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I'm done with Google

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Re: I'm done with Google

#281

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

silisili wrote: post #102
di4na wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. The courts have been swift and merciless on this shit for music, video and similar things. Google may seem big but they do depends on the law still.

In the current system where Google plays lame duck, sure. But all G has to do is say 'yeah if you want us to feature your content, you must agree to X' With 90% of the search market, half of phones, and who knows what percentage of the smartTV market, they could institute a death sentence to those they wanted to. IF they wanted to.

That would kill the small labels, but not the big labels because they have a way to connect with their customers that google does not control, namely radio.

That said, I agree with the principle of what you're saying. Google put a LOT of things in place on youtube specifically so the large publishers wouldn't go after them, and that has extended to everything else.

Google absolutely has a large responsibility in this, but it's also true they're not the only party with responsibility for it.

Re: I'm done with Google

#282

Post by RedShift1 »

philliphaydon wrote: post #62
yellow_lead wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a hardcore pirate like me tried to do the right thing when it comes to music - I got Spotify. But when I moved to Taiwan, I tried to switch my payment location to get regional pricing and they refuse to accept my Taiwan debit card. Now I pirate music or use Vanced (YouTube).

I live in Taiwan but my CC is from Singapore. I want to get HBO but I can't because I don't have a Taiwan CC. But I can sign up for HBO Singapore but I can't use it in Taiwan... Soooo I'm subjected to pirating HBO content. Sometimes I wonder if these companies actually want to make money because they make it so far for us to give them money.

I've never ever understood geoblocking. What kind of company says no to someone wanting to purchase their products? They are literally throwing away money.

Re: I'm done with Google

#283

Post by RedShift1 »

nrvn wrote: post #275

I am surprised that in 2020-s people still complain about subscription services. Remember: - you pay once for a single item - you own. - you pay on a regular basis to access multiple items - you don’t. As simple as that. The pre-internet model is a book library. You pay a small monthly fee for the right to borrow books subject to some rules and limitations. You don't own them but on the other hand you have access to…

But the thing is OP paid for the subscription. The software failed and he was unable to get it working.

Re: I'm done with Google

#284

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

rapht wrote: post #58

There's a language issue which has not been tackled by regulators and which is actually the mere definition of what happens when I choose to "buy" or "purchase" something. This is because until recently (by the timescale of "buying things") there were no intangibles to be bought or sold. An intangible is mostly a right to something - in other words, it's paperwork. But some things are both tangible and intangible, i.…

yep, I've actually thought about this.

I think it should be a finable offense for a company to use verbiage that implies ownership when in fact it's licensing.

Re: I'm done with Google

#285

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

mrtksn wrote: post #218
rapht wrote: post #58

There's a language issue which has not been tackled by regulators and which is actually the mere definition of what happens when I choose to "buy" or "purchase" something. This is because until recently (by the timescale of "buying things") there were no intangibles to be bought or sold. An intangible is mostly a right to something - in other words, it's paperwork. But some things are both tangible and intangible, i.…

The action taken by the user is still "buying", the confusion comes from legacy when the industry was pretending that you are not buying a song or movie but a cassette or a disk. See, back in the they when you purchased something physical like a VHS tape, that was useful mental model because it resembled the purchase of bread or tomatoes. Then people started finding ways to reproduce the contents of these physical ob…

> The action taken by the user is still "buying"

technically correct, sure. letter vs spirit of the law.

Re: I'm done with Google

#286

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

charcircuit wrote: post #184
kelnos wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any average consumer, when they click a "Buy" button next to the movie they want to watch, understands that they are only buying a license to watch the movie. Most believe it's just like buying a Bluray disc, but "on the computer". And yes, I know people are restricted in what they can do with Bluray discs, but as long as you have a functioning player, you can watch the disc. I think that's all anyone h…

And as long as you have a functioning YouTube "player" you can watch the movies you've purchased from Google. It's the same thing.

If that were true this article wouldn't have been written.

Re: I'm done with Google

#287

Post by tzs »

notpushkin wrote: post #125
usui wrote: post #16

> So I pirate the movie (please don't arrest me, it's google's fault) I really like the frank tone of the article and I wish people in general would just write unabashedly more often when it comes to stuff like this. Writers online love to dance around the idea of "pirating" their digital goods when communicating on the topic: "Ooh my 'friend' may or may not have downloaded 'xyz' movie from 'abc' website, but I don't…

> Spytify records the same quality that Spotify outputs But it's still doing bad transcoding. It's like taking a screenshot of a JPEG photo: if you save it, you end up with more artifacts. I'd just use one of the numerous Deezer downloaders – they decrypt the actual audio stream, and the input quality is just as good.

If one has digital audio that comes from playing back something encoded with lossy codec X, it should be possible to re-encode that in X format with no loss and no increase in size (this is trivial to prove).

Does anyone make re-encoders that can actually do that?

Re: I'm done with Google

#288

Post by unity1001 »

Closi wrote: post #214
unity1001 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not the right thing to do. Spotify is peanuts to artists. If you want to do the right thing, buy music at Bandcamp The right thing to do is to directly subscribe to their Patreon. It not only gets you access to exclusives, behind the scenes and even events, it also crowdfunds the future projects of the artist.

The right thing to do is to identify where the artist lives, then withdraw unmarked and untraceable cash which you post through their mailbox as a 'gift'. This means that you can guarantee all the money goes directly to the artist.

Patreon takes something like ~8%. Its chump change for the service given - they also handle sales tax, EUVAT and equivalents, chargebacks, fraud etc.

Re: I'm done with Google

#289

Post by silisili »

jsnell wrote: post #191
silisili wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, apologies. Not other products. Google is a video seller and distributor. They have a right to decide what terms they like or don't, just as Walmart does. As a seller of widget X, there's no way I'd accept a product with a license that says they could just take it back anytime for any reason. No sane seller should agree to that.

Their market share of "search, mobile phones, smart TVs" is what you originally claimed would give them leverage. But none of those have any bearing on movie rentals / sales on YouTube. They're entirely different products. Now, the terms for the movie rentals / sales would definitely be negotiated between Google and the content owner. And Google could of course make your no-DRM policy a line in the sand in those nego…

Well, leveraging the other properties but only so far as around those services. So if I search my TV for movies to rent, it would only show me those. Same with the Movies and TV app on my phone.

It would be unethical to completely remove them from search. But would it be unethical to prefer partners and give them higher precedent in results?

As for what X is, I don't know precisely. They could easily update Play terms that no app my sell an item to a user that may be removed later. That would mean X would mean you weren't in Play Movies and TV, but also weren't allowed to sell movies via a Play Store App.

Re: I'm done with Google

#290

Post by prirun »

RedShift1 wrote: post #282
philliphaydon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Taiwan but my CC is from Singapore. I want to get HBO but I can't because I don't have a Taiwan CC. But I can sign up for HBO Singapore but I can't use it in Taiwan... Soooo I'm subjected to pirating HBO content. Sometimes I wonder if these companies actually want to make money because they make it so far for us to give them money.

I've never ever understood geoblocking. What kind of company says no to someone wanting to purchase their products? They are literally throwing away money.

Not defending it, but I think it's a thing because media companies want to price things according to what a country/region can afford. So if they price something cheaper for Thailand, they don't want it to work in the US. Same as drug companies.
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