I’d like to get the community’s feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we’re really doing is purchasing a “license” to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.
Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn’t the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?
P.S. I know there’s pirating and all, but that’s not the focus of my question.
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With the trend of everything these days, I’m beyond tired of our station in this world—during our ONE FUCKING life we get, we’re nothing more than pockets. And when those pockets are empty, you’re nothing.
A chaotic world of post-societal-collapse would be fuckin awful, but at least we’d be free of bought/paid-for capitalist “living.” We’re not living under capitalism, we are churned for capitalism. It’s so goddamn frustrating and tragic.
Maybe it’s not just what the rich want.
OP is unhappy about how little control we have over some of our property. The catch is that this property is also the property of someone else. Media is (mostly) the intellectual property of someone, and the owners can decide over it. So, in order for OP to have more control over “digital property”, one would need laws that limit control over property. Tough sell.
If you look at threads on AI, you will find them full of people who want expanded intellectual property. I doubt those are all bots or shills. I think they just want control over their own property, without considering that they are forging their own chains. When you increase the power of property, you increase the power of the rich and diminish your own.
Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn’t the same as purchasing and owning the physical media?
Because the company you purchase it from has to host and serve the data to you. For how long? Eternity?
They should probably stop calling it “buying” and call it a long-term rental but that won’t be good for their bottom line.
If you want to keep your data forever, buy a Blu-Ray.
I think the point is more so why are digital purchased DRM’ed and prohibited from local storage in so many ways. The historical argument is “well you’re not buying it, you’re buying a license to use it for as long as we wish to provide it”, but why does it necessarily need to be that way. And more generally, from the standpoint of artistic/media preservation, as BluRay releases continue to decrease and console video game releases become continually more digital-only, these non-archivable or locked-without-server-license-validation media results in IP that at some point in time, this media could be permanently lost.
Personally, I feel this is unacceptable. The media we consume forms a huge portion of our culture, and is just as much an example of artistic expression as painting. While I thoroughly believe artists/companies should be able to charge for these properties, I do not believe that when it is no longer profitable for them to support the system, that these pieces of media should simply be discarded with no method for future recovery and preservation.
Simple. When you license your show to a streaming platform, it is more lucrative to put in an arbitrary end date on the off-chance the platform decides to renew the license. Consumers have no say in this so they just have to take what is given.
Want to stream it forever? Be prepared to pay an exorbitant amount of money because the showrunnere REALLY don’t want that.
why are digital purchased DRM’ed
Because piracy
E: if one of the downvoters would like to provide a better answer, I’m ready to learn from you.
Yes, but most DRM has been circumvented in one way or another. DRM primarily continues to keep law-abiding citizens from easily acquiring a copy of media they rightfully own as opposed to preventing piracy.
Though if institutions insist on utilizing DRM for prevention of privacy, I do think that DRM should be built to fail after a meaningful timeframe, at worst the expiry of the copyright for the material. Unfortunately many pieces of media, particularly video games, are abandoned and unsupported long before their copywriter expires. Abandonware in general is not well handled by modern copywrite law.
Yes, but most DRM has been circumvented in one way or another.
Yes I mentioned earlier that it didn’t make sense.
Why I don’t get is why they fight so hard to promote piracy though. It’s not enough that it’s free, it also has to be easier?
Well. They don’t. Quite the opposite. I can’t tell you what they’re thinking but my best guess is so they can point to measures taken at their board meetings and say “this is what we’re doing to fight piracy”.
If you want to keep your data forever, buy a Blu-Ray.
which will degrade and become unusable in what? 20 years?
Probably closer to 100 years if stored and handled properly.
I just bought a taylor swift album and it gave me a zip file full of mp3s (wow).
Damn least they could do is give you FLAC…even Bandcamp does that
I have my home server backing up my whole GOG library.
What do you use for automating the backups?
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this but a lot of physical discs nowadays are nothing more than glorified license checks, especially with games. Even buying the physical version does not guarantee you safety from these problems.
