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The deception of “buying” digital movies

worldofmatthew.com

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Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#331

Post by retrac »

FalconSensei wrote: post #290
NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright law was created by and exclusively for lawyers and the oligarchs who can afford them on retainer. Just look at what Disney has done to us and you'll lose all sympathy for the mouse: https://i.imgur.com/58gB0hq.jpg

on the other hand, I don't think Mickey should go public domain.

I think the best example to work with is Star Wars, or maybe The Lord of the Rings. The harm of eternal copyright is probably best demonstrated with these. They've both entered popular understanding, becoming casually referenced all over the place. "We need to make a little stop in Mordor first" is probably more widely-understood than most references to Greek mythology at this point.

The people who grew up in the culture permeated with such stories are stunted expressively. Because they're denied the use of an ever-growing share of the tropes and characters of the common culture. Many Disney films themselves are retellings of classic stories in the public domain. If you want to reference the original Cindarella, or Greek mythology, or Oliver Twist, you're free to do so.

You cannot do that with Luke Skywalker, or Aragorn. Now, maybe you shouldn't be able to within the author's life. But how many centuries should we keep this privilege? Would you or I (or Disney) be able to tell a new story about Hercules if copyright had been around 2000 years ago? Imagine Shakespeare still under copyright! No Hamlet or Macbeth characters in any other works without permission. We can strike several important 20th century books right there. In the future, the equivalent of Shakespeare will still be under copyright long, long after they are dead. Derivation and reuse are normal in art. Disney can borrow from the public domain to make Cindarella, but it in turn will never become public domain.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#332

Post by CharlesW »

Mindwipe wrote: post #128
CharlesW wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. A bunch of non-Apple devices have an Apple TV app now¹, and you can also play movies to any device that supports AirPlay 2¹. ¹ https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-app/devices/

You couldn't play a downloaded title on a non-Apple Apple TV device or via AirPlay 2 tbf. In both scenarios the playback support is that the file just gives the credentials for the device with the Apple TV app or Airplay 2 to go and stream it from Apple's servers. No transfer of the video from a local download occurs.

> You couldn't play a downloaded title on a non-Apple Apple TV device or via AirPlay 2 tbf.

You absolutely can.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#333

Post by vel0city »

alexfromapex wrote: post #323
vel0city wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to watch Top Gun: Maverick. I go to the Amazon Store page. https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0B213HG4N/ref=atv_hm... I see "By ordering or viewing, you agree to our Terms[link to terms]" Huh maybe I should look at what I'm buying before I click checkout. https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c... Hmm, what's relevant to this. Ah, Digital Content, generally. The Service may allow you…

> It is not fine print definition of fine print : inconspicuous details or conditions printed in an agreement or contract, especially ones that may prove unfavorable definition of inconspicuous : not clearly visible or attracting attention; not conspicuous. You can note that you had to click on the "Terms" link to get to those... > I don't get how this is an "undue burden" If you have to read 20 paragraphs of text fo…

> definition of inconspicuous: not clearly visible or attracting attention; not conspicuous.

It is a link probably millimeters away from the Buy button on the screen to read before even clicking Buy, and then Buy asks you if you did read it before it charges your card. I don't know how that's "not clearly visible". If there wasn't a link on the page, or was tiny and at the very bottom of the page, sure I might agree but that's not what's going on here.

I guess its "fine print" when you don't want to read it but I'm just overly reductive when I don't want to read it. That must be the distinction.

> If you have to read 20 paragraphs of text for every digital movie purchase

I mean, you don't have to every time. This argument seems to be coming from an emotional rather than logical argument. These terms don't change very often and they're very similar for every digital movie platform. Once you've skimmed it on Amazon there's not really a point to reading it again. I'll look over the ingredients list on a food product once but it's not like every time I eat a Snickers I re-examine the ingredients label.

Do you really not bother reading contracts when you agree to them?

Your main point is essentially that consumers shouldn't have to actually pay attention in the slightest to what it is they're buying. That they have practically no mental capacity to glance over the terms of a service they're agreeing to when they click "agree".

