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The case for physical media ownership

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Re: The case for physical media ownership

#111

Post by thfuran »

jrm4 wrote: post #107
knaik94 wrote: post #44

I agree with the sentiment implied by the author, but I would reword it slightly. If you don't have the freedom to share something, you don't own it. I disagree with the interpretation that it needs to be held physically. Digital ownership is still ownership. I go out of my way to find music on Bandcamp, games on GOG, and rip movies myself using MakeMKV. I wish I could encourage people to continue embracing physical…

I would emphatically not do this, because you're confusing legal ownership with physical ownership and only one can be guaranteed with reasonable certainty. Honestly, I'm continually surprised at how badly people miss this even as, e.g. Sony et al just take away stuff you "bought." So, to put directly. Do not reword it, you will screw it up. You must be able to hold it in your hand.

>you're confusing legal ownership with physical ownership and only one can be guaranteed with reasonable certainty.

You mean legal ownership, right? Because people can illegally take your physical belongings.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#112

Post by al_borland »

win311fwg wrote: post #95
al_borland wrote: post #88

I think DRM and streaming are the issues here, not digital vs physical. For example, I can buy DRM free music from the iTunes Store, download the files, and they’re mine. I can play them back on anything that supports the file type, convert the files, back them up, etc. Meanwhile, if I check a book out from the library, I can hold it, it’s physical, but it’s not mine and I can’t do whatever I want to it.

> I can buy DRM free music from the iTunes Store, download the files, and they’re mine. If you hold the copyright they are yours, but most files downloaded from iTunes and similar services are unlikely to be yours. A license to use the content, even where there are few restrictions, is not ownership.

If holding the copyright is the bar, then physical media doesn’t give that either. Buying a physical book doesn’t transfer the copyright to me. I can start producing more copies and selling them, at least not legally.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#113

Post by locao »

I'm curious what would take for regular people (i.e. people off HN) to realize what is pointed in the article is a real problem.

In my experience, every time I mention this I'm labeled as: nostalgic old guy, Don Quixote wannabe, tinfoil hat supporter, pirate nerd who doesn't understand people just want convenience. I've seen people bit by losing access to purchased content shrug and say "yeah, that's bad isn't it? at least I was able to watch it before they removed it".

Sometimes I feel that's a lost battle. People were put to boil just like the frog in the anecdote and keep swearing it's a hot bath.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#115

Post by arjie »

Usually you create shorthand rules because you want to Have a heuristic to detect things that you don’t want to do lots of thinking for. So the rule has edges it doesn’t match well on and so on.

That’s all very well. But was this rule necessary? I don’t need to do a lot of computation in most cases to tell where I land and the edge cases are worsened by the rule. So it’s not helping me make decisions.

So I own a DVD but someone (Amazon, the government) can delete something out of my Kindle library. Fine, but I didn’t need the rule to help me with that. It’s very apparent.

And then there’s the question of owning not conferring all rights. I own my body but I can’t sell parts of it. Are the embryos my wife and I have made ours? Transferring them without the clinic approving isn’t really feasible.

So the word “own” doesn’t mean much to me on its own and I don’t need to use this rule because I can somewhat tell where I have power no one can take from me and where I don’t.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#117

Post by tancop »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #7

Unfortunately many game disks only contain a downloader nowadays and you often need to bind them to an account to play. Plus the version on disk without updates is probably buggy. Baldur's Gate 3 Collector's edition is an example that has a disk, but isn't really any better than a Steam key. On the other hand you can back up a DRM free download, like the games on GOG, despite these being a purely digital download. So…

[dead]

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#118

Post by swiftcoder »

simianwords wrote: post #12

I don't buy the strange fascination with owning physical things. The other side of this is something no one speaks about: Spotify, youtube made it possible for me to listen to _any_ music from anywhere. This kind of profound open access to art should not just be dismissed. The concerns about price increase are laughable because without spotify I wouldn't be exposed to this music in the first place. I think the obsess…

> youtube made it possible for me to listen to _any_ music from anywhere

A spectacular number of publishers region-block all their music videos on YouTube for copyright reasons

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#119

Post by thewebguyd »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #81
cube00 wrote: post #26

Sony's one sentence notice is pretty grim considering how much money they made from these sales (sorry licensing). From September 1, 2026, due to our content licensing agreements, you will no longer be able to access your previously purchased content from Studio Canal, and it will be removed from your video library. Thank you, PlayStation Store [1] At least in 2023 it was two sentences and then they somehow negotiate…

> due to our content licensing agreements, you will no longer be able to access your previously purchased content So when they 'sold' the content, they were already aware that they were selling something with an expiry date. Why would you even agree to a license to resell something with a time limit? There should be some kind of law that says that any license agreement intended for reselling to the public should be a…

And if the license is not perpetual, there needs to be laws that stop companies from using the terms “buy.” They should have to state it for what it is: a long term rental. Sony could have up front disclosed “You are paying $x.yz to rent access to this media until [date]”

I think it’s important for consumers that this verbiage is applied to everything where the license is non-transferable and not perpetual. Stop calling it “Buy/Own” and start calling it “Renting.” This applies to software too. I didn’t “buy” access to the Adobe Creative Suite, I’m renting it.

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