'It's Always DRM's Fault' (publicknowledge.org)

A social media post from Anders G da Silva, who accused Apple of deleting movies he had purchased from iTunes, went viral earlier this month. There is more to that story, of course. In a statement to CNET, Apple explained that da Silva had purchased movies while living in Australia, with his iTunes region set to "Australia." Then he moved to Canada, and found that the movies were no longer available for download -- due, no doubt, to licensing restrictions, including restrictions on Apple itself. While his local copies of the movies were not deleted, they were deleted from his cloud library. Apple said the company had shared a workaround with da Silva to make it easier for him to download his movies again. Public Knowledge posted a story Tuesday to weigh in on the subject, especially since today is International Day Against DRM. From the post: To that rare breed of person who carefully reads terms of service and keeps multiple, meticulous backups of important files, da Silva should have expected that his ability to access movies he thought he'd purchased might be cut off because he'd moved from one Commonwealth country to another. Just keep playing your original file! But DRM makes this an unreasonable demand. First, files with DRM are subject to break at any time. DRM systems are frequently updated, and often rely on phoning home to some server to verify that they can still be played. Some technological or business change may have turned the most carefully backed-up and preserved digital file into just a blob of unreadable encrypted bits.

Second, even if they are still playable, files with DRM are not very portable, and they might not fit in with modern workflows. To stay with the Apple and iTunes example, the old-fashioned way to watch a movie purchased from the iTunes Store would be to download it in the iTunes desktop app, and then watch it there, sync it to a portable device, or keep iTunes running as a "server" in your home where it can be streamed to devices such as the Apple TV. But this is just not how things are done anymore. To watch an iTunes movie on an Apple TV, you stream or download it from Apple's servers. To watch an iTunes movie on an iPhone, same thing. (And because this is the closed-off ecosystem of DRM'd iTunes movies, if you want to watch your movie on a Roku or an Android phone, you're just out of luck.)

[...] My takeaway is that, if a seller of DRM'd digital media uses words like "purchase" and "buy," they have at a minimum an obligation to continue to provide additional downloads of that media, in perpetuity. Fine print aside, without that, people simply aren't getting what they think they're getting for their money, and words like "rent" and "borrow" are more appropriate. Of course, there is good reason to think that even then people are not likely to fully understand that "buying" something in the digital world is not the same as buying something in the physical world, and more ambitious measures may be required to ensure that people can still own personal property in the digital marketplace. See the excellent work of Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz on this point. But the bare minimum of "owning" a movie would seem to be the continued ability to actually watch it.

Comments

There is usally more to the story.

[jellomizer]

We all love to be outraged when some company or government does something that would piss us off.
However normally if you dig into the details it isn't someone just trying to mess with you but a complex set of requirements and actions that have happened to cause it.
You can disagree with it, but save your outrage until you get the full picture.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is always more to the story, but there is also the simple fact that DRM will eventually bite you in the ass if you purchase DRM media. The easiest answer is don’t buy DRM media unless you understand that it’s a lot more like renting than buying.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Scarletdown]

It's a shame that someone got so butthurt over your display of common sense that they had to downmod your post.

Here is a meta +1 Insightful. :)

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[jdavidb]

There's nothing here that justifies DRM or copyright. They aren't justifiable.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

You are not okay with some amount of copyright? Certainly not the 'copyright in perpetuity' that effectively exists in the U.S. for Mickey Mouse, etc. But some amount?

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Krishnoid]

Did you think "Digital Restrictions Management" would make accessing content *less* restrictive? It's kind of right in the name.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[jdavidb]

Right. I'm not okay with copyright. Obviously limited copyright is better than perpetual copyright.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "buy" has had a well known, universally understood, meaning for aeons. When I buy something, the onus to deliver is on the seller. The "complex set of requirements and actions" are not my problem, they are the seller's. He committed to sell, now he must deliver.
If he does not like that, he should not use the word "buy" combined with a million word EULA of legalese in a an attempt to redefine the meaning of the word.
Legally he may be right, but that just makes him an asshole. In every meaningful meaning of the words right and wrong, he is simply wrong.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitching about downmods = more downmods. Enjoy having something else to bitch about.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[bferrell]

while the requirements MAY be complex (they often aren't) misrepresentation IS the core issue.

If the "complex requirements" result in a product that is not salable without misrepresentation or terms that require extensive legal review... Perhaps the problem lies there, not with the consumers outrage.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Xylantiel]

Wait, isn't the fact that it matters what region his itunes was set to a big problem? Being available for "purchase" but only usable in certain markets or under certain conditions is the essence of an attack on what ownership itself means, which was the whole point of the first discussion. Technically if you buy a DVD in region 1, in order to watch it in region 2 you basically have to commit a felony. How is that ownership? This is only getting worse.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[sjames]

That may shift who should get the blame, but it hardly excuses the problem.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[jedidiah]

> You are not okay with some amount of copyright?

Except this isn't copyright. This is someone fucking with you after you've paid them.

Copyright makes it illegal for you to give other people copies and gives artists the standing to sue you and the government the standing to jail you.

Being fucked with after you've paid is not necessary.

Being fucked with if you haven't given anyone else a copy, is not necessary.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

However normally if you dig into the details it isn't someone just trying to mess with you but a complex set of requirements and actions that have happened to cause it.

TL;DR
They can all go fuck themselves.

Torrented files are free, have no ads, no FBI warnings, can be converted to any format, distributed at almost no cost and work any time anywhere on almost anything that can run a GUI. I subscribe to Netflix (even thought I torrent almost all of their content due to convenience) and sleep well at night. If it isn't on Netflix at my convenience (like say in Canaduh) I assume publishers are greedy assholes anyway who couldn't give two shits about content creators and can go fuck themselves.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[JaredOfEuropa]

When it comes to intellectual "property", the full picture is likely to only enrage me further. The upshot is usually that companies have turned their temporary monopolies (what copyright is, or used to be) into actual property, and at the same time turned what by rights should be our property into a temporary license that can be revoked on a whim.

I am old fashioned and I like building a library of music and movies, even if it's a digital one. Streaming's no good precisely because of this issue: Netflix doesn't renew their license or I move to a different country or whatever, and stuff randomly disappears. Like the removal guys stealing a couple of my books when I move house. Here's a deal for the movie companies: sell me a license that entitles me to a copy of your movie. You don't need to actually provide the file or a disc, I can get the file myself, not to worry. Save us both a little money and hassle. As long as that license continues to grant me the right to have that movie in whatever format on any device, in perpetuity. I'll pay, gladly.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes."

-- legions of legislators lobbied to ..."lobbyees"?

Re: There is usally more to the story.

