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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#81

Post by matheusmoreira »

vivegi wrote: post #33

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 de…

Real property like resorts all exist in the real world. There is no copying a resort. You can't just instantly copy a building. You can't just create more physical space on this planet. The limits of physics renders such property inherently scarce.

Data is different, it is infinite. You can copy it infinitely at nearly zero cost. You can transmit it to anyone anywhere in the world at nearly zero cost. Any attempt to own bits fails because of the inherently infinite nature of data. Any notion of property is imaginary, an illusion. Intellectual property degenerates into number ownership, it's that ridiculous.

If you follow this logic to its conclusion:

> the player is controlled by the platform

Then intellectual property will lead to the end of free computing as we know it today. We cannot have computers that do what we want while simultaneously preventing us from copying data some rightsholder "owns". The copyright industry will lobby the government until free computing is illegal and all computers come pwned from the factory so that we can only execute "legal" code. This also goes hand in hand with government desire to control cryptography, paving the way for total surveillance and oppression.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#82

Post by Liquix »

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…

Anyone interested in the history of DVD DRM / region locking may be interested in the "illegal number": a hex code which defeated DVD AACS encryption, prompting an attempt by the industry to surpress it across the internet, leading to a streisand effect and the end of effective DVD DRM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controve...

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#83

Post by iamacyborg »

rthomas6 wrote: post #47

I have started a modest Blu-Ray/4k Blu-Ray collection. For me, it is by far the best movie experience I've had with any format. It takes maybe 90 vs 20 seconds to get the movie playing, but in return I get noticeably better quality. 4k Blu-Rays' bitrates are around 128 Mb/s. For comparison, Netflix tops out around 17 Mb/s. It really does look and sound noticeably better if you have the TV and surround setup to take a…

I buy blurays, rip them and then store them on a NAS to play back via Plex. Much, much better quality than any stream from Netflix et al.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#84

Post by mttjj »

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 buy digital movies all the time. Not often at full price because there are sales and deals on iTunes weekly (daily). To me, "buying" a movie for $4.99 or even $8.99 (which is only a dollar or two more than the rental price) is worth it on the off-chance that I may want to watch it again in the future. My digital iTunes movie library is nearing 900 movies at this point. All backed up and downloaded locally so I reduce the risk of what this article is talking about happening to me.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#85

Post by tantalor »

fortran77 wrote: post #9

Would it kill these platforms to, at the very minimum, give you credits for another movie in the case where the movie you "bought" becomes unavailable? That being said, I've never chosen the "buy" option on a digital streaming movie.

That's a reasonable solution because it doesn't create a liability on the provider to refund your purchase in whole.

I wonder how it works on the backend. When you "buy" a digital movie, does the publisher get a royalty? Then for the credit the provider could just eat that extra cost since it likely to be very rare. It still kind of sucks that the publisher can reap the royalty payments for all the "sales" and then turn around and pull the license.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#87

Post by gcp123 »

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.

Parents with kids who like to repeatedly watch certain movies and shows.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#88

Post by Zigurd »

This is what not really owning content implies about that computer you think you own: If a content publisher can reach into your computer and turn off access to content, you not only do not own and control the content, you do not properly own and control that computer. If you did you could assert that removing access to data on that computer constitutes unauthorized access. It's a security breach.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#89

Post by shockeychap »

necovek wrote: post #67
shockeychap wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem with this is that with physical media, there's an intrinsic amount of "friction" that prevents gaming the system. It's not convenient to, for example, have five people buy and share one set of DVDs. The hassle of moving the disc around (which gets dramatically worse with distance) incentivizes people to buy their own copy. But digital buying and selling would make it rather easy for one person to "se…

Loaning a copy to a friend, which is what your example basically is, should also be protected by consumer laws.

If you're talking about loaning a physical copy of a movie to a friend, sure. We have to make arrangements to get the "thing" from one location to another.

Surely you can understand that freely "loaning" digital copies - with none of the friction involved in physical media transport - would de-incentivize purchasing by others.

If you want that, fine. But that will jack up the price of movies, since a lot fewer of them will be sold.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#90

Post by boros2me »

kgwgk wrote: post #51
boros2me wrote: post #36

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…

https://www.wired.com/2011/10/streaming-movie-service-zediva...

2011 wow... Thanks for sharing!
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