‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services ( www.theguardian.com )

*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be able to access the films and TV shows they had bought. *

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

She later said Telstra had contacted her and offered a free Fetch box, which she acknowledged was a “reasonable resolution”.

And we have learned exactly nothing here. See you in 2 years when Fetch closes down and you are not getting anything back because you actually did not "buy" those movies on Fetch but on the previous platform.

CaptKoala ,

Yep, assuming this new service lasts that long. Could be a year or less.

kureta ,

Stop trying to make fetch happen!

Neosnc ,

It’s not going to happen!

Aarkon ,

Well, that or go to court for a movie collection. I'd phrase my statement differently, but I can see the appeal of the settlement.

unreasonabro ,

The idea that you could trust a corporation, any corporation, at its word is laughable on its face, and yet the courts have been relying on them to "follow the rules" unsupervised for years. Now capitalism doesn't make anything that isn't designed as a piece of shit that falls apart, and everything is a lie that they're also making money from, from plastics recycling (not real and they make money on the chemicals they sell to the recycling industry) to the content you make that they get paid for and you don't.

The whole thing needs to go, all of it.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

The idea that you could trust a corporation, any corporation, at its word is laughable on its face

We're surrounded by corporate entities all trying to leech profit out of us.

It's less a question of trust and more of information alternatives. When all you can hear is the din of advertisement, it's difficult to chart a path through the racket.

You're bound to get suckered by someone, eventually.

GenderNeutralBro ,

Even if they were trustworthy, nothing lasts forever.

Does anyone seriously think Google Play Movies or whatever they call it is going to be around in 50 years? Audible? Spotify?

Unlikely.

I grew up with access to books that were printed before my parents were even born. I doubt your grandkids will be able to say the same. Not if you buy into DRM-infected ecosystems and vendor lock-in, anyway.

The only consolation is that pirates are always one step ahead. But I wouldn't want to count on that remaining true in 50 years either.

designatedhacker ,

They could offer a way to download a copy and steganographically tag it to hell with your id so that they know if you distribute it. You can "loan it out" by letting friends stream off your Plex or whatever. If you start selling that streaming service or it shows up in torrents, it has your ID on it.

Boom, you own it forever and you're incentivized not to over share.

Or you know sell DRM free versions and let people do whatever, but that probably has a snowballs chance in hell.

tkk13909 ,
@tkk13909@sopuli.xyz avatar

Your first proposal still falls victim to the fact that screen recording exists.

ElderWendigo ,
@ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works avatar

Like every system? What's the actual distinction you're trying to point out?

masterbaexunn ,

Guy clearly never recorded music of off the RADIO!

lost_faith ,

Oh, the memories... but we were paying a slight copyright fee on every blank disk and tape purchased in those days, regardless of use.

_number8_ ,

I literally watch TV through a capture card right now out of stubbornness and principle. Anything I want to record, I can just hit a button and safely keep. No DRM preventing me from taking screenshots, I can manipulate the picture to hide obnoxious graphics or ads (great for sports); the sense of control is extremely gratifying.

ExcessShiv , (edited )

I just bought a 4k 60hz loopthrough usb3 card so I can start saving the media I want from the services I still subscribe to. What software do you use for recording?

lost_faith ,

I think I'll try using OBS to capture a video tonight, granted its quality will be tied to the output but it requires no additional hardware. Then edit in DaVinci to get rid of the obvious mistakes i'll make. I only have a 4070 ti super tho

designatedhacker ,

The fingerprinting I'm talking about gets encoded in the screen recording too. Subtle pixel changes here or there over the entire length of the video. It'll be lossy when it's transcoded, but over the whole video it's there enough times it won't matter. Even scaling to lower quality won't fix it and then it'll also be lower quality.

It'll be like DRM, there will be people trying to remove it like anything else. They'll break one thing and another will come along. There would still be a black market, but most people can get an unrestricted copy in exchange for money so there's one less reason to pirate.

Unless you're actually pointing a camera at the screen, then OK, you do you.

Olgratin_Magmatoe ,

If somebody gets access to your system, they could use that to blackmail you, and/or frame you for distributing said media.

"Give us $X, or we leak and distribute Y media on your behalf, and you will get sued by the corporate goons for shit loads of money"

The only real solution is to completely overhaul IP law, and/or nationalizing funding for the arts. If we're gonna keep corps that own/produce media, then they should have a very short and limited amount of time to distribute it before it becomes common property of the people.

fitgse ,

I mean Amazon did this for their mp3s. It was literally just an id3 tag with a unique identifier. Not hard to remove but “good enough” to keep regular people from overly distributing it. You’ll never win against the real Pirate community no matter what you do, so just give people real incentive to buy and actually own.

UncleGrandPa ,

More and more it is becoming a good idea to store things on your own private equipment. If we don't demand ownership of our own possessions we will soon own nothing

duffman ,

Don't disagree but surely it's not impossible to add some regulations to protect the consumers here.

Vendetta9076 ,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

While possible, by the time it comes around it'll be too late.

krush_groove ,

Legislation is always years behind tech.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot ,

Which means it's just about due.