[CGordy]

No you don't; you just have to bring the region locked DVD player with the DVD.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Falos]

I am okay with incentivizing creation.
Heck, let's pour on more than we do now! Prolekistan is about to lose their only export and we're woefully underprepared. One of the few reliable human domains is Come Up With New Shit.

I am not okay with imaginary property.
Are extraterrestrials aware that some monkeys with briefcases in a glass cube called dibs on that shoelace knot? Everywhere in the universe, simultaneously, forever. Even after Joe Brown has ceased brainwave activity he has rights on brainwaves. I couldn't discuss the morals if i wanted to; before that, we have a very weird expectation of sheer technical logistics, preempting anything else.

Assuming I did recognize the ownership as viable, I then have a problem assigning product value on a non-product. We have never seen a free market, but insisting that "GGADAGC starting at 82.0Hz" requires an exchange of goods, intrinsically, is the accepting of a construct in a manner only matched by Christianity. Gander than the diamond cartel, who at least dealt in scarce-ifying a quantified tangible.

All that said, I have no idea how we could accomplish a cash system for creation. It's hard to do without coming up with random ass rules, easily exploited bullshit, ass-eating contrived logic, unsupported conclusion leaps, etc.

i.e. what we have right now

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[pots]

You understand that's not actually what it stands for, right? That's just an insulting thing that people call it. The 'R' stands for Rights - Digital Rights Management. So no, it's not right in the name.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Darinbob]

The "more to the story" here is that sellers of content will say you can "buy" when in reality you can only rent the content. False advertising. If you buy anything with DRM, know that you will lose access to it someday if you don't take proactive measure to make fair use copies of it (even if technically illegal in some countries).

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[tlhIngan]

As long as that license continues to grant me the right to have that movie in whatever format on any device, in perpetuity. I'll pay, gladly.

The problem is even Hollywood might not actually have the right to give you that kind of license. Unless you want to pay for license upgrades - i.e., you buy "HD now" and then "4K upgrades" and "8K license upgrade".

The reason is simple - a lot of contracts may not have allowed for some provisions. Early movies did not have a "home video" provision - because the idea of watching a movie at home was preposterous. So actor's contracts and royalties never took that into account. Then came home video, and now all those movies were locked up until Hollywood could re-negotiate the royalty structures, but then again, only on analog tape formats.

Then came DVD and more rights on digital discs. Ditto streaming movies and more royalties. It's a wonderful idea, but often the rights to a movie are not future proof, and new formats and such may require further upgrade payments because the authors, artists, actors, etc set up a new royalty payment scheme for those formats.

I can envision a situation where a movie may exist on disc, but can never be streamed or downloaded because someone in the whole rights chain is blocking it with excessive demands. So you can acquire and copy the disc, but that disc cannot be ripped etc because the license you have disallows it because the estate of the long dead actor will require $50 per digital copy to do so.

Re: There is usally more to the story.

[Xylantiel]

ergo it is tough to say you actually own the copy on the DVD. Thanks!

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Darinbob]

Note that the EULA most often shows up only AFTER you have paid for a product. At which point getting a refund is incredibly difficult, and will typically be disallowed.

Licensing is more complicated these days, and the sorts of things included in todays licenses are nothing whatsoever like licenses in the past so the customer can make few assumptions about what may be in the license. You really do not know what you're getting until after you buy it.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Darinbob]

I am not sure it's a felony. If it is, then it's really sad that these relatively civil issues have become criminal issues.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[sarren1901]

Sounds overly complex and should be changed to something more reasonable. Which means it won't happen.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a felony, and it is inexcusable that hurting the profits of a company is a criminal issue.

17 U.S.C. s. 1204(a)

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[caseih]

Sure. But "Digital Rights Management" is just a euphemism as far as the end user is concerned. It is indeed about managing rights, but not the rights of the consumer. It's marketing doublespeak. No, this is entirely about the rights of the person "selling" (renting) the content, and a mechanism for doing an end-run around copyright terms and limitations. Thus the term is really dishonest, and deliberately misleading to end users. No, Digital Restrictions Management is actually far more accurate of a description of what DRM is and does. It's not an ignorant thing people say like those who use "M$." Rather it's an accurate depiction of what DRM is intended by vendors to do. I say "vendors," rather than content creators, because these days content creators get abused as much as consumers do.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[exomondo]

There's nothing here that justifies DRM or copyright. They aren't justifiable.

If we didn't have copyright there would be nothing to enforce the freedom of free software. Device vendors could take free code, augment it, bundle it up in devices and never distribute the code or allow it to be changed.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck you

Re: There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of these days you'll realize M$ is the proprietary form.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'R' stands for Rights - Digital Rights Management.

DRM manages "rights" in the same way that prison manages "freedom". We don't call prisons "freedom management centers" so why should we be bound to use the corporate newspeak when referring to DRM? The phrase Digital Restrictions Management is a more accurate description of what's actually happening. I use that phrase whenever I have the opportunity to do so, especially in conversations with non-technical people who want to know why their music or movies that they supposedly "bought" don't work anymore. Try explaining this to your grandparents and watch as their eyes narrow with anger as they realize that corporations have more or less cheated them out of their money. The real answer is to refuse to buy DRM products but until that day I'm using Digital Restrictions Management and spreading that term as widely as I can.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[ewibble]

How is that different from what happens now? Just how many private developers have sued over free software being redistributed without the code. Try suing a company like google and see where it gets you? If you don't go bankrupt from legal costs what are the chances you haven't violated one of their numerous copyrights and patents.

It is a license nightmare why should you have to release all your code because you include 1 library or worse still a library that includes a library that includes a library that contains a requirement release the source. We should be efficient and forcing people to re-implement code is not.

I would be much happier if copyright just didn't exist, if you want to write code for the greater good, just do that. Stop trying to control other people.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[drewlake2000]

It's marketing bullshit, but it is accurate. It asseses if you have the right to access the file. If you can't prove you have the right it won't open the file. It's Managing your Rights to access a Digital file.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[AmiMoJo]

Only ever buy DRM infected media if you are 100% you can rip it to a free format.

I usually get the download from the Pirate Bay or wherever first, and then buy the physical media. Aside from not wasting energy re-encoding stuff, the pirate version will have been checked, tagged, artwork included and all files named correctly.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[drewlake2000]

There are a lot of things that you buy a licence to use. When you but a book in this country, you buy the rights to read it. If you throw it away you can't demand a new one. If you buy a DVD or a CD it's the same, you can't legally resell them. If you buy a leasehold, you can't do what you want with the property and have to hand it back at the end of the lease. It's down to the buyer to research what it is that they are buying.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[AmiMoJo]

Fair copyright would be:

- 10 years, an additional 5 if the holder is still alive

- Personal copies/backups allowed

- Mandatory licencing scheme for remix/sampling

- Mandatory licencing for re-use, e.g. in YouTube videos

- Harsh penalties for false copyright claims where due care and attention was not used

- Anything that limits these rights must be clearly marked on the product, similar to health warnings on cigarette packets etc.

