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The deception of “buying” digital movies

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#341

Post by jacobr1 »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #281
senko wrote: post #215

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, b…

What do you think a reasonable form of copyright law would look like?

10-year extensions with graduated costs. You get first 10 years upon publication, for free automatically, or for a nominal filing fee to register your claim. The next 10 years costs (extending to 20 total) now costs a meaningful fee. Maybe a fraction of sales structured like a license owned by the public/government, maybe a known schedule of fees based on the type of work, but either way it is a non-trivial sum. Then at 20, 30 and 40 there are further extensions each with higher costs, stopping at 50 years total. The copyright isn't tied to the creator's lifespan. Maybe we extend from my proposed 50 to 70 years to match current expectation, so Mickey gets protected (or would have) but there is a social benefit that gets shared.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#342

Post by vel0city »

evouga wrote: post #313
vel0city wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't by the streaming movie but a license for an indefinite time. And how do you know what the limits of the ticket or the license are? You read the document you're agreeing to when buying the ticket.

Many people have already said this, but: buying a ticket to a one-time event is not analogous to buying a license to watch a movie in perpetuity. A better analogy, that does not involve a one-time event, would be a lifetime pass to concert venue. You buy this pass, only to have the venue refuse to honor it a few years later.

On Amazon, you're literally not buying a license to watch a movie in perpetuity. You're buying a license to access it for "an indefinite period of time". This is pretty clear and easy to see in the agreement they ask if you read before you check out.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#343

Post by iamacyborg »

rendaw wrote: post #231
iamacyborg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How do you handle the storage for this? One bluray disk is about 60gb. I'm not sure if movies typically take 60gb but if you watch TV shows they do. 15 disks is 1TB. In a short while you're running a data center, especially if you collect a lot of video content. I've heard that you can get efficient re-encodings, but that typically means torrenting it from somewhere. I'm not aware of a way to make high quality re-enc…

I use a 4 bay NAS with 4TB drives. I guess things would be more problematic if I had hundreds of movies but I’ve got a hair over 100 right now averaging around 40GB per movie which is fine.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#344

Post by FalconSensei »

itslennysfault wrote: post #197

This hit me long long ago when the kindle first came out. At the time (haven't looked since), eBooks were the same price as paper back books, but with a paper back book you OWN it. You can GIVE it to a friend. You can SELL it. Heck, if it gets really cold you can even burn it. With an eBook you can read it, and thats about it.

It's usually cheaper, and they often have sales were you get it for 10%~20% of the paperback price.

Also, for fiction, it's an advantage too because many times there's only a hardback + ebook release. Since hardbacks are the more expensive and less convenient/easy version to read - heavier, get's damaged more easily - you can just get the ebook for maybe half the price of paperback

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#346

Post by iamacyborg »

rthomas6 wrote: post #207
iamacyborg wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I still have all the discs too, obviously. I’ve not noticed any codec errors with my tv which is running the Android OS.

That's good. Some people seem to have issues with Dolby Vision. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/rw6mn3/what_is_the_cu...

I’m trying to think if I have any discs with Dolby Vision, I’m only buying 1080p blurays so maybe not. Most recent purchases were Dune and the new Batman movie and those both look and sound fantastic.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#347

Post by thefringthing »

anjbe wrote: post #335
retrac wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best example to work with is Star Wars, or maybe The Lord of the Rings. The harm of eternal copyright is probably best demonstrated with these. They've both entered popular understanding, becoming casually referenced all over the place. "We need to make a little stop in Mordor first" is probably more widely-understood than most references to Greek mythology at this point. The people who grew up in the cul…

Star Wars is a particularly salient example because the original cuts that made the films such cultural icons are completely unavailable from anyone other than third‐party sellers, due to the wishes of the (former) rights holder. After the Special Editions were released, the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time, and never did again. J.J. Abrams has indicated that there are difficulties behind the scenes (per…

> the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time

Even then, it wasn't really what was being asked for by fans. The goal at that time was to get LucasFilm to release the pre-Special Edition versions of the movies, which were available on VHS and Laserdisc, on DVD at DVD resolution.

LucasFilm insisted that it was impossible to reassemble the negatives and that they had no suitable print from which to produce a new digital scan. Instead, they released digitized copies of the Laserdiscs on DVD bonus discs.

Since then, enthusiasts have managed to produce Blu-ray resolution versions of the original movies first by piecing together a variety of sources and later by acquiring and scanning surviving prints.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#348

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

akomtu wrote: post #336
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't much care for this weird equivalency that a motion picture is "knowledge", but regardless should every bit of knowledge be offered and given freely? Given that I know where I was last night and you don't is it within your right to demand it from me? Is it enough you want to have that knowledge that requires you then get it?

I said knowledge can't be owned. I didn't say that everyone is obligated to educate others. It's fine to keep a secret. It only gets murky when the secret becomes public.

What is the threshold for "public"? The movies are still only licensed for viewing by those who paid. Once someone has the knowledge they a free to disseminate it?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#349

Post by thaumasiotes »

the_af wrote: post #40
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…

> 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).

> 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 region locking didn't need to be hacked away; it operates purely on the honor system. There are 8 regions, and a DVD contains a single byte specifying which regions it should be allowed to be played in. If the bit for your region is clear, you can play the DVD.

Or, of course, you can just ignore that byte, and play the DVD.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#350

Post by wpietri »

Xeoncross wrote: post #255
senko wrote: post #215

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, b…

Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen? As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.

Food safety laws are a good example. By acting as a floor on manufacturer and restaurant hygiene and ingredient quality, they help the poor a fair bit more than the rich.
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