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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#131

Post by AlecSchueler »

astorsnk wrote: post #58
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,…

>> 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…

Maybe iTunes wasn't a good example but it has happened to me with other services. I live in the Netherlands where I bought a subscription for the Formula 1 TV service. Last year I was in the UK visiting family and was unable to watch races there, despite havng already paid for them, as the geo restrictions were different.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#132

Post by happymellon »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #79
josteink wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... It would almost seem like most of the engineering for the Blu-ray format went into things which very specifically doesn’t act in the interest of the buyer. Given the current state of things, I wouldn’t count Blurays as me…

The same could be said though of DVD. Remember that DVD is completely proprietary - we've just done a fantastic job reverse-engineering it. Blu-ray, ironically, is still proprietary, but the specification on how the DRM is implemented is actually public information and you can just download that online. You won't get the required encryption key for your new device without a contract though for it to work, but if you…

Steam is the only online games store that has given me any levels of comfort that I'll still be able to get access to my games after 10 years.

Even then, I'm still not 100% confident that I'll be able to access everything in 25 years time.

I have no reason the believe that Sony and Microsoft won't shut them down like they already have done with the PS3 store.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#133

Post by 411111111111111 »

stewx wrote: post #59
astorsnk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

The original point was that you might loose access to purchased movies because the licensing doesn't allow you so watch it from a different locality.

This is currently untrue for Apple/itunes and that's the only point they made.

There are currently no hoops for anyone to jump through unless you want to sidestep the law or licensing agreements, which is another discussion entirely.

Potential buyers still have to consider the original point however, as even if Apple doesn't enforce it currently, there is no assurance that it won't in the future. And there is no guarantee that it's gonna be the same if theyre buying on another platform.

Didn't Google and Amazon have competing platforms for example?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#134

Post by Mindwipe »

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…

> 3. In the storage facility a digital backup is made and uploaded to a cloud storage

Generally speaking neither of these parts are legal in most territories without rightsholder permission.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#135

Post by [deleted] »

antoinec wrote: post #31
chucksmash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#136

Post by scarface74 »

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.

Music bought on iTunes hasn’t had DRM since 2009

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#137

Post by cxr »

necovek wrote: post #105
shockeychap wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

With streamed digital copies, one can limit simultaneous playback. Simply "loaning" it in a service where you select who do you loan it to will add friction, and considering how any little friction (instead of torrenting or getting BR disks) is keeping people on streaming services anyway, it's unlikely it would move the needle too much.

> Simply "loaning" it in a service where you select who do you loan it to will add friction

Interesting observation! Digital-only copies traded in a form not comprising the embodiment in a physical "vessel" allow for a theoretically efficient handshake-and-exchange process, but in practice, there's lots of friction involved.

Grievance: "Hey, you can't do that! It's too easy!"

Response: "Easy? Have you ever used an app with a 10-foot UI that's controlled by a TV remote?"

See also: https://xkcd.com/949/> ("File Transfer").

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#139

Post by Mindwipe »

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.

> 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?

In practice this usually happens, but I'm not surprised nobody commits to it in writing.

I know in the two instances of video services I can think of shutting down in the UK, Sainsburys gave customers Ultraviolet/Google Play codes and refunds, and the BBC Store gave Amazon credit rounding up to the nearest £10, so I actually got more than I'd spent back.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#140

Post by dfxm12 »

happymellon wrote: post #126
abraxas wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

In the UK it was quite common to be able to purchase DVD players that were region free in most of the large electronic stores. The few that were region locked required something like the Konami code to unlock all the region's. Was region locking really that big of a deal?

Was region locking really that big of a deal?

No. Not in the US either, at least. Even if there was a part of the world where it was a big deal, I imagine if you were so big a cinephile for it to matter, you would know how to deal with it.

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