Re: There is usally more to the story.

[drewlake2000]

You own the DVD, you purchased the right to watch the contents. You can do what you like with the DVD, use it as a coaster or a small shiny frisbee. What you don;t have is the right to watch the film if it's outside of the restrictions noted at purchase.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the access is conditional it's a privilege not a right

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you think "Digital Restrictions Management" [defectivebydesign.org] would make accessing content *less* restrictive?

No part of his post suggested that he thought that. If anything it suggested the opposite.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[ai4px]

When I first got an iphone in 2008, I decided I'd give their music purchases for $1 a shot. You see, I not longer had to spend $17 on a CD with two good songs on it. Something happened to my phone and I reloaded it, but Apple wouldln't allow me access to the music I'd purchased. Even worse,when I relented and decided to buy it again, they told me I already owned it. So I went right back to the torrents I went. I tried to play ball, they made it difficult.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[exomondo]

So do away with restrictive, copyleft licenses all together? I'd certainly agree with that, but if you take a look at any of the BSD vs GPL kind of shitfights you'll find a lot of people disagree.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not people being kept in by DRM, it's people being kept out. Thus the apt analogy isn't prisons, it's bank vaults. Bank Vaults manage rights to cash access like DRM manages rights to video access.

And we absolutely *do* call that Access Control, not Restrictions Control (cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...).

Digital Restrictions Management isn't more accurate. It's not less accurate but it is absolutely invented specifically to make DRM sound bad. That's not what the name ever meant, it was a sneer word designed to make it look bad.

Refusing to use DRM because you have an objection, whether ethical or practical, is a fine position to take. My opinion is that using and spreading the term "Digital Restrictions Management" weakens your argument. It suggests you have to resort to semantic nonsense games. If the actual content of DRM was so bad you'd use real arguments against it. Nobody walks around saying "Adolf Hitler? More like A Dolt Shittier! Because he's a shitty dolt, you see, so it's more accurate.".

Semantic arguments are stupid nonsense that advances no cause but they suck people in, every time. This time it sucked in me.

Also, my grandparents understood that their VHS tapes degraded over time and stopped working and they had to buy a new one; that's the analogy they consistently use when somebody points this out. The notion that you can buy a thing that is essentially unbreakable because it's digital and cheaply copied to exacting detail, is quite recent. They will note that some of their appliances lasted 40 years and they haven't bought anything aside from digital movies that even lasted 10 years in, oh, 25 years or so.

Re:There is usally more to the story.

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't accurate either. It does a lot more than that. Not only does it determine if you have the right to access the content it also restricts you from being able to do anything not arbitrarily permitted for content that was supposed sold to you.

Intellectual property isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem solved.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always DNS.

Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a backup

[Anonymous Coward]

So even if my iTunes copy is broken, I can still watch my rightfully purchased media.

Piracy

[darkain]

DRM is still the absolute #1 reason why piracy is better than paying outright for a "product" (service?)

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

DRMed stuff is pretty shitty service. I wouldn't tip a dollar for that BS.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, buy physical media. I will be listening to LP/CDs long after whatever digital format or online/streaming provider is gone.

Re:Piracy

[Jaime2]

Theft is theft

Words are words. Copyright violation is not theft, it's copyright violation. We can't have nice things because the best way to monetize media is the two-pronged approach of first getting laws passed that favor your industry, then using those laws to sell the same thing over and over again. It's perfectly valid to point out the lunacy of our current legal situation in regards to copyright.

Re:Piracy

[msauve]

"DRM is still the absolute #1 reason why piracy is better than paying outright for a "product" (service?)"

You're early. Talk Like a Pirate Day is tomorrow.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not theft since no one loses their item, and I never agreed to the idea that I can't use your ideas. Other people just made that up.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM is still the absolute #1 reason why piracy is better than paying outright for a "product" (service?)

Bootlegging movies, music, cable tv etc. etc. etc. has been around before DRM made it inconvenient. The #1 reason people bootleg these things hasn’t changed - greed. Nobody’s health or wellbeing is suffering from lack of new movies or music.

For all the talk about bread and circuses, seems like an awful lot of people here feel entitled to more circus.

#2 or #3 or even lower might be, “I already paid, but bootleg out of convenience”

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Information just wants to be free.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM protected works are public domain.

I would say if you want it otherwise you need to have the law changed to reflect that, but as congress is specifically not granted the authority to issue unlimited copyright terms, you'll need to first have the constitution modified to grant congress that power before they can pass a law allowing unlimited copyright terms.

Until then, you can't steal what is already yours.

Re:Piracy

[jedidiah]

No it isn't. You repeating the Big Lie won't make it any more true.

Attempting to criminalize my use of what I've paid for it not something you can justify with any existing moral or ethical theory short of pure boot licking corporatism.

I'm a paying customer. You can just fuck off.

Re:Piracy

[jedidiah]

> Nobodyâ(TM)s health or wellbeing is suffering from lack of new movies or music.

Piracy also never killed the profitability of a creative work that wasn't a festering pile of crap. People will pay for stuff if its' any good even if pirated copies are easy to get and readily available.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright law is an injustice that doesn't deserve anyone's respect. The concept has some merit, but the implementation is a travesty. The monopoly on making copies is supposed to be for a limited time, but every time this limitation could result in works entering the public domain, it is extended. Sure, many people are just cheap and want a better product for less or even for free, imagine that. Some at least want what they paid for and not have it taken away from them because they moved to another country or because a company decided to discontinue a service or went bankrupt. You can think about that however you want. I think it's only natural. But the media industry isn't just greedy. It's outright evil. They have publicly made prison rape threats over copyright infringement! They will also not refrain from declaring actions illegal even though they are clearly not. That is an industry that doesn't just change the rules however they want. They won't even adhere to their own rules.

Re:Piracy

[Cajun Hell]

Physical media can still have DRM. What optical formats came after CDs? Oh, right: DVDs and BluRays, both DRMed. CDs are an anomaly in an optical disc world otherwise gone mad.

Physical-media-vs-files is orthogonal to the topic of DRM. A few old physical formats do happen to lack DRM, but others have it. And files can lack DRM too, as you'll see from bandcamp purchases.

It's simply not about files vs physical. It's about DRM vs normal.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is wrong.

