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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#11

Post by antoinec »

stewx wrote: post #7

One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO,…

> Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it.

I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, or a DVD with scratches on it.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#12

Post by abraxas »

stewx wrote: post #7

One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO,…

Unfortunately geolocking isn't new or unique to the pure bits movie format. DVDs were regionally locked as well and even analog media like VHS tapes used color encoding formats that were specific in different regions (NTSC vs PAL vs SECAM).

That said, the situation is quite a bit worse now as the modern DRM is harder to circumvent and geolocking more granular than ever before. But the intent to lock us down was always there from the movie industry, just not the capability until recently.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#13

Post by jSherz »

ezfe wrote: post #2

The iTunes Store continues to be the only reputable place to buy movies, mainly because they allow downloads (except 4K...but I digress). In the past, redownloading movies wasn't even permitted. You download it and save it somewhere yourself. You can still do that to avoid any issues in the future, but I suspect the few incidents that have affected the iTunes Store are unlikely to re-occur. Why? For exactly the reaso…

Do the downloaded movies have DRM attached that requires a network connection or limits their usage?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#15

Post by alex_suzuki »

fbanon wrote: post #8
jijji wrote: post #6

whatever happened to downloading a mp4 torrent of the movie and watching it instantly whenever you want?

Still alive and kicking. You just need to know where to look.

TPB has added really annoying “on-click” BS lately, super shady. Any alternatives you might have heard of? Not for me, for a friend of course…

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#16

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

antoinec wrote: post #11
stewx wrote: post #7

One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO,…

> Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, o…

As a buyer: to get it cheaper. As a seller: to obtain money for something you no longer value at its purchase price.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#17

Post by chucksmash »

antoinec wrote: post #11
stewx wrote: post #7

One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO,…

> Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, o…

> As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes?

Because it is the same thing, but cheaper.

> And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes?

Because otherwise people won't buy it from you, they'll buy it from ITunes.

Even if the lower price doesn't make sense for digital media that aren't degraded through use, lower price (that lets you recoup, say, 90% of what you paid) would be needed to make people go through hassle of not just buying it "new."

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#18

Post by bigyikes »

antoinec wrote: post #11
stewx wrote: post #7

One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO,…

> Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, o…

>as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes?

A seller would do this to undercut iTunes, making a sale much more likely.

>As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes

Because the seller would likely price it lower than iTunes.

The real question is: how does this affect the digital goods market overall? Does allowing re-sale make iTunes unprofitable? Does it make movie production unprofitable?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#19

Post by bheadmaster »

alex_suzuki wrote: post #15
fbanon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still alive and kicking. You just need to know where to look.

TPB has added really annoying “on-click” BS lately, super shady. Any alternatives you might have heard of? Not for me, for a friend of course…

YIFY provides movies of decent quality at reasonable file sizes.

For movies that YIFY doesn't have, 1337x is a good site.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#20

Post by deadbeeves »

I don't use any paid streaming services, so forgive me if I'm saying something stupid, but doesn't this:

>Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service

mean that you can download a copy of the content you bought? As far as I'm concerned, that's about as close to "owning" as it gets, when it comes to digital media.

If you buy, say, a pair of pliers from a hardware store, and then instead of taking them home you leave them at the store and come back to use them every time you have something that needs plying, and then eventually the store needs to make room for other products and so throws your pliers away, you have no one to blame but yourself for not taking them home for safekeeping when you had the chance.

This analogy could break down if the content has DRM. I don't know if it does, or if it does when it stops working, but that's a different discussion from "Amazon deleted my movie".

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