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The case for physical media ownership

dervis.de

331–340 of 392 posts

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite paying for Netflix and Disney+ and Prime and etc, I have pirtated 1080 copies, with subtitles, of all our favorites because network access is unreliable and service provides add and remove media without warning. As has been said before, the pirated copies are frequently a higher quality product than is available for purchase or rent.

Disney+ is notorious for this. Disney also has a number of shows that they refuse to provide on physical media. If they are removed from their platform and not licensed elsewhere they effectively become lost media.

AND, if you get hurt ad a Disney park you can't sue them because you agreed to Disney+ TOS.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/disney-says-man-cant-su...

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#332
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is word salad. People are making things that you want so they can make a living and you can have something you want. This is a win-win. The only problem is you have to pay for things which people only offer in exchange for money. You can cheat them, but it's not cool to pretend you're doing it for some big amorphous moral fight.

You call my comment word salad, but the model you present of supply-and-demand is so shallow it can't be used to explain why copyright was first created, and what problem it solved. Something that legislation about copyright usually does get right. This Santa Claus version of reality is exactly the kind of mainstream ignorance I was complaining about.

"As a very flattened retelling of history, it was only with the boomers that we reached the tipping point on how people started to think about copyright (Copyright != Attributed Authorship). With them, a majority started to believe in a world where the human history they consumed was a gift from the past, and that what they themselves create must be bought by future generations."

I honestly just don't know what your are trying to say and what it has to do with boomers. Are you just talking about physical media copying of books, CDs, DVDs, etc.?

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#333
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the beginning. Ownership is intangible. It exists only because of the collective consent to laws. The difference between ownership of a physical object and ownership of an intellectual one is a matter of conventional. It's easier to define ownership of an object that is excludable, but that's human convenience, not a physical law.

Some dogs have a concept of items belonging to them. Early humans had weapons and, with our lizard mind, things wouldn't go well when neanderthal B considered neanderthal A's weapon was now is. They also had "homes": caves/camps that belonged to them. Fighting physically for ownership predates fighting judicially for ownership. To the extent that you can "own" another animal: the ownership of a female by a male is de…

The geese at my pond also seem to think it belongs to them :)

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#334
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to data. When I own data, sometimes it refers to data I created. Other times it refers to data about me. Other times it's something I've been sold. Other times it's my responsibility to ensure that data's accuracy. There are probably a few I'm missing. I happen to like the notion of ownership that you're describing, but I think we'd all have more fru…

In the case of data it should be more aptly described as "possession" rather than "ownership"

These are different things, and this is precisely the point here. You do have the possession of the data when you stream a movie, but you do not have the ownership. When someone makes a picture of you, they do posses it, but they do not necessarily own it, that would be you.

I also don't agree with your parent, because ownership is precisely the correct term here.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#335
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…

We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to data. When I own data, sometimes it refers to data I created. Other times it refers to data about me. Other times it's something I've been sold. Other times it's my responsibility to ensure that data's accuracy. There are probably a few I'm missing. I happen to like the notion of ownership that you're describing, but I think we'd all have more fru…

> We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to data. When I own data, sometimes it refers to data I created. Other times it refers to data about me. Other times it's something I've been sold. Other times it's my responsibility to ensure that data's accuracy.

We should really just abandon the notion of ownership when it comes to food. When I own food, sometimes it refers to food that I harvested for myself. Other times it refers to food from me. Other times it's food I have bought from someone. Other times it's about my responsibility to ensure the edibility of food I sold.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Files on a hard disk that you own are still files that you physically own. The only difference between those files and, say, a DVD, is that the encoding is more space-efficient.

> The only difference between those files and, say, a DVD, is that the encoding is more space-efficient. Also that it's (depending on the format) perhaps not illegal to use the content in the file wit any viewer you choose.

Which does not depend on the data being on a DVD at all, but the details of contract of purchase. When you buy the data on a harddisk, the exact same terms would apply.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#337
post #107
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.

> physical ownership

I thing the word you are looking for is possession. When something is physically in your possession, it does not mean, that you have "physical ownership", that requires you to have actual ownership, which is defined by the law, so "legal ownership".

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#338
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAICT, you're right. A standalone offline player that can play Movie A today will be continue to be allowed to play Movie A forever. Subsequently-purchased movies B, C, and/or D may or may not work (because of shenanigans like key revocations systems), but Movie A still plays fine even after these later titles have been introduced. It's ugly, but it's not quite a brick. The ugly part is shaped like this: A person bu…

Possible solutions include small claims court. You can't refuse a refund for a defective product just because you had to open the box to find out it was defective.

Yeah, the distributed responsibility might make this difficult, but maybe not impossible.

Is the disc defective because it doesn't play in a labeled player, or is the player defective because it doesn't play a labeled disc?

Can the licensing body be held responsible?

In point of fact, you'd probably get your money back in small claims court just by suing the store, with evidence that your player plays other discs, just not this particular disc.

Unfortunately, that doesn't really fix the problem, so much as show that an angry-enough consumer with time, energy, and money, can usually get a token of recompense.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#339
post #217
post #3

Just pirate it. They can't tell you this but there's a quagmire of rights, licenses, agreements, treaties... and you can untangle this Goridan Knot by just pirating, especially media, for your own use. There are pixel perfect 4k drm-free rips out there made by people who poured thousands of hours into understanding codecs. They will work on any platform, forever, you can stream them or play offline. These rips can be…

Then you need a NAS, a backup process (backing up large collections of movies to S3 is actually pretty expensive). You need to keep your NAS up to date. You need to install / configure Plex, oops that's closed source now, uninstall that and get Jellyfin. Eventually your NAS hardware will be outdated and you'll have to get a new one and migrate your files over. Even for technical people this is a pain over time. Nothi…

Or you just buy a random NAS from a store, and do none of that. Sure, that's more expensive and less featurefull, but you do not need to know anything.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#340

I think DRM is frankly a lot more of a consumer education/rights thing than some kind of outright evil. Buy a DVD for X, or "own" a DRM version for Y The issue starts when: - vendors don't make it clear that they can pull the rug - or indeed can pull the rug for no reason. A bank can close my bank account, but not for no reason - and they can't hold on to my money just because. It should be the same with DRM-protecte…

> Buy a DVD for X, or "own" a DRM version for Y One the one hand, yes, on the other hand, the DRM-free option is often non-existent (and if you want to include DVD and blu-rays in that pile, because they too do have DRM, just that you can bypass it with ease these days, DRMed media is probably the default). If I could buy a copy for X, a DRMed copy for X minus Y, and a rug-pullable version for X minus Y and Z, then I…

I suppose you can't force people to sell you the license you want. Someone might reasonably develop some land, build flats and only rent them out, no obligation to sell them.

But then you regulate what the landlord can and cannot do.

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