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Forget spaceships; I just want my music

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#111

Post by fragmede »

gambiting wrote: post #86

The thing that really worries me and which no one seems to be talking about is the region locking of localisation for streaming content. For context - we're a Polish family living in the UK(like 2 million other Polish people). We have a small child who loves Disney films, and because he is normally exposed to English(and speaks it fluently) I'd like him to at least watch cartoons in Polish. But Disney region locks mo…

While there is the bigger picture to consider, my solution to get access to Swedish content for my then-partner while we were in the US was to use a VPN. Mullvad worked for local content, but if you still have friends/family back home, a tailscale exit node might work better, especially for Disney+.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#112

Post by thomastjeffery »

pierat wrote: post #33
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #29

> as Sony just decided to yoink over a thousand seasons—that's right, seasons, not episodes—of Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store Didn't realize Sony owned Discovery, oh wait they don't. So it's actually Discovery who's licensing caused Sony to be legally obligated to remove the shows. Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it…

> Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it. If you're lied to about a "sale" and it's really just a shitty rental, we have a different word for that: FRAUD. And the action that Sony hacked devices and removed said content? It mirrors the individual form of this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38614624 ), which is "horribly ill…

If you want a story about Sony and lawsuits for hacking devices, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#113

Post by thomastjeffery »

> Enshittification has reached new heights, as Sony just decided to yoink over a thousand seasons—that's right, seasons, not episodes—of Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store.

> But they're not just removing them from the store.

> They're removing them from people's libraries.

That's called fraud. Why in the world are we not prosecuting it?

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#114

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #8

Music is very important to me. So important that I never dared to trust streaming services. Not only do they require an internet connection (something that is not always available), but if the service experiences downtime, license changes, etc., that music is not available. If I'm going to spend my money on music, I'm going to spend it on music in a form that isn't reliant on the ongoing operation of some service som…

[deleted]

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#115

Post by jareklupinski »

gambiting wrote: post #86

The thing that really worries me and which no one seems to be talking about is the region locking of localisation for streaming content. For context - we're a Polish family living in the UK(like 2 million other Polish people). We have a small child who loves Disney films, and because he is normally exposed to English(and speaks it fluently) I'd like him to at least watch cartoons in Polish. But Disney region locks mo…

would love a solution for this too

raising bi-lingual kids is much easier when you can give them second language media, and it doesn't seem like it would be an expensive flag for Disney to flip...

might even be an opportunity to rebrand themselves as educational...

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#116

Post by joemi »

JohnFen wrote: post #107
pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tell me true, if you can't buy them how on earth it is piracy to download them? People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available. If I don't want to sell you something, then I'd entertain the argument that downloading it anyway is in some sense immoral or unethical. But in your situation, you've already fucking bought it! It's as if you placed a pick-up order at the…

> People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available. But this gets complicated. I wanted to post a song from a somewhat obscure '80s band on my website and so tracked them down and asked for permission. One of them (the songwriter) responded to say that the band has never had the rights to the music on that album and, in fact, they don't even have a recording of it them…

That's not complicated, though. The artist is not the seller. The artist already sold their rights. Whoever bought the rights is the seller. You might choose to disregard that because the artist said they don't care, but their opinion is meaningless, so it should not be the basis of your argument.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#117

Post by JohnFen »

joemi wrote: post #116
JohnFen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available. But this gets complicated. I wanted to post a song from a somewhat obscure '80s band on my website and so tracked them down and asked for permission. One of them (the songwriter) responded to say that the band has never had the rights to the music on that album and, in fact, they don't even have a recording of it them…

That's not complicated, though. The artist is not the seller. The artist already sold their rights. Whoever bought the rights is the seller. You might choose to disregard that because the artist said they don't care, but their opinion is meaningless, so it should not be the basis of your argument.

I was responding to this: "People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available."

The use of the phrase "their creations" led to to think that the people being discussed here were the artists, not the rightsholders. Only the artists are the creators.

My argument is that this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex. The people that you think have them are often not the artists. I'm not actually seeing how you have argued against this -- have I misunderstood what you're saying?

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#118

Post by joemi »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #78
pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tell me true, if you can't buy them how on earth it is piracy to download them? People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available. If I don't want to sell you something, then I'd entertain the argument that downloading it anyway is in some sense immoral or unethical. But in your situation, you've already fucking bought it! It's as if you placed a pick-up order at the…

I agree (or at least see the argument) if it's like the original creator who decided they want to keep their hands on the work (or maybe like if a company wants to withdraw one edition of a book to sell a new edition), but in cases where works are orphaned, or the rights are in limbo, or a huge corporation merges with another huge corporation and permanently deletes creators' works for a tax break, I don't think ther…

Basing something like this on someone else's motive doesn't seem like the best idea to me because in most situations you can only guess the motive. So it ultimately just boils down to your assumptions.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#119

Post by joemi »

JohnFen wrote: post #117
joemi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not complicated, though. The artist is not the seller. The artist already sold their rights. Whoever bought the rights is the seller. You might choose to disregard that because the artist said they don't care, but their opinion is meaningless, so it should not be the basis of your argument.

I was responding to this: "People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available." The use of the phrase "their creations" led to to think that the people being discussed here were the artists, not the rightsholders. Only the artists are the creators. My argument is that this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex. The people that you think have them are o…

I agree with your argument as stated here ("this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex"). I guess your example seemed to me to be an endorsement of relying on the creators opinion and not the rights-holder in cases where they are not the same, and I was arguing against that (assumed?) endorsement. The fact that the creators are not necessarily the sellers is at the heart of a lot of pro-piracy arguments and I've often seen it used as blanket justification for _any_ piracy, even in cases where the rights-holders and creators are the same entities, so I guess I'm a bit sensitive to it.

Side note: I used to co-run a small electronic record label, and almost all of the artists who we released music by were just ourselves (with a few exceptions made for close friends, who retained all rights to their music). Given our small size and low profile, it was shocking to see how quickly some of our releases were pirated. Sometimes albums would hit soulseek after we had only shipped out the first 30 or so CDs (and no MP3s). We weren't in it for the money... it was just a side-activity while we were still in school, and any money made was just funneled back into the label so we could release more music, so fortunately the piracy didn't affect us much as far as we cared. But it was still incredibly surprising.

Re: Forget spaceships; I just want my music

#120

Post by JohnFen »

joemi wrote: post #119
JohnFen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to this: "People would argue that it's up to the seller whether they want to make their creations available." The use of the phrase "their creations" led to to think that the people being discussed here were the artists, not the rightsholders. Only the artists are the creators. My argument is that this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex. The people that you think have them are o…

I agree with your argument as stated here ("this is complex because the system of legal rights is complex"). I guess your example seemed to me to be an endorsement of relying on the creators opinion and not the rights-holder in cases where they are not the same, and I was arguing against that (assumed?) endorsement. The fact that the creators are not necessarily the sellers is at the heart of a lot of pro-piracy argu…

> I guess your example seemed to me to be an endorsement of relying on the creators opinion and not the rights-holder in cases where they are not the same, and I was arguing against that (assumed?) endorsement.

I was not endorsing anything. My intent was to tell an interesting anecdote that illustrated the complexity of rights. Sorry for the confusion.

My personal attitude (not endorsing it, though!) is that the artists are the only people who really count. That's why I contacted them for permission. Beyond the artists, everything is just legalisms and how seriously to take their desires is a legal consideration, not an ethical one. My anecdote does indicate this in action pretty clearly, but it conflates that attitude with the main point I was making (that this stuff isn't simple).

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