Also related is the fact that DVDs and Blu-rays can be region locked. Years ago I bought media from another region as it wasn’t available in my region yet, happily played it on my PC but later when I went to play it in my PlayStation, nope! Even when there was media, they tried to artificially restrict usage.
Digital ownership is an oxymoron.
It’s fine as long as you get the actual files, and not some DRM bullshit
Sure, but the former basically doesn’t exist which is why it’s an oxymoron.
It does exist. I have several cds and dvds myself. It’s being phased out though, for internet based drm. Which I admit is not that great. But I wouldn’t say it’s quite gone yet
That’s not the digital being talked about. Though, you’re technically correct. That’s why I’ve got bookshelves of DVDs and Blu-Rays. But, they also have DRM in various forms. Only difference is you “own” it. Pretty sure decrypting the contents to copy it is technically illegal. Sure, they can’t take that copy away, but it doesn’t last forever either. I’ve already had a few DVDs crap out on me.
Piracy will always win whether corporations like it or not. I’ll always try and buy physical copies of games. But movies and TV shows need to be on my hard drive if the price isn’t right for a physical copy.
I have my fair share of streaming services. Peacock for WWE, prime video well cause of Amazon prime. But if I do wanna watch a movie or show, then I will have to sail the high seas.
Expect, there is no future in digital ownership.
You will own nothing and you WILL be happy.
That’s cool, I just won’t buy anything then.
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Hmmm…never thought of it like that. That certainly does put things into perspective. Even so, it does feel like we’re being cheated out of our money when we pay for something and are not able to access it later. I’m currently on an audiobook platform called Libro.fm, and when I purchase an audiobook there, I am given the option to download a separate audio file that allows me to listen to the audiobook in another media player (e.g. VLC). Can’t these movie and tv show platforms do the same thing?
It depends on what their license with the copyright holder says. If the platform is the copyright owner, then they absolutely could do that if they wanted to (unless the media includes other sublicensed media, in which case they’d possibly need that owner to also allow it - that’s related to why sometimes certain media just can’t legally be purchased anywhere). Most of the time those owners don’t want to allow that.
It’s a legal problem, not a technical one.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Affected users who may have spent years building a robust digital library were suddenly left without access to content they had bought through no fault of their own.
Even though downloading and accessing digital content is often easier than trudging to a retail store to buy a physical copy of a game, you’re putting your faith in the platform holders to maintain their digital storefronts, the content on those storefronts, and their account systems so that your access keeps working.
The recent closure of Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS eShops was a stark reminder that companies have the power to decide when you can buy digital content.
While you can still redownload Wii U and 3DS games that you’ve purchased, it seems inevitable that Nintendo will stop letting you do that one day.
And Sony isn’t offering any compensation for titles you’ve already bought or a way to transfer those purchases to another store.
The PlayStation account bans were as swift as they were unexpected, and while resolution for most arrived within a few hours, Sony still hasn’t shared any public communication about what happened or why users should continue to trust the platform.
The original article contains 525 words, the summary contains 194 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Digital media means that there is an ongoing service behind it. The servers use energy. The parts age and break. It requires a continuing feed of labor and resources to keep going.
Imagine a streaming service that is all based on buying media, instead of subscription or renting. Then suppose all the customers somehow decide that the media they own are enough for now (maybe because money is tight, because inflation). With no more cash coming in, the service goes bankrupt.
In principle, you could have a type of license that allows you to get a new copy in any way you can (torrent, etc.). That would be hard to police, though.
FWIW, owning a physical copy isn’t all that, either. There are various ways built-in to make life harder for customers, like geo-blocking. Bypassing these tends to be a criminal offense.
And yet, somehow, GOG and Itch still exist, allowing you to download games completely DRM-free, as often as you like. If they ever go out of business, you can still use your local copies forever.