You need to pay for your media. However most of slashdot seems to forget that you can legally backup your media purchases. A backup is a backup. Buy to your hearts content on whatever platform you choose, but make sure you backup your purchase. Then who cares if some DRM server in Alaska goes down?

Re: Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine being this brainwashed...

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright law is an injustice that doesn't deserve anyone's respect. The concept has some merit, but the implementation is a travesty. The monopoly on making copies is supposed to be for a limited time, but every time this limitation could result in works entering the public domain, it is extended. Sure, many people are just cheap and want a better product for less or even for free, imagine that. Some at least want what they paid for and not have it taken away from them because they moved to another country or because a company decided to discontinue a service or went bankrupt. You can think about that however you want. I think it's only natural. But the media industry isn't just greedy. It's outright evil. They have publicly made prison rape threats over copyright infringement! They will also not refrain from declaring actions illegal even though they are clearly not. That is an industry that doesn't just change the rules however they want. They won't even adhere to their own rules.

What really gets me is when I want to buy something, but the rights holder refuses to sell it. It's not worth it for them to sell me the one item I want. This is when things should be forced into the Public Domain.
I think there should be a perfectly reasonable fee to register something so you can have a copyright, for a short period of time. You can renew that as many times as you want, at a higher cost each time you renew. Eventually, people will not want to renew, and it will go into the public domain. Mickey wants to stay copyrighted? Pay three billion dollars, and it will renew for another five years, Mr Disney.

Re:Piracy

[morethanapapercert]

In my opinion, pirating media (through torrents, ripping media only licensed for streaming etc) is a form of theft even though it doesn't deprive the IP holder of any tangible objects. On the other hand, defeating DRM so you can make a back up copy, view a copy on multiple devices you own or continue to use media after you have moved is NOT theft, even though big media companies sure try to convince everyone that it is. As I said earlier, big media companies are used to a business model where different countries are entirely separate markets and only ever see releases if the IP holders are convinced there is enough profit to be made. But what we're seeing is a gradual shift to also dividing the world up by time as well as region. Big Media companies really want to arrange things so that every access to a title, regardless of viewer, device or region results in them getting paid. Anti-copy tech on VHS, burnable media surtaxes, region coding for DVD's HDCP on HDMI connections, offices having to buy "public performance" licenses, attacking the used game market (I'm convinced that Steam's main reason for existence is to kill the used game market) The list just goes on and on.

media companies have never really been happy with the idea of selling a product that the customer owns. If they could, they would absolutely support a product or device that lets them charge based on the number of viewers in the audience. Movie night with the family? That's one streaming license per person. Want to stream your game play on Twitch? You're going to have to pay the game company a fee based on the number of total views your feed gets. And as we've seen with amateur shoutcast radio, the media companies will probably demand a fee that is much higher than your actual revenue. We already know that your local cinema doesn't make any money on showing movies, because the distribution companies really have them over a barrel. The cinema has to pay its bills through the overpriced concession stand. As far as I know, it doesn't matter how many tickets the cinema actually sells, the fee is calculated on how many tickets the distributor *expects* to sell. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same business methods being applied to Twitch streams.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Theft is theft

Words are words. Copyright violation is not theft, it's copyright violation. We can't have nice things because the best way to monetize media is the two-pronged approach of first getting laws passed that favor your industry, then using those laws to sell the same thing over and over again. It's perfectly valid to point out the lunacy of our current legal situation in regards to copyright.

Selling the same thing over and over again... is wrong?????

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem becomes when the media viewer needs to phone home to play your DRM file. So unless your backup is DRM free having a backup doesn't do any good. For an example see DIVX Silver.

Re:Piracy

[Darinbob]

Copyright law is very clear about some things. For example fair use allows you to make a private backup copy, and this is supported by law in many countries. If you buy a book, you are allowed to scribble in the margins of the pages, tear out pages, add new pages, make photocopies of the pages that you only keep for yourself, and so on. DRM bypasses that exceptions and attempts to prevent them. DRM wants to make it so that the book you bought can vanish at any time (oops, the bookstore wasn't supposed to sell you that book, so the goons will knock on your door and yank it back). DRM will prevent making private backups. DRM will prevent modifying your copy in any way, as well as make sure that your copy will change if the owner wants it to change.

Copyright laws actually place limits on the copyright holders!

So yes, DRM will make it so that your copy can vanish and you're forced to buy it a second time if you want to see the content again. Of course, smart people will refuse to buy it again but that's only a minority of customers.

One big thing that DRM often does is forbid reselling your copy to someone else. This is something protected by law in many countries. You buy a book and then after reading it you are allowed by law to give it to a friend, donate to a library, or sell to a used book store. DRM stops this cold. You can't give away the movie you bought, or the game, or the music. Copyright law has not caught up to this digital technology yet, so the law will allow options that DRM forbids.

To make this all worse, there have been laws passed to forbid figuring out how the DRM works in order to modify it and gain back your legal rights. This is like making it illegal to force a burglar out of your house.

Anyone who thinks that DRM is merely copy protection is naive.

Re:Piracy

[Darinbob]

The implementation used to be just fine. Copyright lasted for a limited amount of time, enough for the creator to profit from the work. Copyright used to have clear cut allowances for fair use, you could make personal backups, buy the work and then resell it, and so forth.

What we have today is nothing whatsoever like this. The big IP holders have essentially written their own laws.

Re:Piracy

[sarren1901]

As long as you actually paid for it first, then sure. If you just got the torrent, you are a thief.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you keep paying for it, you can't keep downloading it. Hosting isn't free.

Re:Piracy

[Waccoon]

So yes, DRM will make it so that your copy can vanish and you're forced to buy it a second time if you want to see the content again.

Who said you're allowed to buy it again?

For security reasons, this version is no longer supported. We took it away from you for your own good!

Re: Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Your business model, not our problem. Hosting is very cheap.

Re:Piracy

[ewibble]

If you have a problem with streaming then you should provide a copy that can be downloaded and played offline. If you want you waste bandwidth with a streaming model then cry me a river that you have to pay for it. It is not more convenient for me.

Re:Piracy

[Jaime2]

Here's the interesting thing about your argument. I didn't say copyright violation was good or legal, I just said it wasn't theft. The only place we disagreed was on exactly how the law was violated. If someone went to your concert, made a recording without permission, and packaged and sold it at Walmart, they would be guilty of copyright violation. If you took them to court and claim "theft" on the petition, you would lose. If you took them to court and claimed "copyright violation", you would win.

This isn't a simple terminology mix-up, this is a deliberate attempt by content owners to make copyright violation seem more black-and-white than it really is and to garner sympathy from onlookers. You either have swallowed the bait and are running with it, or you are one of those who are trying to change public opinion by misrepresenting the issue.

