Even in those days we had more power than we do today. You had to use proprietary software but that software still worked for you and did your bidding. The computer ran the software you told it to run without complaint and it didn't matter that some "rights holders" were losing money or whatever.
At some point all of this changed... Software now works for the corporations and only allow us to do what they designed for us. If they don't like something, you just won't be able to do it anymore. You can't even program the computers anymore, that's now a privilege increasingly reserved only for "approved", "licensed" individuals.
Typing out a document? I wouldn't be surprised if the office suites of the future started automatically checking your work against some "rights holders" corpus that you're not supposed to copy and then preventing saving or printing until you fix it.
At some point all of this changed... Software now works for the corporations and only allow us to do what they designed for us. If they don't like something, you just won't be able to do it anymore. You can't even program the computers anymore, that's now a privilege increasingly reserved only for "approved", "licensed" individuals.
Typing out a document? I wouldn't be surprised if the office suites of the future started automatically checking your work against some "rights holders" corpus that you're not supposed to copy and then preventing saving or printing until you fix it.