Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

nofilmschool.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 479 posts

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#131

Post by ryukafalz »

ziml77 wrote: post #91
iso1631 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would require copyright holders to renew their copyright. 5 years for free, then $1 for the 6th year, $2 for the 7th, $4 for the 8th, $8 for the 9th, $1m for the 25th, etc.

Not every copyright holder is a massive corporation. Artists produce many pieces per year. That would cost them a lot to keep copyrights.

It doesn't necessarily benefit massive corporations more than individual artists, because those massive corporations probably also hold copyright over a lot of works; it'd cost them huge amounts of money to renew them all.

I think GP's scheme isn't awful honestly; it would have the effect of drastically lowering the practical length of copyright for most works while providing artists with a way to maintain copyright over works that are actually highly successful. (A per-year doubling might be a bit much but I think it's on the right track.)

If the practical effect was that we mostly got back to the original copyright term we had in the US (14 years with the possibility to extend that once), I'd be pretty happy. Maybe start the fees after the 14th year.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#132

Post by ghaff »

Retric wrote: post #49
timc3 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not false, just books never had such a problem and so the license wasn't deemed necessary to put anywhere. You own the paper that it's printed on, but you don't own the pictures or the words in the order they are written down. The protection that a book has against being copied is that the format makes it more difficult to copy it quickly/cost-effectively for most people. You can do what you are saying with a D…

The difference is you don’t need to make a copy of a book to use it. That’s what gives EULA’s their power. A copy of Windows on a DVD that you can’t copy to a HDD is at best decorative rather than useful. A book on the other hand could be read by thousands of people in it’s lifetime.

>The difference is you don’t need to make a copy of a book to use it. That’s what gives EULA’s their power.

While often assumed to be the case, that's probably not true. Copyright law generally allows for incidental copying necessary to use a product. And, in fact, (US at least) law has been amended over time to explicitly allow certain types of copying needed for functional purposes. So licensing is probably not, in fact, necessary. Rather licensing came in at a time when it wasn't clear that software could be copyrighted.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#133

Post by TeMPOraL »

ziml77 wrote: post #91
iso1631 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would require copyright holders to renew their copyright. 5 years for free, then $1 for the 6th year, $2 for the 7th, $4 for the 8th, $8 for the 9th, $1m for the 25th, etc.

Not every copyright holder is a massive corporation. Artists produce many pieces per year. That would cost them a lot to keep copyrights.

Not for the duration that matters. 5 years for free is plenty of time to make reasonable income on your creations; after that, you're just seeking rent from society.

Sure, boost that to 10 or even 20 years if needed[0]. But from then on extension costs should grow exponential - otherwise we risk locking down work for duration longer than a human lifetime. Like it already happens with Disney.

--

[0] - 20 years may have been appropriate in mid-20th century, but I'd argue it isn't now. Cultural creation accelerates exponentially, but long copyrights prevent the ability to improve on prior art to accelerate in lock step.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#134

Post by lrvick »

Aardwolf wrote: post #126
wildpeaks wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why supporting DRM-free stores is important (e.g. Bandcamp for music and GOG for games).

I have put quite some trust in Steam and hope I won't get disappointed

You will be. Give it a decade.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#135

Post by TeMPOraL »

criley2 wrote: post #101
ectopod wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the energy use compare of stamping out a DVD and of streaming a movie to your TV? Especially if it's a film you (or your children) watch repeatedly. The answer is not obvious. According to [1], mailing a DVD and streaming a film use about the same amount of energy. This doesn't include the energy cost of manufacturing the DVD, but stamping out plastic disks is cheap, so it can't be too high. On the other han…

How much landfill use does my stream use when it's been watched 100 times and becomes garbage? How much of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch will my Netflix stream take up? Plastic is killing the planet.

> Plastic is killing the planet.

No, it isn't. Plastic is only showing up in large quantities in areas where it shouldn't, and occasionally hurting some animals. Microplastics in particular may become a problem at some point, but then again, maybe they won't. We aren't sure. And either way, it's not causing problems just yet.

Greenhouse emissions are what's killing the planet. Manufacturing plastics is a part of that, but so is power generation, and thus all "purely digital" activity.

It's a point that people often confuse. Microplastics are bad, and emissions are bad, but they're bad for completely different reasons. Climate is what's an existential threat to civilization, and what we need to focus on right now. We can deal with microplastics later, if we survive that long.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#136

Post by lrvick »

throws23577 wrote: post #121
lrvick wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked and looked and looked for an option here, and almost pulled the trigger on book scanning gear. Eventually I gave up realizing it is an extraordinary effort to personally rip books just to have drm-free digital copies. Instead I built a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf and filled it. I read ink on slices of dead trees now, like a barbarian.

That's one of my dreams, floor to ceiling bookshelves filled with books. Can't you try 'Calibre' [1] instead of paid book scanning gear? It's GPL. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibre_(software)

That means buying the DRM copies in the first place, further contributing to that system. Also it is a PITA.

Pretty much all e-paper readers are proprietary and track all reading too which is a second order problem.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#137

Post by thought_alarm »

fxtentacle wrote: post #94

I fully agree with this lawsuit. I felt OK with "purchasing" movies from Apple at the Blu-Ray retail price, because I was under the impression that my files remain mine so that if I backup them correctly, I can watch the movie later. By now, I know that this isn't the case. If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have paid full price for a limited digital copy. Instead, I would have purchased the Blu-Ray which - if you tr…

If you purchase and download a movie you can copy it, back it up, and watch it whenever you want as many times as you want.

The lawsuit is about repeated downloads and streaming after the copyright owner has removed the movie for sale.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#138

Post by BiteCode_dev »

lrvick wrote: post #57

Physical media lets you have privacy without logging when you watch media, what media you consume, how many times you consume it, or how long you consume it. You can enjoy it offline, and in 20 years long after the studio that licensed it is gone. You can give it to a friend or loan it out. Or sell it. It is yours. Meanwhile DRM media we pay full price for, or if the content is only available via streaming we pay for…

"The books stopped working" is a fantastic writing prompt for a dystopian novel.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#139

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

lrvick wrote: post #82
SCHiM wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to force companies to open source abandonware? We could claw back space from copyright laws, and force companies to remove DRM schemes, open source DRM-ed copyright, servers and any/all assets required to run "the store" locally. This is analogous to right to repair, DRM "breaking" your property should be banned.

DMCA is no longer enforced on media where the device needed to play it is no longer sold. You can go get almost any Super Nintendo ROM on archive.org right now, legally. I hope to see this foothold extended.

Do you have chapter and verse for this? It doesn't sound right to me but I don't know for sure.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#140

Post by lrvick »

wccrawford wrote: post #129
GeekyBear wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We got scammed. Personally, I had movies I had purchased years ago automatically upgraded to 4K HDR versions. That's certainly one advantage over physical disks.

For me, the advantage is that I don't have to go find the disc and physically insert it, and deal with whatever disc was in there before. I get to just watch my movie when I want. I also don't have to physically store the discs, which is a bigger deal than it sounds like. I really don't want shelves and shelves of books and movies in my house. I have a few bookcases of our favorites, and that's it. Even better is mon…

Former me would agree with you, but I hit my breaking point when I saw Microsoft eBooks stop working, or shows I liked pulled from streaming services. There is no permanence no matter how much I pay when media has DRM.

I for one only pull dvds out of the box once ever.

It is easy enough to rip DVDs or Blu-rays to a NAS and use Kodi.

Sadly that option is becoming less and less possible as many shows become streaming platform exclusives.

Accept the monthly fees, tracking, and proprietary devices/apps or no entertainment for you.

Post reply on HN