Shadowq8 ,

You will own nothing and be happy.

This is why sites like lemmy are important.

We need to put an end to corporate tyranny.

Humans in power are too egocentric to not be kept in check.

barsquid ,

Corporations had already proven they cannot be trusted with any long-term leasing or subscription long before they started passing that phrase around.

mPony ,

Corporations have also already proved very difficult to actually hold to account. They can basically do as they please, with relative disregard for any consumer protections that may already exist. It's not good, but it can get worse.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

You will own nothing and be happy.

Unironically the future of capitalism, as it devolves into feudalism with more killer robots.

You've got the CEO (Absolute Monarch) who owns all the shit and you work on it in exchange for not being killed or deported. Maybe you get some treats from time to time. More likely, you just get someone from the PMC to tell you to pray more.

Humans in power are too egocentric to not be kept in check.

A handful of humans with the power to deliver unlimited genocide on their neighbors are hard to keep in check.

ipkpjersi ,

Yep, we are what make these sites important.

ipkpjersi ,

That's why I'm always interested in self-hosting. I have my own Plex and Jellyfin seedbox server for the private trackers I'm in, with a VPS hosting an OpenVPN to make it look like I'm in a different country, just to make it that much safer. It works damn well.

DarkDarkHouse ,
@DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Piracy is only illegal because we made it so. We can change that.

gedaliyah ,
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

How do you change that without completely stripping property rights away from artists though? Not just corporate IP, but all artists?

WamGams ,

Piracy doesn't take money from artists, just ask Cory Doctorow, a person making their living as a writer while uploading the torrents of his novels himself.

Corporate consolidation is what kills the artists. The studios make less movies per year, so the a list actors go to television and take the roles Rob Morrow used to get.

gedaliyah ,
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

Is it fine for a billion dollar company to ripoff smaller artists? It's a form of piracy, so this would be allowed, too.

grue ,

That's the neat part: you don't have to, because copyright was never a property right to begin with.

First, not only are ideas not property, they're pretty much exactly the opposite of it. I'll let Thomas Jefferson himself explain this one:

It has been pretended by some (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions; & not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. but while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural, and even an hereditary right to inventions. it is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. by an universal law indeed, whatever, whether fixed or moveable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property, for the moment, of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation the property goes with it. stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. it would be curious then if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. if nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the reciever cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. he who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me.

Second, a copyright isn't a right, either; it's a privilege. Consider the Copyright Clause: it is one of the enumerated powers of Congress, giving Congress the authority to issue temporary monopolies to creators, for the sole and express purpose "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." Note that that's a power, not an obligation, and the purpose is not "because the creator is entitled to it" or anything similar to that.

Besides, think of it this way: if copyright were actually a property right, the fact that it expires would be unconstitutional under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. But it does expire, so it clearly isn't a property right.

lowleveldata ,

I think what we should do is to have better non-piracy ways of owning things instead of "making piracy legal" (what does that even mean?)

ElderWendigo ,
@ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works avatar

I think the more nuanced take is that we should be making "piracy" legal by expanding and protecting fair use and rights to make personal copies. There are lots of things that are called piracy now that really shouldn't be. Making "piracy" legal still leaves plenty of room for artists to get paid.

Katana314 ,

Most people would be fine with this in the case of a home user duplicating one or two copies for his kids to watch and as backups. But we have seen whenever a rule permits something, someone will work out the MAXIMUM way in which they can abuse it for profit. Give them an inch, and they take a mile.

Ideally, we could have laws that are really finely built to be specific to that first scenario. But I honestly don't know how you write those.

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

what does that even mean?

Something like this: https://www.eff.org/pages/better-way-forward-voluntary-collective-licensing-music-file-sharing

localme ,

Thanks for sharing! I wish they had the date of publishing listed for this article. I get the feeling it was written 15 years ago, well before streaming music services existed. Would love to see them update this based on the latest technologies and services.

nekusoul ,
@nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de avatar

Looking into the metadata of the included PDF version reveals that it's from 2004, so even a bit older than that.

localme ,

Wow good find using the pdf metadata!

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

The EFF’s concept was from the Napster days, but I think this was written later on.

jabjoe ,
@jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

Also depends on the country. It isn't everywhere. Non-commercial file-sharing is legal in a number of European countries and I'm sure elsewhere.

It could be taken as a sign of the health of the democracy's function and technically literacy of the population. In a society of tech heads with a highly functional democracy, it would be DRM measures that would be illegal.....

Meuzzin ,

*Arr Suite, QBT, and a Jellyfin Server. Done and done. There are scripts to set it all up in less than 30 seconds...

GuillaumeGus ,

Where, I'd like to know where there are trusted scripts.

Meuzzin ,

A simple web search reveals 3 such open-source scripts as the first results. Here's one: https://github.com/RandomNinjaAtk/arr-scripts

umami_wasbi ,

Don't use scripts unless you know how it works otherwise you will have trouble troubleshooting when something doesn't work. But by the time you read and understand how the script works, you already learn how to deploy it manually.