Re:Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a paying customer.

but you're ignorant. you're easily parted with your money and you don't understand what you paid for.

it's the same thing with copyleft code, authors dictating what people do with it after they have published it.

Save the Angst

[DatbeDank]

He already bought it, go to your favorite torrent site and re-download the video.

I see no moral quandry to doing this.

Re:Save the Angst

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already no moral quandry as the publishers are in breach of the societal contract that is "limited" (now in name only) control of artistic works in exchange for them entering the public domain later. That won't stop someone from getting hit with a lousy lawsuit for your role in sharing the content with others by using bittorrent to repropriate the content.

Re:Save the Angst

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already no moral quandry as the publishers are in breach of the societal contract that is "limited" (now in name only) control of artistic works in exchange for them entering the public domain later. That won't stop someone from getting hit with a lousy lawsuit for your role in sharing the content with others by using bittorrent to repropriate the content.

The big, scary lawsuit threat is just that. A threat. Do you hear about droves of people being actually sued? Have you seen anyone taken to court and lose? On the off chance you get a notice just ignore it. They're just a scare tactic. No one is going to "get" you for downloading something, let alone something you already own a legal copy of. No one. Unenforceable laws are unenforceable and even with the help of your ISP, the hosts ISP, the other people in the swarms ISP, the tier 1 providers they can't prove shit firmly enough to actually win a case. They know that and don't even try.

Re:Save the Angst

[Anonymous Coward]

I DO see a moral problem with giving money to abusers. By paying people who use this terrible DRM at all, one strengthens its position in the market. This allows the abusers to thrive, and keep on abusing.

Don't be an enabler. Just don't pay.

Re:Save the Angst

[Anonymous Coward]

The moral quandry is not on downloading the video, it is in allowing a company sell a product/service (a downloadable video), be paid for that, and not deliver what was paid for.

Also, remember that if he torrents it he might get threatening emails from "rights holders", he might be sued if he decides to download a big collection and he might be infected by "rights holders" representatives that upload infected versions of their products.

DRM can't be a hassle only for the user. If they want to force it upon the world, they have to make it work.

Re:Save the Angst

[houghi]

I cut the first step.

Re:Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a back

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if it has DRM on it. Circumventing those restrictions to make an archival had a temporary exemption a few years ago, but is now prohibited again.

Can we just call it HOSTED services again?

[omfglearntoplay]

So sick of the Cloud marketing jargon nonsense... do we have to use it on a tech website, too?

Day against DRM is day before Talk Like a Pirate!

[ripvlan]

I just love how this digital holiday comes the day before a true Pirates day!

I've never heard of Day against DRM - so maybe they did this on purpose. But this story is the reason I dislike DRM and purchasing from iTunes. Apple Tv is just so darn convient - I can't possibly download all of those movies. Nor do I know that they'd be playable "next year" on a new device.

Hence my rather large BluRay collection. All I need is for the industry to keep making bluray players.

darn.

Music has been DRM-free for a while

[DontBeAMoran]

I know the topic is TV shows and movies, but keep in mind that Apple has not sold any DRM-infected music for nine years.

Re:Music has been DRM-free for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the topic is TV shows and movies, but keep in mind that Apple has not sold any DRM-infected music for nine years.

I find that hard to believe. I've bought some music from them, and had a bunch that I'd ripped. Decided to get Apple iTunes Match. Cool! They would overwrite my rips with their "digital" versions. Wonderful!

Until I decided to stop paying for Match. Now NONE of my music will play, including the stuff I had ripped that they "upgraded" for me without me asking!

Tell me again how there's no DRM.

Re:Music has been DRM-free for a while

[DontBeAMoran]

I'm talking about music bought on the iTunes store.
You're talking about their bug-ridden iTunes Match service.

Two different things.

Keep em coming....

[WolfgangVL]

The more more stories of normal consumers (not tech nerds) getting things taken away on account of DRM the better. The pressure is rising, and hopefully customers will begin to think twice about paying for the long term rentals our tech companies are masquerading as purchases.

Re:Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a back

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia where he bought it or in Canada where he is trying to watch it? Oh, you meant the USA. But that doesn't apply to the example at hand.

Re:Digital != Physical

[DontBeAMoran]

Laptop? No, don't be ridiculous.

But music CDs? When the whole "music pirating" shitstorm started decades ago, the music industry was pushing for the fact that you are buying a license to listen to the music. In that sense, you should be able to go into Best Buy with a proof of purchase (which they should be keeping themselves, shared between all their stores... blockchain?) and pay for the cost of a replacement CD only since you already paid for the license.

Re: Day against DRM is day before Talk Like a Pira

[Anonymous Coward]

Rent physical disks, rip, burn.

Problem solved.

one reason why I still buy physical discs

[Anonymous Coward]

I absolutely own the CD/DVD/Bluray discs in my cupboard.
I can copy and play them any time, any where on my devices.
I can play them when the network goes down (and/or power goes out)--not dependent on streaming.

Re: one reason why I still buy physical discs

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried copying Bluray 4K discs?

Re: one reason why I still buy physical discs

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. It takes longer is about all. I then transcode it to something more manageable and portable.

Re: one reason why I still buy physical discs

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep my Bluerays ripped on my NAS, no problem.

Download vs online

[Midnight Thunder]

The main thing is if the seller has provided you the ability to download and keep a perpetual copy, then they have definition provided you a copy. At that point any online redownload following a local deletion should be seen as a bonus.

If on the other hand your purchase is not downloadable, then you should be challenging the notion of buying.

Re:Download vs online

[puto]

I was just coming to post this. If you buy your content from Apple, Google, Disney, they make it available for download. You then download and keep a copy archived for your personal use. All digital providers have to follow copyright law from country to country. The providers allow you to stream and download as a courtesy. Content owners also can choose to pull content from Apple/Google at any time they want. You purchasing and downloading the content once, they have met their obligation with you. This is not germane to Apple. No one remember regional restrictions on DVD's?

Re:Download vs online

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is that the DRM embedded in the DOWNLOADED file is checking before playback or could break so even your "downloaded archived personal copy" may not be playable.

Technically yes, ethically does not have to be

[SuperKendall]

People like you are why we can't have nice things. Theft is theft.

Ahh, but what if you pay for a movie on a service like iTunes, *then* download the pirated content as a form of backup?

I do like providing money for people that make content I enjoy, that way they get some money and you get the desired level of freedom.

That is technically theft but ethically it's not theft to me. Nor would it be to most people. I wonder if you did that, as long as you did not re-share the content if there's a jury anywhere that would convict you.

