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

nofilmschool.com

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

#321
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…

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I was wondering if you have a source on the claim that studios know every second you watch one of their films. Specifically, I was under the impression that Apple wasn't phoning home with users' watching habits. Do you have a source on that? (I'd like to update my mental model if so)

In cases where you actually downloaded the content, check the end-user license agreement of iOS and macOS. I think if you read this, as you’re required to do, you will find that they explicitly state thais when they say they declaring their rights to track this kind of consumption for market purposes and to enforce law.

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

#322
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…

> 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.

They certainly don’t do that on Amazon but I expect Amazon stick around a lot longer than any company that you were talking about

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want them to sell their product with a "if it doesn't work it's not our problem" label? I'm sure there are consumer protection laws against that.

The no particular fitness of purpose clause in nearly every EULA you’ve ever clicked through is literally that.

EULAs that are shown post-purchase are invalid in all of EU, there have been numerous court cases about it. If software makers want a legally binding contract it has to be shown before purchase - if you already have bought something and are just installing it, the EULA presented during the installation is meaningless.

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

#324
There's a lot of lines you can draw like this. Do you own your money, or do you own an obligation made by the fed to all participants in the US economy? Okay, so maybe the US dollar is so pervasive that it's "inert" for all intents and purposes as a store of wealth.

The less tangible a good is, the more difficult it is to tell who owns it. People do like streaming services, but Apple has to keep the service running, right? There is a non-zero cost to Apple continuing to service relationships with studios and with customers, and they can't really say "this thing in your Apple account will, necessarily, live forever". I think Apple is the most likely company to make good on this sort of promise; in spite of the way they deprecate APIs (which I actually appreciate), they have an immaculate track record of supporting their services and devices.

If you buy a DRM-free movie or rip a physical copy, you're getting closer to owning the bits and bytes themselves, but still, really, you own the right to watch the movie in a non-commercial setting, and you now have to figure out how to make it available on your devices.

How long am I obligated to continue supporting software I've "let go" to the folks that contracted me? When will my car stop receiving kernel updates? To me, this is a more difficult issue than whether you have to re-purchase (or pirate) games and movies that you already bought.

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

#325
This is true for iTunes and Google Play too, I've had albums disappear from my Library with no explanation (I suspect some licensing change or label shuffle behind the scenes). I've totally abandoned streaming services since I've been bitten twice by this.

Bandcamp handles this exceptionally well, you can download anything you buy (even as Flac!) and for anything else, it's back to buying/checking-out CDs and ripping them old-school style.

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

#326
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We got scammed. Well, depends on how you look at it and how comfortable you are forgetting about how it looked before you could buy online. I pay for convenience which is a service rather than tangible good. If I need a book for my research, I would prefer to have access to it immediately rather than wait two weeks to get it from overseas. My time is valuable and the pause on the project or inconvenience of not hav…

Yes but that's not the same thing. You're arguing in the "physical/digital" debate and I believe evryone will agree that digital is better in most cases. Physically owning something is nice for the memorabilia and for those who still have DVD/CD players but that's not the biggest use case. The topic here is DRM vs non-DRM'd media. It's orthogonal to the topic of physicality: you can have DRM'd physical media (think G…

The OP he's replying to was arguing that "physical media" doesn't suffer from the drawbacks of "DRM media" implying that physical media has no DRM (obviously false).

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

#327

This seams the core of Apple's defence: Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely which is a flagrant difference between ownership of physical items and non-cloud items vs cloud items. This strikes at the root of our society's definition of ownership. Clarification should not depend on Apple, or even a court. This should be ens…

It shouldn't only come down to "on the iTunes platform". What about the user's ability to maintain access? I have a similar situation with Google. I've had a Google Apps for buisness account for a few years so I can can use email on my personal domain. I made the mistake of 'purchasing' some media on that account. I've since switched my mail over to fastmail but can't quite bring myself to close the Google account be…

Not that I want to encourage piracy, but at this point, if you already paid for them, why not torrent the episodes so you keep a copy?

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

#328
post #314

On a PC you can use a Legato capture card and record anything that makes it through the HDMI, DRM free, up to 4k/60 and up to HDR10 and it has a pass-thru so you can watch on a monitor/tv as you record. They're mainly used in game broadcasting, like on Twitch. There are also numerous audio recording apps that will record audio that is being played from a DRM source, actually any source. I actually purchase physical b…

As far as I am aware that capture card won't capture HDCP content? So anything that uses Widevine or similar DRM will not work. There are options for capture cards designed to bypass HDCP but it's a bit more involved. Are you saying you haven't had any issues with HDCP?

There are many cheap HDMI splitters out there (~$20USD) that do not pass on HDCP :)

The hardest part is wading through the comments to see if the device will bypass HDCP. This is also a very good way to watch HDCP content on older HDTV's that don't have HDCP implemented.

https://www.amazon.com/hdmi-splitter-hdcp-bypass/s?k=hdmi+sp...

There are even more on aliexpress.

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

#329
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…

> We got scammed. Well, depends on how you look at it and how comfortable you are forgetting about how it looked before you could buy online. I pay for convenience which is a service rather than tangible good. If I need a book for my research, I would prefer to have access to it immediately rather than wait two weeks to get it from overseas. My time is valuable and the pause on the project or inconvenience of not hav…

The convenience argument is such bullshit.

We have been seduced into selling our rights down the river because we will sacrifice anything to this most pathetic of gods, Convenience.

I have been fighting in this war (anti-DRM/copyleft/etc) for decades, and peoples' susceptibility to convenience has always effectively thwarted any kind of counter argument.

We are fucking lazy and we should be ashamed of it.

Yes I am bitter, we could have had a world of power, control, and ownership at our fingers... a cornucopia of content on our terms... computers that well and truly serve us and not some wanterpreneurial, rent-seeking master... but it wouldn't have been as convenient.

And now zoomers, seduced by corporate sponsorships and the cozy fiefdoms of communities like YouTube or TikTok, have almost no concept of files or their utility, of the value of owning something detached from a profiteering cloud. They have no problem enriching those who seek to exploit them.

It is all complete, utter horseshit. We fought for a better world that nobody wanted because it wasn't as convenient

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We got scammed. Well, depends on how you look at it and how comfortable you are forgetting about how it looked before you could buy online. I pay for convenience which is a service rather than tangible good. If I need a book for my research, I would prefer to have access to it immediately rather than wait two weeks to get it from overseas. My time is valuable and the pause on the project or inconvenience of not hav…

The convenience argument is such bullshit. We have been seduced into selling our rights down the river because we will sacrifice anything to this most pathetic of gods, Convenience. I have been fighting in this war (anti-DRM/copyleft/etc) for decades, and peoples' susceptibility to convenience has always effectively thwarted any kind of counter argument. We are fucking lazy and we should be ashamed of it. Yes I am bi…

How long did it take for you to write the machine code that posted this comment?
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