Those who bought an Office license back in 2019 are very much likely to have upgraded their packages already

You'd be shocked how often that's not the case. So, so many people and small businesses don't feel like buying another new license of MS Office and instead just re-install an old licensed version on their new system when needed. Just in my own bubble of working at different small businesses or helping people with computers I've repeatedly encountered ancient versions of MS Office that people cling on to. People that do lots of IT support in the field must encounter this fairly regularly.

When I ask/question people on using their old outdated MS Office it's some combination of "I don't want to learn something new" or "I paid for it so I'll keep using it".

And nowadays, besides LibreOffice, people also have the option of using MS Office Online or Google Docs but that still falls into the category of needing to do things slightly differently vs what they're used to.

publishers rights are only defined by the law. the law can be changed.

human rights are independent of the law. only our understanding of them can change.

corporations don't deserve to exist. humans do.

you have to think back about the origin of movie theaters. Movies were released exclusively on theaters and that's the only place people could watch them. Once they went out of theaters, that was it. The movie was gone and people couldn't watch it anymore

That's not really true. Popular movies would come around again eventually. And film libraries were a thing, where the theater or whoever would keep a bunch of other stuff on rotation for the people who wanted something other than Gone With the Wind for the hundredth time.

Not to mention, small projectors were a thing. It's entirely possible you knew someone with a small home setup with a projector and screen who could do movie nights just like today (though not as commonly because it was more expensive).

Most people aren't really attached to media consumption. If they don't get a chance to see a movie or listen to an album, ah well, it's a shame but that's all. Even more so for stage performances like plays or concerts. (Software like Office is a little different because it's a tool, not a work of art.)

So although I understand those defending the right to keep their media, the publishers have the right to release it however they want.

I've been thinking about this exact thing for quite a while, and I think there is a gem hidden in this paragraph: the publishers have right to sell their product how they see it fit. At the same time, I as a consumer have a right to consume the product the way I like.

The availability of options 20-25 years ago made media truly free, where everyone could watch things however they liked: either it is a home projector, or have movie nights with friends on home TV, or is it watching on the go on crappy MP4 screen. Nowadays, though, it is moving back towards "we control how you watch it — period". And that is infuriating: to get some freedom, and then get stripped of it just because there was a minor group called "pirate", who started stealing it (taking into account that in most cases, those pirates had limited availability of the products: either financial, or governmental, ahoy from post-ussr country). I think, those corps are playing a blame game of moving responsibility for the harm to the consumers (similarly as it goes with plastics recycling). They basically are blaming people for making them to enforce those rules, while most of those malicious customers turned out more frequent buyers than regular paying customers, and provide invaluable intelligence on popularity of things[1], and made their products widely available at places they were not.

The problem is not about having bluray, it is about not having it available in any they cannot take away, because of "reasons". That is exactly what happened to Office 2019, and that product was not released that long ago: 2019 is only 7 years ago. At the same time, people nowadays resurrect old games and software to make it work on modern hardware, take a look at GOG Preservation Program[2] as an example. They even had a conflict with Blizzard for selling WarCraft 1 and WarCraft 2 in original state and form, while Blizz decided to get more money on cheap remake[3].

I see that the Office 2019 story reminded us that the rights of buyer of digital media are inherently assymetrical to what publisher have. 'Cause when I buy a car, I can do with it whatever I want: I can tweak it, I can get it into various shops for service, etc. What happens with the software/media is "well, you paid us, but you still have to do things the way we want you to do them": feels like a crappy leasing to me, for paying a full price.

That brings me to my personal rule: if I can buy it, I better buy it. If I cannot buy it without strings attached, then the piracy is somewhat justified. Exceptions can be small authors, but then I just try to find a way to finance them: either via patreon, or whatever else. People deserve to be paid for work, though people also deserve to be treated as entities of agency, not blind obedience.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmOPM1cSrY4, disclaimer: I couldn't verify sources, take that into account too 2: https://www.gog.com/en/gog-preservation-program 3: https://www.gog.com/...

Movies are not software, and games produce a savefile, nothing else. Office is used to view and edit documents. It's used for work, for information, for significant documents. I feel there's a huge gap in your argumentation of stuff being one-time-consumption.