Re:Technically yes, ethically does not have to be

[BlackPignouf]

Indeed. I also try contact the author directly when I really appreciate a CD or a book and pay the full amount as a Paypal donation.

Re:Technically yes, ethically does not have to be

[sarren1901]

The case would never be so simple of course. If you only made a personal backup and it never got shared, how would it even get discovered unless by pure happenstance. Such a thing could happen if you got raided by the police for anything and they grabbed your file storage.

Having a few dozen/hundreds/thousands of movie files will grab attention.

It's explainable but when they begin the character assassination for whatever else you were doing that got the police at your door in the first place, you are so dead it isn't even funny.

That all assumes you even get a jury. Copyright infringement might just be a civil thing, in which case you get no jury.

The answer? Class action lawsuit...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and not just to a particular provider - in general against anyone who releases content with DRM.

The basis? The US constitution guarantees that copyrights are of limited duration. Even though congress continually extends that period, it must be finite. Since congress, in its DCMA wisdom, makes breaking DRM illegal, content consumers must be indemnified somehow.

At a minimum, providers of DRM content should escrow either the unprotected content or some monetary compensation in anticipation of the eventual copyright lapse.

Re: Moran = You

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost to replace a digital copy is near zero. If your business up and dies because youre obligated to fulfill your contracts youre a shit business and fuck you failure.

Oregon Trail

[TheCastro1689]

I purchased Oregon Trail from iTunes and GameLoft took it out of the store. I'm super pissed because it should still work on my older iPad, but I'll never get to play it again. The icon is still on my iPhone as proof I bought it at one point.

Re:Oregon Trail

[Anubis IV]

Can you not go to the Purchased section in the App Store on your iPad and redownload it? I can still see (nearly?) all of the apps I ever purchased in there, even ones the developers took down years ago.

Re:Oregon Trail

[TheCastro1689]

It's no longer there. It was a year or so ago last time I checked. So currently the only copy is on my phone.

Re:Oregon Trail

[Anubis IV]

Weird.

It should be possible to restore from a phone backup to your iPad, so that would be one way of transferring it over, though you'd then need to set your iPad back up as you like. Alternatively, it used to be the case that you could backup apps to iTunes on a PC/Mac and then sync them between devices that way, but I think they may have removed that functionality at some point in the last year or two.

Anyway, sorry to hear that's the case.

Caveat emptor... Chose whose chains you wear

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing I learned about stuff like eBooks and other DRM-encumbered media is to buy it from the vendor that is the easiest to decrypt. I don't use iBooks, because there are no decryption methods, and one is locked to an Apple platform. Kindle and Kobo, I can use a tool to decrypt my eBooks, throw the decrypted copies into Calibre, and continue on with life. I have purchased tens of thousands of eBooks, and because I did my homework, I can read them anywhere, or even print them out and have a usable hardcopy. Had I bought the books from the Apple Store, I would be limited on the devices I could use... i.e. only current iWhatzits.

Re: Caveat emptor... Chose whose chains you wear

[Anonymous Coward]

Tens of thousands? Wow, I'm struggling at around 1500 ebooks and already onto my third Kindle. Totally agree with stripping DRM and using Calibre to manage your library. I've done similar with audio and moving from a few hundred gigs of MP3s to rapidly approaching a few terabytes of FLAC. Will likely never complete the move from DVD to 4K video content though as they take so long to rip it's easier to stick with my original media for now.

Re: CDs' lifespan is ~20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with your dead physical media bud! My FLAC files will be playable as long as theres computers.

DRM doesn't work. Period.

[Qbertino]

You're deploying your content to a turing complete device. DRM won't work. It will either be ineffective or so bad it will regularly screw over your most loyal customers. All others will get the rips because it's waaaay less hassle without DRM.

It's a crying shame if you are in the business and haven't gotten that into you thick stupid skull by now.

Forget DRM and offer a good purchasing experience and people will flock to you in droves. Best current example: gog.com.

Re:DRM doesn't work. Period.

[puto]

Gog does regional content blocking as well. https://www.gog.com/forum/gene... This was not a DRM issue, it was a region/copyright issue.

Re:DRM doesn't work. Period.

[Anonymous Coward]

Err... that's what DRM is.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that help? They will simply tell you that the price for a replacement CD is the same cost as the original CD + license, since they are bundled. Now you have 1 CD, and *2* licenses?

Which is why piracy endures

[OneHundredAndTen]

Content owners just don't get it, either because they are too set in their ways, or else because they are too stupid. Piracy's motivation is not, for the most part, a desire to get people to save a few dollars. Its motivation is to empower people to access the material promptly, conveniently, at all times, everywhere. I am willing to venture that most people do not resort to the Pirate Bay and others because it is free. They do so because it is convenient. Official offerings seem to be keen on making it as difficult and inconvenient as possible to access the material, with constraints on where, when, and in what devices you are allowed to play the material. The Pirate Bay and others make it easy and convenient, while at the same time removing those artificial constraints. Also, nobody will sneakily remove any material that you have obtained from such sites.

Content owners can of course do whatever they want with the material that they own. But things won't change much in piracy front for as long as they remain stubbornly anchored in their obsolete business model. Unless, of course, they want to bring about police state-like controls, that is. The realistic choices for them are either to make less money out of their content than before, or to make no money at all.

Re:Which is why piracy endures

[UnknownSoldier]

> I am willing to venture that most people do not resort to the Pirate Bay and others because it is free.

That definitely would be an interesting stat to have! Though I'm not sure how one could accurately measure this?

Also, I imagine the reasons _why_ one would visit sites like TPB *overlap:*

I.e.
[x] I *already* bought a copy but I'm traveling without physical access,
[x] "Cuz it's free, man!"
[x] It's convenient.
[x] "Stick it to the man(agenent)!"
[x] "Sharing is caring."
[x] I just collect everything.
[ ] Other: _____

Re:Which is why piracy endures

[ripvlan]

Most people who I know that visit the Pirate Bay et al web sites do it ... because it's free. I know a few people who purchased old-school Apple iPod (the big ones) and fill it with all the free music they can find. Then buy a hacked Roku box to get the free shows.

Admittedly, neither one has the money to buy shit. But they download far more than a few favorites.

Another guy I knew was into Tennis and would visit several offsite streaming services. He liked to watch the big matches and they weren't available via his local cable TV packages. That is licensing/copyright I'm sure and DRM that was attempting to prevent him from accessing this foreign content. But he just wanted to watch professional tennis from around the world. He said he'd even pay for it from ESPN if they offered it.