Meuzzin ,

This!

mfat ,

Which scripts?

Meuzzin ,

Here's a sample, but there are numerous open source scripts, depending on what you want, on git: https://github.com/RandomNinjaAtk/arr-scripts

rambos ,

No scripts and it was more like 30 hours on my side, but its worth!

9488fcea02a9 ,

If buying isnt owning then piracy isnt stealing

BearOfaTime ,

And piracy isn't stealing anyway!

But I still enjoy that phrase.

mnemonicmonkeys ,

Well, not digital piracy. Ye olde piracy absolutely was stealing, plus a medley of other crimes

Emerald ,

I'm sure some digital piracy involves stealing. Someone has to have taken some floppy disk software from a store and walked out without paying for it, then made pirated copies of that disk

evidences ,

Piracy has never been theft, it has always been and still remain copyright infringement. That being said go ahead and pirate, I'm not your dad.

TropicalDingdong ,

That being said go ahead and pirate, I’m not your dad

What am I letters on a screen? I'm not going to stop you.

Lexam ,

You, you could be... If you wanted to.

ShepherdPie ,

You just gotta show up.

evidences ,

Thanks for believing in me child.

_number8_ ,

When record companies make a fuss about the danger of “piracy”, they’re not talking about violent attacks on shipping. What they complain about is the sharing of copies of music, an activity in which millions of people participate in a spirit of cooperation. The term “piracy” is used by record companies to demonize sharing and cooperation by equating them to kidnaping, murder and theft.

onlinepersona ,

Sail the seas with I2P and anonymous torrents. They can't stop it.

Anti Commercial-AI license

JoMiran ,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/8bc5bc1c-5020-4ace-974f-1961cf5935c3.jpeg

Emerald ,

Digital Restrictions Management

StaySquared ,

Just another victim of WEF.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

My whole library is wipped out

I assumed this was about an actual library and not some shmuck who got suckered into a thinly veiled rental service.

_number8_ ,

i tried to get into streaming but i grew increasingly uncomfortable with paying forever as titles appear and disappear at the whim of suits. how could that possibly be a pleasant UX for customers?

i'd take the hassle of having discs or managing a server any day of the week over paying these goons for access to their files which they happily negotiate away for financial reasons. it's just a disgusting paradigm. when netflix was starting streaming, i thought (i was like 15) we were emerging into a great new age, where every show you could ever want was on one beautiful service.

now they won't even let you share accounts or screenshot the fucking show (a pig-headed anti-piracy measure which is mind-blowingly stupid given every single show on there is available for free if you know where to look ANYWAY. what are they DOING.)

fuck streaming, fuck netflix, fuck spotify. crash and burn. topple like the house of cards you are.

DeltaTangoLima ,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

increasingly uncomfortable with paying forever

And paying more and more as time goes on. The thing that shits me the most is the increased prices but decreased range/quality of content. That's clearly not a business model aimed at customer satisfaction.

whereisk ,

All business models are aimed at company profitability. Customer satisfaction is an expensive early necessity which you can largely do away with as you become entrenched.

jeena ,
@jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

I never watch the same movie/TV show more than once, so I don't see a point in hording this data. So for me the UX of streaming is most of the time preferrable than having a physical media which I need to carry to the new appartment every time I move.

This is different with music, where I listen to the same Albums hundrets of times. There I can deal with vinyl and many files on my computer.

barsquid ,

Streaming was great when it was just Netflix and had a ton of content. Now it is just cable TV on demand.

RaoulDook ,

Streaming in general is great. Streaming services are a mixed bag of results, but overall our options are excellent at this point in time. You can have streaming services with no contract, pay for one month and abandon it if you don't like it. There are also numerous FREE streaming services with lots of great content.

It's important to understand the above in the context of how it used to be before Streaming was an option. There was basically only the option to have a cable or satellite TV on contract, or use OTA antenna TV, or watch everything on disc / tape. So yeah I think streaming is great.

Having said all that, I buy anything I want to keep perpetually on disc. 4k Blu-ray for movies and CDs for music (I bought 3 albums on CD over the last couple weeks). Games don't fit on discs anymore so I try to get stuff on GOG when it works out.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

I'm finding it hard to feel any kind of sympathy for someone who thinks they have rights to permanent access on any sort of streaming service.

I say that fully cognisant normies don't spend much time thinking about where there data is and who has the right to it. I just don't think many people would think of movies they've watched on their "telstra TV Box Office" as being in "their' library.

That said, self hosting movies isn't for me. For many people it might be. In my case it just doesn't make any sense to have a server with all the tb. I was catch & release torrenting for several years but more recently stremio. Without any doubt stremio has been the most convenient.

venoft ,
@venoft@lemmy.world avatar

Iew, using the word normies seriously makes you sound like an incel.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Calling people incels makes you sound childish.

Don't make me tell your mother what you said.

Treczoks ,

You don't own anything that is not on your own system and/or without any DRM.

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