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The case for physical media ownership

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Re: The case for physical media ownership

#301

Post by Telaneo »

saulpw wrote: post #194

I'm reading "Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld" by Byung-Chul Han, who has things to say about it. "Things" are naturally possessions to be owned; the non-things that we as a society are moving towards are information to be consumed. If you have a physical book, you can pass it along to someone else, margin notes and dogears and all, but the experience of an e-book is fundamentally different. You might feel like…

> Just think about leaving your favorite book as .epub to someone in your will to see how non-sensical that would be.

It's not unthinkable to me, but it would have to include your own personal notes or something. The plain example though is nonsense, your're correct in that.

That said, what about leaving an entire NAS media collection to someone in your will? Sure, it's just hard drives with bits on them, but it's probably curated and high quality. There's a technical barrier though, so it makes little sense to leave to anyone who isn't already deeply interested, while if you're left with a collection of vinyl or blu-rays, even if you don't actually care about them, the cultural knowledge of what they are and represent is still around.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#302

Post by Telaneo »

lIl-IIIl wrote: post #150

Good examples, but this one didn't make sense to me: >Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game disappeared from Xbox and PlayStation stores in December 2014 when a license expired. Players campaigned for years before a remastered edition arrived in 2021. I mean, physical stores can also stop selling a certain game. Existing sold games were unaffected. Why does this matter?

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game was digital-only, so nobody could buy a copy of the game if they wanted to, since the only places which sold the game stopped doing that, and used copies by definition don't exist.

Physical games can still be bought even if stores stop selling them, since the used marked will still be around (the game might be rare and command a high price on the used market, but at least it's possible).

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#303

Post by antisol »

Cool page, it lists a bunch of compelling arguments. It's always good to see more and more people realising these things and start insisting on actual ownership.

Meanwhile, did you know defectivebydesign.org has been around for 20 years now? Makes me feel old.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#304

Post by yard2010 »

dd8601fn wrote: post #255
wilg wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most copyright holders prefer you sending money for them in the way they ask you to, which is by purchasing it in the way they are offering it. And it's completely hilarious to suggest that most pirates are somehow Venmoing the artists directly. 99% of content has no way to actually do that.

That’s a nice way of saying they’re full of shit. They want stuff for free, and that’s the whole of it. It’s reasonable to not want to do that, even if it’s not the most severe kind of unethical or illegal act.

Not gp, I want to pay the creators. I also want to own what I pay them for. When I have this option (bandcamp, physical media etc.) I'm going for it without even thinking. It's not about the money. It was about the money when I was 13. Now it's simply about owning my stuff. Renting is not for me. If I don't have any other alternative than pirate, what should I do?

Sharing is caring. If I can share my money with creators I go for it every single time, especially when these creators are simply making my life better with their art.

It's more complex than "want stuff for free". Usually I hate free stuff as they cost in time or worse.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#305

Post by bluebarbet »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #256
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…

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…

Agreed. I'd go further. This obsession with ownership has always struck me as a peculiarly American thing, perhaps related to the absolutely central role of private property in the USA's history. In other cultures the concept of private property is often diluted somewhat by social obligations and counter-obligations. But that aside, the term is already very imperfect for the reasons you describe.

Perhaps the better word is just "control".

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#306

Post by amelius »

bluebarbet wrote: post #305
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #256

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…

Agreed. I'd go further. This obsession with ownership has always struck me as a peculiarly American thing, perhaps related to the absolutely central role of private property in the USA's history. In other cultures the concept of private property is often diluted somewhat by social obligations and counter-obligations. But that aside, the term is already very imperfect for the reasons you describe. Perhaps the better w…

Isn't it the same thing?

Stuff you fully control is stuff you own fully.

Stuff you don't fully control is stuff you don't own fully.

Stuff you fully own is stuff you fully control.

Stuff you don't fully own is stuff you don't fully control.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#307

Post by TylerE »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #257
athrowaway3z wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate the ethnical argument because It's so much weaker than people who use it imagine it to be. 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…

It's not that hard to imagine a better system. Abolish all copyrights

It's easy to imagine that as a world where no one funds any thing resembling research or content because it will get instantly ripped off.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#308

Post by microgpt »

ssl-3 wrote: post #182
zephen wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When your device sees that it is revoked by any disc, it bricks itself. Do you have a citation for that? I don't believe it, partly because I can imagine the sort of class action it would engender. There are reports of bricked players on the internet, and unbricking, but those mostly seem to have been caused by bad firmware updates. The wikipedia page on AACS only mentions revocations affecting future content. http…

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.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#309

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

dd8601fn wrote: post #250
andai wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that with a book or a DVD you're not allowed to copy it. You're allowed to lend or sell it though.

Is that the state of things? I thought you could copy a legally purchased thing, just not distribute it?

Depends on your country.

In my country I can legally make copies of for example books, movies, CDs etc, as long as the copies are only for personal use.

I can even legally privately share copies with family and close friends. As in close real life people that I have a personal relationship with.

A copy made for personal use cannot later be used for a different purpose. And a copy made for personal use must be made from a legal source in the first place.

The copy of The Matrix that a friend burned on a CD (DivX encoded file under 700 MB, that I would watch on the computer) and gave to me years ago, would have been illegal today because he got that movie from his brother who got it from a torrent tracker.

But if instead of downloading the movie from a P2P network his brother had borrowed The Matrix on DVD from the local library, and ripped it himself, and given a copy to his brother, who then gave me a copy, then my understanding is that this would have been completely fine and legal today in my country.

It’s all pretty weird.

In other countries, the laws are different.

Re: The case for physical media ownership

#310

Post by bluebarbet »

amelius wrote: post #306
bluebarbet wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'd go further. This obsession with ownership has always struck me as a peculiarly American thing, perhaps related to the absolutely central role of private property in the USA's history. In other cultures the concept of private property is often diluted somewhat by social obligations and counter-obligations. But that aside, the term is already very imperfect for the reasons you describe. Perhaps the better w…

Isn't it the same thing? Stuff you fully control is stuff you own fully. Stuff you don't fully control is stuff you don't own fully. Stuff you fully own is stuff you fully control. Stuff you don't fully own is stuff you don't fully control.

As I mentioned, "ownership" is not always such an absolute concept outside the USA, which began as a freewheeling frontier society. For example, the French translation of "company" is "société", and the thing is understood to be a bundle of obligations rather than a discrete object to be bought and sold. Even in England, houses are commonly sold on leases rather than the "freehold" which is intrinsic to ownership in the US.

IMO the verb "own" is only fully unambiguous in the case of non-fungible physical goods. Which clearly data is not.

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