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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#31

Post by antoinec »

chucksmash wrote: post #17
antoinec wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'd be curious to see if a system like that exists already for some kind of digital asset: secondary sales for something that is not limited in quantity, and can still be bought from the source at a higher price.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#32

Post by weberer »

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…

QBitTorrent has a search feature built in.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#33

Post by vivegi »

The closest analogy I can think of is this:

Property developer leases a beachfront land for 99 years and builds a resort. You book a vacation at the resort. You enjoy the facilities -- pool, spa, restaurants etc., during your stay. At the end of your stay, you lose the privileges of staying at the resort/using the facilities.

Even if you bought a timeshare in the resort, you still do not own it. Heck, the property developer also doesn't own it (remember, they just hold the 99 yr lease)!

Electronic-sell-through/Download-to-own is pretty much that esp. if the player is controlled by the platform. You may download the artefact (or the player software may do it for you), but playability is dependent on the platform still holding rights. This is implementation dependent and you have to look through the Terms of Service to really be sure.

All streamers who license third-party content do it for a limited period (from a few months to several months or a year). I wouldn't be surprised if many of the platforms have licensed the "Download to own/Electronic-sell-through" titles only for a finite period. Those titles will go away / become unplayable at some point in the future (unless you downloaded them from a DRM-free platform). When the eventual consumer backlash occurs, the platforms will point to their ToS.

And to add to this complexity, copyright rules are quite different across jurisdictions.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#34

Post by LegitShady »

chucksmash wrote: post #17
antoinec wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

@antoinec

steam does exactly this. you can sell on steam and pay steam their cut, or sell steam keys elsewhere for the same or more money without steam taking a cut.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#35

Post by TecoAndJix »

drstewart wrote: post #27

How big of a problem even is this? Serious question: who buys digital movies? I don't really know anyone who even buys movies at all anymore, but if they do it's likely they prefer a physical copy anyway. There's just so much content out there that the number of people that even care to rewatch a movie they've seen feels like it's really low.

I bought "Bullet Train" over the weekend on Amazon for an at-home date night with my wife (rental was not available yet). It costs $20 which we justified as being the cost of 2 movie tickets. Doubt I will watch it again so really I was just paying for access

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#36

Post by boros2me »

One idea I keep thinking about (which I'm sure interferes with some sort of copyright law) is: 1. User buys a physical copy of a movie/music 2. Instead of sending the disc to their house, it's sent to a storage facility 3. In the storage facility a digital backup is made and uploaded to a cloud storage 4. User is given access to the backup which they can watch/listen to 5. User would be the owner of said physical copy and when they sell it, all digital backups would be erased.

What's the legality that stops this from working?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#37

Post by JadoJodo »

The way it seems to work from what I understand:

Movie Studio offers (what is effectively) a lease of Digital Media to Digital Retailer. Digital Retailer is then allowed to sublease copies of Digital Media to End Consumer. When Digital Retailer's lease ends, so does End Consumer's sublease.

How it seems like it OUGHT to work:

Movie Studio offers resale rights of Digital Media to Digital Retailer. Digital Retailer then sells copies of Digital Media to End Consumer. When Digital Retailer's right to resell ends, End Consumer is allowed to procure/store their copy of Digital Media.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#38

Post by [deleted] »

adrianN wrote: post #26
Avicebron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, and if the market economy was working as it should. Then if enough people were selling old digital music at lower prices, Itunes would have to lower their prices. Essentially what their doing is anti-competitive.

You could even imagine an automated system where you buy a song for some two cents and then sell it back after you're done listening to it for a one cent. You could have users make their collections available on a market place and pay them some fraction of the profits you make.

[deleted]

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#39

Post by kalleboo »

jSherz wrote: post #13
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?

They have DRM attached and need to be played on a computer that has logged in to your iTunes account and been "blessed". But unless something has changed, as long as you keep that computer offline it will be able to play those videos in eternity.

You can un-bless all your other computers (as you can only have 5 computers blessed at once) but I guess if the other computers are offline they can keep playing old downloads.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#40

Post by the_af »

abraxas wrote: post #12
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 alway…

> DVDs were regionally locked as well

To be fair, those of us who tend to complain about these things also raised hell about DVDs back then. Geo-locking is such an obviously bad idea for consumers. It was such a relief when the restrictions were hacked away (was it that an encryption key got leaked? I don't remember the details).

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