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 cop…
The deception of “buying” digital movies
51–60 of 565 posts
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#52As Klaus Schaub said "you will own nothing and you will be happy"...
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 downloa…
> But unless something change
:)
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#54One 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,…
That is feature of DRM and has nothing to do with digital movies. If you bought DRM locked product that you are not really an owner. You can play video file anywhere in the world and any time. Second issue is if you bought it trough a service and keept it there, then you definitely not the owner...
Ok, "digital movies as most consumers know them". People aren't buying DRM-free digital movies. (Technically, DVDs and Blu-rays are digital as well, but we don't call them that)
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#55The 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…
>The iTunes Store continues to be the only reputable place to buy movies
Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Goodwill work pretty well for me.
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#56One 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…
It’s rather simple, because you want to sell it. If you want to hold out for selling it at market price while the buyer will prefer buying it directly from the source, then so be it, or if you want to sell it immediately, you price it at bargain prices or even free if you don’t care, i.e. value the item anymore. What we are witnessing here is a total destruction of markets and commerce between free humans.
What you and many are are also missing, including the author, is that the whole system is a fraud because the prices we asked to pay (I refuse) are fraudulent themselves because of it. You are “buying” a movie at a price, precisely because the whole system is rigged in a fraudulent manner where you are not able to actually own it and you are not able to sell it, and you can’t rent it or even lend it; therefore it is not actually a market price, it is a monopoly price based on cartel control and total cornering of the market. It’s essentially no different than the fraudulent price of diamonds or any of the frauds that have been prosecuted where people corner and manipulate the market of, e.g., onions, famously.
Some may have heard the phrase “you will own nothing and be happy” expressed by your global rulers. This topic is precisely manifestation of that and people don’t seem to realize it. You own nothing related to media that you think you own and you think you are happy for it, without yet realizing what a fraud and trap it is, even as the encirclement of slavery progresses all around us.
Especially in America there are many people who, if you were to look at closely, literally own not a single thing they think they have; and in many cases own less than they are even worth. Every single thing can be yanked out from under people like that on a whim … legally. A recent famous example of that is the Tesla that was disabled because Tesla didn’t like something. Slaves of the past were also “happy and didn’t own anything” since their healthcare was “free” and their groceries were “free” and their housing was “free”, etc.; all provided for “free” by government of and by the feudal lord or plantation owners.
In case people have forgotten the most relevant case of what the author writes about; remember when Amazon simply deleted a book from users’ kindles without even asking, let alone receiving consent? This was about 4 years ago now. That book that Amazon just disappeared off people’s devices with no evidence of their actions other than some coincidental proof of purchase people had retained … 1984.
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#57whatever happened to downloading a mp4 torrent of the movie and watching it instantly whenever you want?
Then the TV show you love gets cancelled because everyone is pirating it.
I guess it's the fault of the studios for pushing us towards piracy, but it's a shame.
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#58One 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,…
>> 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.
Maybe this is true from the perspective of the license but it's not something Apple enforces through tech. For example, I have a two iTunes accounts for two countries. I can purchase content through both and use that content anywhere without restriction. They make it a big pain because you can't switch your account to a different geo after it's created but with multiple accounts your content isn't actually restricted.
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#59One 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,…
>> 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. Maybe this is true from the perspective of the license but it's not something Apple enforces through tech. For example, I have a two iTunes accounts for two countries. I can purchase content through both and use that content anywhere without restriction. They make it a big pain…
Jumping through hoops doesn't work for most consumers. Nor should they have to do it.
Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
DVD has an incredibly weak 40-bit encryption scheme due to US regulations on exporting cryptography when it was developed. As a result, it was broken very quickly after launch. It has no real key revocation system (just stop including keys for certain defeated devices in new releases), and nowadays a computer can brute-force every possible decryption key within seconds, rendering revoking stolen drive keys completely pointless. As the region lock is enforced by software only, an unofficial player like VLC does not need to pay the region lock any heed.
Blu-ray on the other hand... well, where do I start? 128-bit AES, key revocation, host authentication, virtual machine fixup tables, digital signing, Media Key Block updating, Java applications... Let's just say Blu-ray is stuck in an odd place where the underlying technology isn't really that defeated, even though hackers have made keeping up with their stolen device keys from hacked players very impractical for the Blu-ray Disc Association. (Revoking a drive key requires a 90-day heads up for manufacturers to roll out new keys for the effected model, which means that if hackers manage to steal 4 device keys per year... from over a decade and a half of different players, many not receiving updates anymore...)