I think people fall into 2 buckets (big generalization coming up...) -- bucket 1: I want it and can't get it via legal means. 2. the big companies have it coming to them, they don't own nothing and they are "the man." So f-them I'm taking everything I can get for free.

Re: Moran = You

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, nothing I wrote is an argument in favor of limited downloads. All I'm saying is that anyone expecting unlimited downloads because the seller used the words "purchase" or "buy" is a moron.

'So it really WAS DRM's Fault'!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did someone feel that there was more to the story? He bought movies, Apple removed them, DRM made it possible for Apple to steal them from him. End of story. That Apple had their asses covered with legal documents that made this legal for them was never in question.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be possible to bring that case to court, forcing them to declare a basic cost for the CD?

Re:Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a back

[Scarletdown]

And you are letting that stop you?

Anything I want to purchase that I may want to keep permanently is going to be backed up irrespective of whether or not it is legal.

Licensing does not mean owning.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there is the problem.

Copyright or DRM - pick at most one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how it should have been.

And people wonder...

[Sandman1971]

And people wonder why (and sometimes snicker at the fact that) I still buy physical blurays and music CDs. I rip them (still legal here), put them on my NAS and store them away. I never have to worry about DRM crap.

Re:And people wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, none of your Blurays have DRM?

Re:And people wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

I only buy Bluray discs that I know can be ripped to my NAS. New releases have to wait a bit until someone verifies that the software I use works with the new disc. Sometimes it's easier to torrent the mkv than to pull some of my old DVDs off the shelf and rip them again, but I know I can always rip them myself as long as I have a working drive. Same for all my audio CDs.

At least iTunes music is DRM free, so I still buy digital music, and then move the DRM free files over to my NAS. I don't 'buy' any iTunes video because of the DRM - still DVDs, Bluray and torrents for that.

This is why...

[Anonymous Coward]

My US iTunes account has never region jumped. I have that account and one here in Japan for Japanese purchases. The US iTunes is linked to my US credit card and mailing address, so I can continue to buy shows and movies as they come out. This is especially important with movies that usually come out in the US on DVD before they even hit the theater in Japan. I've got a 12TB RAID that downloads them as I purchase them. Need to upgrade to something bigger soon...

Funny thing . . .

[smooth wombat]

I don't have this problem playing my CDs. I put them in my player, any player, and they play.

No matter where I go, they work.

Must be this new fangled technology we hear is supposed to make our lives easier that is causing the issue.

Re:Funny thing . . .

[mschwanke97402]

I don't have this problem playing my CDs. I put them in my player, any player, and they play.

No matter where I go, they work.

Must be this new fangled technology we hear is supposed to make our lives easier that is causing the issue.

Play your Region 1 DVD movie disc in a player in say, Japan. What’t you say it doesn’t play?

Re: Moran = You

[Anonymous Coward]

Expect? No. I don't expect a reasonable deal from the criminals in the music distribution business.

A limited number of downloads is only reasonable on unencumbered files. I've downloaded my purchase; backups are my problem.

Introduce DRM, and now I can't use my standard backup strategy. I have to rely on the seller to keep doing their part. Oops -- their part is "You have to buy it again, peasant!"

Re: CDs' lifespan is ~20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

I have CDs that are from the 90s. Almost 30 years old that still play fine.

Re: Moran = You

[Anonymous Coward]

If I buy a movie, why can't I download it as many times as I want, I bought it.

Now if it said REnT. I'd agree with you.

Re: CDs' lifespan is ~20 years

[jedidiah]

CD is not going anywhere.

HELL, even vinyl is making a comeback. The way things are going, it looks like PCs will go out of style before physical media.

Not that "but it plays on a computer" is terribly meaningful. Most people have no interest in pulling out a PC to play something and curated mobile devices are even less controllable than DRM infested streaming libraries.

Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything I want to purchase that I may want to keep permanently is going to be backed up irrespective of whether or not it is legal.

And if it's illegal, why is it illegal? Who is to blame? Who is interfering with the legality of backups?

When I answered that question, I stopped doing the "purchase" part. Stop purchasing, please. Piracy of DRMed works is not only more ethical, it's easier and more convenient. Spend the money on something else, instead of giving it to them so that they can use your money to lobby against repealing DMCA. Your right hand is punching your face while your left hand is attempting to block.

Please, please stop paying them.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[xploraiswakco]

Copyright, DRM, even patents and the DMCA are all about one thing, the right of the creators to earn from their creations. Please don't advise piracy unless including a solid solution to paying the creators for their creations. And yes, sure there is a lot of abuse happening to those systems, but I am just sick and tired of people advocating piracy with no thought for the people whom created the content, I personally think anyone thinking like that are leeches, and not worth the time of day.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Darinbob]

Yes, for my part I am not "purchasing" any DRM movies or music. I will stream from some services or even occasionally use a pay-per-view with full knowledge that I won't watch it a second time. For many things, I will wait until the price drops to what seems reasonable for a mere rental. Ie, I'm not paying full price for games. Occasionally I have paid GOG to get a DRM-free version of a game real cheap for an older game that game infected with Steam.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Darinbob]

Making a backup for your own personal use is not piracy. DRM goes far beyond copyright law, since DRM is intended as a method to bypass the law and apply more restrictions on the customers than copyright law allows. The law has said that time shifting of content is legal, but DRM has the power to nullify that and forbid time shifting. All it takes to work are governments too lazy or incompetent to push back against these things.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[sarren1901]

I hate drm as much as the next /.er but you need to pay the creator of the work. Pay whatever price you could get the movie at and make a copy on your computer/NAS/Wherever. Don't distribute this copy to anyone. It's for your personal library, such as if you had physical disc on a shelf that could only be in one place at one time.

That would be how things would work in an honest world. The content creator is paid and the consumer given a usable product.

If you just download the content and never pay anyone anything, you are stealing. Sharing is even worse, as you are now a distributor of content that you have no rights too. That's not about freedom. It's about theft and convenience.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally think anyone thinking like that are leeches, and not worth the time of day.

Funny, I think the same about people who demand absolute control over the product after first sale.

I also think the same way about people who demand that we pay them and their descendants in perpetuity for a single instance of a work.

Copyright was about the right to redistribute, not a perpetual money making scheme. We have offered ways to make money without resorting to it. Some which, assuming it's about being able to continue working in your chosen art, instead of pure profit motive, should be enough for you. See also the live performances, perks, ease of access / use, etc. suggestions we've made over the years.

