It's funny because custom electronics are way more cheap and accessible than they used to be. In the 90s, I wished I could dump my game carts and saves. I saw someone posted PCBs to do it over ISA bus but I didn't have the skills or ability to do it myself. Recently, I found this open project that can dump that era: https://github.com/sanni/cartreader
I don't "own" the movie, music, or digital media I buy, I am merely "temporarily renting it" through "licensing agreements". Yet every other physical good that I own, I perform a cash transaction of it and it is understood that it is mine. I can do with it what I want. I buy eggs at the store. I can cook and eat them or throw them out the window. Nobody cares. I own them. I bought them.
Only when my purchase is digital am I suddenly combated with "distribution rights", "reproduction rights", "rights to modify", etc.
The laws need to be changed, I tell ya!
I thought that might be a catalyzing moment, but I've learned that literally nothing is a catalyzing in America. No matter the issue. No matter the act. Literally nothing changes.
For starters, you can resell an LP. Can you resell a music file?
Physical media makes it easier to do things but those same things aren't without issues just because they originated on physical media.
If I wanted to sell my Beatles LP I could do it no problem, because reproduction of it (now bear with the metaphor here) is more difficult and time consuming. Hell, even bootlegging it (which is illegal) would be an order of magnitude more difficult because I'd need to set up the equipment to do it and there's a cost of of entry associated with that. Scarcity of supply affects demand yadda yadda.
Digital? Just a few clicks. That's their problem. The fundamental shift to digital media has removed all these barriers hence completely removing scarcity from the equation. They can't control the scarcity. They can't control their product. Once its out that's it and that makes it fundamentally "worthless" in their eyes. And so here we are with laws passed that try to fight the inevitable: helplessly maintain control of their withering walled garden.
Don't pity them. These motherfuckers don't deserve it. Not with how they treat their artists like cattle, or how they happily got away with printing albums with one good song and 13 dogshit tracks. Now they try to muscle in on live shows which are the only way artists make money.
The only thing that's changed is how easy it is to actually make the copies. It used to be a considerable to super-unfeasible amount of work for most of the things that were protected by copyright, and now it's laughably easy for almost every work.
From an ethics point of view that change alone isn't the justification we need for making a change. I think perhaps exceptions that honor the aim of preservation of culture, while still allowing IP-based business models to work, would be more defensible.
Quick example law: When any form of DRM is used in a product that is 'sold' (licensed) to the public, the company must provide to the Library of Congress an unencumbered copy of the software which will automatically be made publicly available after a fixed embargo of 15 years. This applies to both "games" and also to the firmware, so that the games can be played. A console, beginning 15 years after its launch, must be able to be made user-flashable to accept non-DRM software. (The means to do this would be required at the launch of the device, to avoid businesses dissolving before the 15 years elapses)
How was this article a puff piece? It's highlighting a large and growing issue around preserving our culture, often overlooked by the mainstream.
Almost exclusively illegally, hence the "fraught with legal issues." Downloading a ROM for a game you own on a cartridge violates US law. You need to create your own copy, where you very likely will face the issues they raise.
Or you technically violate the law, which NPR likely doesn't want to condone for a puff piece.