How do they do it? A mystery…
That takes a lot less bandwidth than streaming. All business have fixed costs. Blockbuster Video had to pay rent for physical stores, for example. Delivering via the net is relatively cheap compared to stores or physical postage. I’d be surprised if GOG’s cost aren’t much lower than anything physical.
Well then let me actually download the movie like it was a game, then! And how exactly does it take less bandwidth? It’s still tens or hundreds of gigabytes to download every time someone wants to install a game, most people only use the offline installers as backups.
But how often do you install the same game? A streaming movie needs to be (partially) downloaded every time someone watches it. But yes, I shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this ends up being a higher bandwidth cost per dollar purchasing price.
When you keep a backup, then the download was basically just a way of delivering a physical copy. I answered why we can’t have online property.
As to why many don’t allow you to keep a private copy. For the obvious reason: To maintain control over their property and monetize it to the highest degree possible.
Bypassing these tends to be a criminal offense.
lol no, nobody is in jail for ripping their stuff or even straight up torrenting it.
If it doesn’t bother you that you are threatened with jail over something you might do with your own property, in your own home, without affecting others, then… Well, I can see that you would be living a very jolly life indeed. Good on ya.
If you live in America you’re threatened with jail every time you go into public. The average person unknowingly breaks 3 federal laws a day, and an avalanche of state and local violations. And these are almost all selectively enforced.
Outright innocence is not enough to escape the brutality of detention.
Hah! Yeah, that’s so weird when seen from my culture (Germany). Here, prosecutors must enforce all laws on the books. Anything less would be a criminal offense. The actual day-to-day problems are very similar, though. It is kinda infuriating that the English system works as well as it does.
Digital media means that there is an ongoing service behind it.
I could download my file and be done with it. If I throw away or damage my super fragile bluray I’m not entitled to a new copy. I don’t even need to be able to redownload (although it’s a nice service). It means there is an ongoing service behind it because they decide it and because they are afraid I will share with my friends - which is about as difficult as finding the media elsewhere online.
With no more cash coming in, the service goes bankrupt.
Same issue with physical media. Suddenly your expensive factory is idle, your employees don’t produce anything. We still get to buy movies and not rent them perpetually.
I could download my file and be done with it.
That’s true, but that’s kinda delivering a physical copy via the net, and you pay the storage medium. I understood OP as talking specifically about online “property”.
Thank you! Lemmy seems to believe everything digital is free forever. There are real costs associated with maintaining infrastructure.
Having said that, I pay Google $100/yr. for 2TB of storage. I steal all my media and place it there. Local backups as well, of course.
Y’all do whatever works for you, but don’t whine when these companies drop “your” media.
There’s a case to be made about “buying” digital media and being able to keep the file in your local storage, that way it wouldn’t cost anything to the publisher when you play the content.
I understand the piracy implications, but most of the content is pirated anyway regardless of DRM, so the only ones affected are those who actually pay for content.
Thank you! Lemmy seems to believe everything digital is free forever. There are real costs associated with maintaining infrastructure.
then dont fucking call it “buying”
Let’s not forget that this is just as much Discoverys fault as Sony
“Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn’t the same as purchasing and owning the physical media?”
Because Sony doesn’t have the right to permanently sell you the content, that can only be done by the original rights holder.
So when Sony “sold” people every season of Mythbusters, they were limited by their contract witb Discovery. Once Discovery altered that contract, it becomes illegal for Sony to keep distributing it.
For physical sales, there’s the “First Sale Doctrine”:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
Rights holder produces physical product. Books, movies, games, whatever. Bulk sells them to distributors, who then have the right to sell it to retailers, who then have the right to sell to you, the general public.
And then you have the right to do with it whatever you want.
There is no digital first sale doctrine.
Digital ownership can be done properly but you need NFT game licences
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I already get a receipt when I buy digital products without needing to involve block-chain bs though.
You can’t trade that…
Sure I can. You’ll just be getting a receipt, though. Just like if you traded an NFT.
