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

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

#341

Post by Qwertious »

moviuro wrote: post #181
selfhoster11 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very tenuous argument. With DRM, one has to work against the grain of a software to implement it, whereas focusing on one native platform is almost the opposite - one has to go against the grain to make it cross platform. In that sense, DRM is an artificial limitation, whereas supporting just one platfrom isn't one.

Wasn't Cyberpunk compiled for Linux to run on Stadia though? Not shipping the Linux binary looks like an artifical limitation at that point.

"Shipping a binary" is not the same as actually porting the game - porting requires a ton of expensive QA, and no port is better than a bad port because the latter 1) gets bad press for the main version of the game and 2) misleads customers who expect quality from your brand.

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

#342

Post by Qwertious »

wang_li wrote: post #257
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #200

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 are mostly invalid garbage - they include "TO THE FULLEST EXTENT APPLICABLE UNDER THE LAW" is clever lawyer-speak saying "this only applies if we can legally get away with it". They include that because if they didn't, then any explicitly illegal demand they made would void the entire contract.

Just because the EULA requires your firstborn son, doesn't mean they have any claim whatsoever.

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

#343

Post by ocdtrekkie »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #268
fsflover wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have tons of music ripped from CDs Are you suggesting that it's a simple and convenient thing to do for the public?

But ripping CDs is not the only way of "owning" the media. As another commenter said [0], you can buy and own media without ever touching a physical medium or waiting for the post service to deliver it. I seem to remember at one point Apple was offering DRM-free music. This is pretty convenient for everybody. Yes, you have to buy it ahead of time and store it, as opposed to just streaming right away. But it does seem…

They still do, Apple's MP3s are DRM-free, and you can download them with the iTunes desktop client. Another super handy way: Amazon.

Amazon's MP3 download store is DRM-free, but also, Amazon has an "Auto-Rip" feature that means often when you buy the physical music CD, they immediately give you the ability to download the MP3s for free. You get the real purchase of physical media, and the convenience of instant access.

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

#344

Post by minusSeven »

lmilcin wrote: post #165
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…

> 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…

Well that is service vs non service model. For example lets say you buy a ebook from Amazon. You expect the book to stay with you forever. It costs Amazon next to nothing to transfer the 5mb of book data I need to read the book. Compare that with subscription to Kindle unlimited. You get some books you can read but lose access to them once you unsubscribe.

You are not being lied to in the subscription model but it seems the digital buying isn't quite honest.

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

#345

Post by sumtechguy »

throwaway_isms wrote: post #172
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It is, not so much so that the concept is not without precedent ("book burnings" are quite famous throughout history), but that the book burnings will be conducted by corporations that also have all the data on those who ever read them, and not to mention they are the ones who initially made money selling them in the first place. In fact [blank] is a fantastic writing prompt for a dystopian novel, seems like a fun li…

You know it is not book burnings that concern me (they do a bit). It is more re-editing that will start to happen once they get the tech just right. They will edit problematic people in and out of old movies. At first it will be used for advertising. Such as switching one cola for another in scenes or a billboard in the background. It will be something like 'restaurant X has given us money to change billboards for a year'. Next year 'car company Y has given us money to change billboards for a year'. Then they will go bonkers with it. Do not like the dialog, because they said something you no longer agree with? Well run it through a couple of programs and they are now saying something else, or new and upcoming actor someone wants to promote. So you will see something then a few months later it will be edited and you will never see what you saw before.

Oh and it is already happening with adverts in some streaming movies.

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

#346

Post by RandallBrown »

lrvick wrote: post #125
criley2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical media doesn't automatically provide privacy. There are players which do track what blu-rays you put in them. Blu-ray players are internet enabled and include advertisements, which obviously can have tracking as well. Also you are tracked by the banks and stores you make the purchase from. You bought a Blu-Ray at Target on a Discover card. Target tracked it and sold it. Discover tracked it and sold it. Compan…

I literally bought many hundreds of used CDs and had them shipped to https://murfie.com/ to rip for me and give me FLACs automatically, because that was the only way to get lossless drm-free music I wanted legally. I even wrote a python library to automate the process since I had so much music I wanted to obtain legally that I needed bulk access. I spent thousands of dollars and many hours trying to play by the rules…

> Am I a criminal now anyway after all that work?

You legally purchased the music and legally made backup copies of it. You are not a criminal.

> I can't prove I own my own music if challenged

I don't think that matters. Someone would need to prove you stole it, which they can't do since you didn't.

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

#347

Post by eutropia »

lrvick wrote: post #125
criley2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical media doesn't automatically provide privacy. There are players which do track what blu-rays you put in them. Blu-ray players are internet enabled and include advertisements, which obviously can have tracking as well. Also you are tracked by the banks and stores you make the purchase from. You bought a Blu-Ray at Target on a Discover card. Target tracked it and sold it. Discover tracked it and sold it. Compan…

I literally bought many hundreds of used CDs and had them shipped to https://murfie.com/ to rip for me and give me FLACs automatically, because that was the only way to get lossless drm-free music I wanted legally. I even wrote a python library to automate the process since I had so much music I wanted to obtain legally that I needed bulk access. I spent thousands of dollars and many hours trying to play by the rules…

I doubt the piracy moralist you replied to will respond with an apology for calling you a thief and a criminal; but I really appreciate that you explained your situation.

It's unreasonable to lump all people who pirate media into some cesspool of common criminality -- each use-case is different. Sure, there are people who aggressively collect more pirated content than they could ever hope to personally consume and refuse to pay for any media; but there are also people who want a secondary copy of something they've already purchased, or who can't even legally buy the media that they'd want access to in the first place.

Easier to just vilify a strawman (for what reason, even?), I guess.

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

#348

Post by neilv »

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…

FWIW, Sony just backtracked on the PS3 and Vita store shutdowns, for now (but still moving forward with PSP store shutdown, last I heard):

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2021/04/20/sony-isnt-c...

I agree that there's been some highly questionable shutdowns of DRM and content servers by a few major companies, later disabling things that they claimed customers were buying.

It seems we're lacking sufficient regulatory/judicial disincentives for companies to hoover up much of the market for selling content products, then fly-by-night shutdown of the DRM and content servers that they'd intentionally made part of the products.

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

#349

Post by stormbrew »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #145
teachingassist wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if your console dies and you want to transfer games to another unit you get off eBay in a few years, you are SOL. Again, this is not functionally different than your cartridge dying. If your NES cartridge dies, you can replace it with a second-hand copy, or you're SOL. The same. You're saying that there's a consumer benefit to a console-cartridge system being modular (such that either module can be replaced when de…

For cartridge roms and pressed CDs the failure rate is much, much lower than the console and the expected life span much longer. Not to mention it's often possible to back those mediums up and play the backups or original media on another console.

For carts this is (mostly[1]) true but honestly I'd be pretty surprised if the average CD outlasts a console that used mostly flash to store the games on. Sure if the flash has had consistent write cycles for years it might fail eventually but probably people will be finding games intact on wiis for a long time yet.

A lot of video game CDs barely lasted the life of their console without becoming basically useless.

[1] There are mask roms that are prone to failure, and some NES for eg. games are vulnerable to progressive failure of their battery backed RAM chips, which were not just for save backup but were also often used as extra RAM with a lot of write cycles (and to be clear, I don't mean the battery dying - I mean stuck or flipped bits on the ram itself).

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

#350

Post by silon42 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #111
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…

> 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.

Maybe, but Han Shot First.
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