In some cases, even if you hold it you don't own it.

I tend to purchase a lot of blu-rays, in fact if I don't buy the movie on Apple iTunes then it's almost always the case that I buy the blu-ray; then once I have the blu-ray I go to the torrent sites and download a version of the movie.

Why? Because I earn enough money that I feel like I have no excuse not to buy my media: but I also want it to be my media; and torrenting is more convenient than using blu-rays.

The blu-rays have one more major benefit than iTunes or the torrents though: if I'm ever without internet or my NAS dies... well, I can just dump a disc into my console and watch whatever movie I was going to watch anyway.

One time I was moving apartments, there was no internet and I hadn't set up my computers yet; decided to watch a movie with my girlfriend, grabbed a disc and set up the playstation.

Lo-and-behold... it didn't work.

Why? -- not because the disk was broken, not because the playstation had broken: but because I didn't have internet access.

The playstation has to connect to the internet to play blu-rays.

I didn't know of this because I always just used torrents and had the disks as a "license"...

So I tried my laptop: no dice either, VLC refused to play, Linux had a really bad time.

I tried with my macbook, of course no macbook came with a blu-ray player, and the one I had needed two USB-A slots, so it was a ball-ache to get the thing hooked up and I finally got something working by hotspotting my phone and googling around.

Anyway, what the fuck.

It was at that moment I realised; even physically owning things isn't actually owning them anymore.

I still don't technically pirate, but I no longer feel even the slightest derision for those that do, and I work in the entertainment industry where piracy puts people out of work (I've seen it).