this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023

153 points (96.4% liked)

Technology

72471 readers

3582 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related news or articles.
Be excellent to each other!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

L3s@lemmy.world

enu@lemmy.world

technopagan@lemmy.world

L4s@lemmy.world

L3s@hackingne.ws

L4s@hackingne.ws

153

The History and Future of Digital Ownership (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 years ago by heygooberman@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

all 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[+] helenslunch@feddit.nl 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

[deleted]

[–] godzillabacter@lemmy.world 23 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] shortwavesurfer@monero.town 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I just bought a taylor swift album and it gave me a zip file full of mp3s (wow).

[–] hispeedzintarwebz@infosec.pub 8 points 2 years ago

Damn least they could do is give you FLAC…even Bandcamp does that

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have my home server backing up my whole GOG library.

[–] dandi8@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What do you use for automating the backups?

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

https://github.com/RikudouSage/GogDownloader/

[–] MacAttak8@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Digital ownership is an oxymoron.

[–] FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 2 years ago

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!

[–] harry_balzac@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Let's not forget that this is just as much Discoverys fault as Sony