most notably in the case of downloading a program or something and having that program but needing to activate it with a license before it works.

In the past licenses were often included with or implied by ownership of a thing. You bought a record, and having the record itself implied that you had a license to own that copy of the content on that record. Over time, especially with digital content, the concept of license ownership and licensed content have been decoupled. Having a copy of... Say, Windows, does not and should not imply you have a license to use the windows operating system. This is the same idea as applied to online media. All of those people have a license to the content, but no access to the licensed content now. Get fucked I guess.

I think it's foolish to buy a license for a thing, and not keep a copy of that thing. While I think that's foolish, it's exactly what I do all the time with games in my steam library. The only reason I trust steam with it is because of their long history and track record. I have licenses to a bunch of games, they have the games on their servers and I can download those games and license them through steam in an entirely seamless process. It's not the smartest choice but it's a decision I made long ago that I've stuck to. Bluntly, I won't buy games on other platforms because I don't want to risk losing access to the content that I paid for the license to use. So I avoid epic Games and other online games libraries for that reason (though, shout out to gog, mainly for giving me the ability to transfer my license to steam when I buy something).

The biggest issue I see is that media doesn't have a universal license authorization method. With software and games, there are license keys. You get a set of seemingly random numbers (and sometimes letters too) which are a valid license for that content. It's transferrable. With media, no such system exists, and licenses granted by a company usually are not transferable in part due to having no system to validate the license with the new service. You bought it, you have a license with x company for it, but y company doesn't even know what you're talking about, and won't accept or otherwise recognise the license from company x for the media, and grant you the access you paid for to that media.

Because of this, I've been extremely hesitant to buy any digital media. I'll get services from a streaming service like Apple music, YouTube music, Spotify, etc for my listening, or YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, HBO+, etc for access to their licensed content that they have licenses for, but I hesitate to buy any non-physical media otherwise. If I'm relying on an online service to maintain my license and deliver the licensed content to me, I'm pretty much not going to do it unless I'm very desperate to access that content (which is rare, of its ever happened at all).

Until we can get a valid license transfer system from the media conglomerates, I'm just going to stick to physical media, or get it in a way that I don't have to worry about licensing. I have a source online for buying and downloading music. An online music store, if you will. What it does is allow me to buy albums and download them. No streaming, no muss, no fuss. Pick your format, download, transaction complete. Enjoy. I chose this because they offered the content in flac, frequently better than CD quality (I'm usually looking for studio quality, 16/24 bit, 48khz or better). Once I have the files and my receipt, everything is done. I legally have the content and the receipt is archived in my email as my proof that I purchased it and hold a license to have the media.

I'm not aware of anything similar for video media, and I stopped looking for one. I will buy the physical media for now.

There's no way I'm going to hand over my money to any company for any licensed content that I can't have a copy of.

All that being said, these corporate types are dicks. They've taken people's trust in them to maintain their license and access to the licensed content, and wiped their ass with it. They don't deserve your money, and they certainly don't deserve your trust. Boycott them until a crunchyroll competitor emerges.