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The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

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Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#201

Post by wbsss4412 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #194
dylan604 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You’re severely discounting the value Netflix ... provide in discovery and ease of access. What the what? Discover on Netflix? If you mean accepting what they think you want to watch based on their curated lists of what they want you to watch shoved into your face in their carousels of boredom, then I'm going to have to disagree with you.

I think the parent meant that he favors convenience over tinkering. Download Netflix app on pretty much any device, subscription is affordable, scroll and click to play. New content gets added each week or whatever which is more than one can consume. it's a bit like cooking vs going to a restaurant. how can someone with a sense of real taste and care for health/nutrition understand the millions of people who regularl…

I like this metaphor, but it breaks down in one aspect: the notion that it’s akin to eating junk vs healthy.

At the end of the day I can hunt around and curate the perfect library of movies and shows, but I can also find plenty of good content on streaming platforms. It’s not like I’m eating empty calories at the end of the day.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#202

Post by dahart »

otrahuevada wrote: post #169

The purpose of DRM is ultimately asserting the will of a couple corporate ghouls over your use of the thing they basically cheated you into renting. Which wouldn't even be a thing if intellectual property rights, which are at the core of the whole debate, were untransferable and only endured for the lifetime of the creator. If anyone were able to lobby those simple, clear changes into law, the effects of that would p…

What do you mean by “cheated you into renting”? That sounds like you’re suggesting you’re being forced to spend money against your will without your knowledge or consent?

I also don’t understand your suggestion for fixing copyright law. What constitutes a ‘creator’ in the case of a company that makes something? (Same question for a band, or any group of multiple people.) How would you handle accidental death? What about a company acquisition? How do you define ‘untransferable’? Are you saying it should be okay for a company creator to hold the copyright forever as long as the company is in business, but individual people can’t give or sell copyrights? That would be a boon for Disney and very bad for individual artists. It doesn’t seem like your suggestion is prepared to deal with the realities and complexities of business and life…

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#203

Post by swagasaurus-rex »

tomc1985 wrote: post #198
dbrueck wrote: post #186

I worked in the online media space for a long time, and the fact of the matter is that DRM enabled the era of networks putting their content online, it enabled Netflix, etc. - DRM was the only way to get past the liability gridlock between content owners and distributors. Also, in practice DRM is bad for users only when its presence causes friction in the legitimate viewing process. It has a bad rap because, historic…

> DRM is a bandaid whose need arises from trying to apply traditional economic models (of buying and selling physical, tangible things) to digital assets that never wear out and cost /essentially/ nothing to duplicate and distribute We need to embrace the digital model, not fight it. Detach ownership and control from the output, there are plenty of business models that work when the product is freely reproduceable. B…

Most of the examples of a free business model I can think of are built on advertising, which also requires control of the playback devices to prevent you from skipping them.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#204

Post by dahart »

otrahuevada wrote: post #192
xhkkffbf wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be a bummer, but I make my living creating copyright protected material. DRM protects me and my livelihood. Yes, I often cut deals with the people you refer to as "corporate ghouls". While I often lament the terms, they aren't horrible. In the end, I make enough money to avoid searching for a job with other corporations trading in material goods. I would feel differently about the system if it weren't perfor…

Your use of scare quotes on plain self-evident terms kinda makes me think this is going to be entirely pointless, but here goes nothing. Do you understand that your being more or less content with the results of a deal does not have a bearing on how good, or decent, or moral, the system overarching that deal is? Tons of people seem more or less into Nestlé products despite their long track record of profiting from sl…

FWIW, it seems like the parent comment was just quoting you, not using scare quotes. I didn’t find your use of the words particularly self-evident, it might be worth patiently explaining what you meant rather than attacking.

Parent’s valid and legitimate point is that if nobody pays for the content then it’s not a viable business model and it won’t get made in the first place. You can’t pirate a movie that doesn’t exist.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#206

Post by dylan604 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #201
hirako2000 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent meant that he favors convenience over tinkering. Download Netflix app on pretty much any device, subscription is affordable, scroll and click to play. New content gets added each week or whatever which is more than one can consume. it's a bit like cooking vs going to a restaurant. how can someone with a sense of real taste and care for health/nutrition understand the millions of people who regularl…

I like this metaphor, but it breaks down in one aspect: the notion that it’s akin to eating junk vs healthy. At the end of the day I can hunt around and curate the perfect library of movies and shows, but I can also find plenty of good content on streaming platforms. It’s not like I’m eating empty calories at the end of the day.

I'd go out on a limb and say if you're watching reality TV shows like Housewives, Kardashians, Bachelor/ette, etc, then you are very much eating empty calories. But it's your body, and you can do with it whatever you like. Just be honest about what you are consuming.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#207

Post by dylan604 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #199
dylan604 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all suck. Look at each platform's verion of "Trending Now". It's just a rehash of titles in the other categories prominently displayed in "Just Added" or other some such listing of 10 to at most 20 titles. Of course those are trending because discovery of titles suck and people just give up and choose something that's right in front of them. I want to "discover" by browsing not the most current titles available…

I would agree with you that that all suck, and the quality of Netflix has certainly gone downhill. But you pretty much answered your own question. The platforms don’t have giant catalogs of evergreen & niche content, because that is extremely expensive to license. That’s not really a discovery problem, though. The trade off is of course, the old buying/renting model. But that’s oriented much more towards the enthusia…

The evergreen titles are usually the back catalog of the various studios. However, since all of the various studios seem to be creating their own streaming service, I can see how Netflix might be short on that content.

However, finding these titles on the various studio services is also not as easy to discover. Mainly because these nascent services know they have to get their A-list content out first to attract users. The process of bringing the back catalog stuff onto these new services will take time. In the meantime, we're just stuck being force fed what the studios want us to see.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#208

Post by acdha »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #133
acdha wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m far from a proponent of the big media companies but isn’t this argument basically “my theft is okay because they’ve stolen too”? Arguing that those companies are abusive seems like a much stronger argument for watching something else or voting for legal reforms, not taking advantage of other people’s work without compensation.

would you download a car? theft is when you take something from someone, when you download a movie, Netflix users can still watch it, Netflix can still stream it and they don't lose anything. In fact their profits have gone up, despite helping piracy by releasing more and more content easily sharable outside of their platforms. Netflix alone made 7.5 billions in the third quarter of 2021, up from 6.4 billions in the…

> theft is when you take something from someone,

Yes, such as when you use someone's creative work contrary to their express desire. Digital goods don't work the same way as physical works, it's true, but all of the people involved in making them still need to get paid.

The principled, ethical stance is not to watch things you don't want to pay for. Nobody's life is impoverished by making the percentage of entertainment they don't watch go from 99.9987% to 99.999%.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#209

Post by whatch »

joshlemer wrote: post #176

This may be a good place to ask, where do you buy DRM-free ebooks? Amazon only sells "Kindle Edition" books which are DRM or a proprietary format. Same with Google Books and the Kobo store. There are independent publishers who publish content DRM-free like * https://www.manning.com/ * https://pragprog.com/ But is there something like Amazon which has a huge library of DRM-free ebooks for sale?

This year I purchased a couple of amazing quality books directly from authors via gumroad.

Re: The purpose of DRM is not to prevent copyright violations (2013)

#210

Post by acdha »

jen20 wrote: post #167
acdha wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not here in the U.S.

I definitely see them in the US. Trailers are just as unacceptable as ads.

Interesting, I wonder whether there's a plan age or other threshold — I've never seen one, as a Netflix customer since the 2000s.
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