> I don't want to live in a dystopia where companies start foisting time wasting tasks on me until I give in and accept their unfavorable terms on everything.

Cool. Nobody is forcing you to buy these movies. I haven't bought a digital movie in decades precisely for these reasons. But I don't act like it is this massive undue burden for me to read about the thing I'm buying. It took one minute for me to scan that document and understand what buying a movie on Amazon is like.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#334

Post by RealStickman_ »

rendaw wrote: post #288
mixmastamyk wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handbrake, chose a profile, use a script, use a more efficient codec. Doesn’t take much manual work but computer chugs for a while.

Does handbrake presets give you good space savings? I was imagining at most something in the 10-20% range.

Most Blu Rays I have are MPEG-2. AVC compresses to about half the size for the same quality and HEVC does that again on top.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#335

Post by anjbe »

retrac wrote: post #331
FalconSensei wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the other hand, I don't think Mickey should go public domain.

I think the best example to work with is Star Wars, or maybe The Lord of the Rings. The harm of eternal copyright is probably best demonstrated with these. They've both entered popular understanding, becoming casually referenced all over the place. "We need to make a little stop in Mordor first" is probably more widely-understood than most references to Greek mythology at this point. The people who grew up in the cul…

Star Wars is a particularly salient example because the original cuts that made the films such cultural icons are completely unavailable from anyone other than third‐party sellers, due to the wishes of the (former) rights holder. After the Special Editions were released, the theatrical editions made it onto DVD one time, and never did again. J.J. Abrams has indicated that there are difficulties behind the scenes (perhaps some clause in the Disney purchase) that prevent the originals from being made available for sale. So people who want to avoid the CGI and bad redubs of the Special Editions are stuck scrounging eBay, or more likely, grabbing an “unofficial” scan of the theatrical editions.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#336

Post by akomtu »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #102
akomtu wrote: post #3

The biggest deception was convincing the public that knowledge is a thing, so it can be bought, sold and change "owners". Convenient access to movies can be indeed sold, but not the movies themselves.

I don't much care for this weird equivalency that a motion picture is "knowledge", but regardless should every bit of knowledge be offered and given freely? Given that I know where I was last night and you don't is it within your right to demand it from me? Is it enough you want to have that knowledge that requires you then get it?

I said knowledge can't be owned. I didn't say that everyone is obligated to educate others. It's fine to keep a secret. It only gets murky when the secret becomes public.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#337

Post by akomtu »

deadbeeves wrote: post #28
akomtu wrote: post #3

The biggest deception was convincing the public that knowledge is a thing, so it can be bought, sold and change "owners". Convenient access to movies can be indeed sold, but not the movies themselves.

Are knowledge and information the same thing?

I think these are synonyms.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#338

Post by buttercraft »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #281
senko wrote: post #215

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, b…

What do you think a reasonable form of copyright law would look like?

A decade or two tops. That is enough time to monetize your work. Then, you get out of the way and let others benefit from your work just as you benefited from the works of so many others who came before you. You're still free to keep creating new things.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#339

Post by RealStickman_ »

withinboredom wrote: post #269
selfhoster11 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if for some reason you don't re-encode, 18+ TB disks are now available. This means you can fit nearly 300 films' worth on a single drive like this, more if you buy multiple. I don't think it's such a bad idea to run a 4-drive cluster out of a single Raspberry Pi, with all the drives connected over USB. You don't even need backups for this, really. If you own the discs and lose the digital version, just copy it o…

I’m 90% sure an rpi can’t handle the Bitrate needed to watch a 4K video.

You can't just throw files on there. You should make sure the clients you're connecting support the codecs and formats natively and at that point the pi is basically acting as a NAS. It should play 4k fine like that if it has the bandwidth necessary.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#340

Post by Adraghast »

Retric wrote: post #302
Xeoncross wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen? As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.

US automotive lemon law for example doesn’t specifically benefit the wealthy or large corporations. What muddles the picture is people do benefit from economies of scale. So, if you make the law actually hostile for large companies both the general public and corporations are worse off.

> if you make the law actually hostile for large companies both the general public and corporations are worse off

What an overly broad thing to say!

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