The problem is you guys tend to go absolutely nuts when we suggest that you don't have the right to remotely render someone else's purchase of a copy of your work worthless on a whim. Or that not everyone enjoys being constantly thought of as criminals who's illegal acts need to be preempted by you. All of which is ludicrous. We're the ones paying you. Not the other way around. Your agreement with society was a temporary monopoly on redistribution in return for creating more works for us. Today however, you constantly try to have your cake and eat it too. You sell us a product that is broken and can be destroyed outright by you pushing a button, while at the same time calling us the leeches for "stealing" from you. The agreement we made with you did not include a guarantee of profit NOR a right to profit from your work. Further, preventing someone from using the product they legally purchased can be considered theft in and of itself, never mind destruction of property if you render the prohibition permanent. If anything you're the ones stealing from us. Under those circumstances, why do you think we wouldn't rise up against you and call you out for what you are? Why shouldn't we take away your special privileges given that you're so eager to abuse them to our determent?

tl;dr version: The same is to be said about the creators who call us leeches. We act this way because you constantly play the victim card, and constantly create even greater restrictions against us. Of course we're going to advocate against you.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I think the same about people who demand absolute control over the product after first sale.

Then by all means you start the ball rolling by financing the next blockbuster movie and then letting us all have it for free. The first copy can be sold to you at cost and then distributed to everybody else for free.

The problem is you guys tend to go absolutely nuts when we suggest that you don't have the right to remotely render someone else's purchase of a copy of your work worthless on a whim.

You didn't purchase the copy, what you purchased was a license governed by copyright law. You may not like that and you may imagine that just because you paid money you get something that you then have control over but that's simply not the case.

We're the ones paying you.

So don't then, if you don't like the terms then don't accept them and don't pay. It's as simple as that ... oh but you want the content don't you, you just want it on your terms, well that's too bad. If you don't like it then keep your money.

It just shows how disconnected you are from the real world in thinking that people will just pay for things even if they don't have to, get rid of copyright law and DRM and just make it so everything can be freely distributed and the utopian society will emerge with people just paying for things despite not needing to.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

All it takes to work are governments too lazy or incompetent to push back against these things.

That sword cuts both ways. Right now here in the United States, with the Donald J Trump Administration in charge, I doubt that anyone in Hollywood or their lobbyists would get even 5 minutes of time to speak with anyone at the White House. Hollywood supported Hillary Clinton for President loudly and publicly and is now leading the fight from the trenches against Donald Trump. President Trump hates Hollywood for their disloyalty and the Republican Party hates them because they have been funding and supporting their political enemies for decades. The entertainment business in general and Hollywood especially is out of favor right now in Washington DC. They will be lucky if Donald Trump doesn't get around to signing executive orders or laws that are actively harmful to them, never mind beneficial.

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

And yes, sure there is a lot of abuse happening to those systems,

I'm actually of the impression that the majority of what's happening in those systems is abusive towards both creators and consumers

The current system only serves the middlemen, the very few creators at the very top, everyone else is screwed.

As for alternative system, patreon and likewise systems seem to be serving a lot more creators then copyright ever has

Re:Legal backups, illegally performed

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that anyone in Hollywood or their lobbyists would get even 5 minutes of time to speak with anyone at the White House

Why oh why would you even begin to consider that absurdly wrong statement?

Re:Digital != Physical

[Anonymous Coward]

Then buy a burnable disc, make a copy for yourself to go with your original license. Then sell the purchased copy and license.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Cajun Hell]

But music CDs? When the whole "music pirating" shitstorm started decades ago, the music industry was pushing for the fact that you are buying a license to listen to the music.

They pushed for it, but they didn't get it. CD licensing never ended up happening, despite the absurd proposals.

Re:Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a back

[morethanapapercert]

This is a problem of US-centric thinking contributing to the DRM problem. For something like a century now, it has been the business model of the big media companies to release titles first in the US and then progressively in other countries around the world. The reason being two fold: 1) They released in countries that had the highest profit potential first and 2) it allowed them to milk a title for income for years after the initial US release. This kind of made sense when we were talking about actual film stock or printed books, where it was more cost effective to ship used copies abroad than to make entirely new product for those markets. An unfortunate side effect was that it meant only the biggest, most successful titles would make enough profit to justify the expense of distributing and possibly translating the work. It neglected the "long tail" because the profit wasn't there or seemed too risky. The entire DVD region issue was/is a direct result of media companies wanting to protect that model. What we're seeing in the example of the article is using DRM and that same multi-region business model being applied to streaming and digital content that doesn't have a physical existence the way a DVD or VHS tape has. Compared to physical media formats, digital distribution costs virtually nothing.

In my opinion, the reality is that media consumption is an increasingly global and almost homogeneous market, divided more by language than national borders. Other English speaking regions have come to expect access to first run media at the same time as the US markets

What I think should be done is to release titles in their original language in every country that speaks that language at the same time, with dubbed and/or subbed versions being released the same way as various language versions are available. Thus, the Australian market would have access to everything available in the US, UK Canada etc markets. A release from France would be available in Belgium, Canada, Haiti and so on. What I'm not sure of is whether machine translation of spoken word or print is good enough for a publisher to use to speed up and reduce the cost of distributing in other languages. The machine translation of text I've seen is certainly good enough to get the gist across, good enough for basic communication, but not quite good enough for say an official Russian edition of Harry Potter. Once machine translation is good enough for a release of a major title, going after the long tail of smaller foreign language markets gets much cheaper. But that does require that the media producers and IP holders get past the idea of being able to see significant income on A-list titles for years.

I'm not sure, not being a Hollywood accountant, but I suspect one hurdle that most people don't consider is that there are a number of people who get paid out of local market releases that never see a dime of foreign release revenue. It's to the IP holders advantage to keep the two markets separate as a result.

Keep doing it.

[Sqreater]

The complexity collapse is advancing nicely I see. Now add something on top of DRM. Let's hit the accelerator.

not apple nor any other service's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

it is the content owners who insist on this, and they will not allow apple netflix amazon or anyone else to offer their content unless there is a way to meet the conditions they insist on, such as region-locking, copy protection, etc.

would you prefer if apple netflix amazon etc. had no DRM but also no content available?

complain to the studios instead.

Nobody deleted the user's original copy.

[Brannon]

He just was unable to get a new copy from Apple, for the reason that Apple did not have the legal right to make that copy per its contractual requirements around region-based licensing, i.e., Apple did not have the 'copyright'.

In other words, 'copyright' doesn't mean what you think it means.

Re: Nobody deleted the user's original copy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then if was never a purchase was it?

Re:Yeah well legitimate use says I can make a back

[Darinbob]

Morally and ethically you can make a backup. The law even supports this in most countries. However there are laws in some countries that forbid making copies. In other words, there exist countries in which there are laws that contradict each other. You really won't find a better armed force of lobbyists than those working for the big IP holders. Given that those big IP holders are also popular with the majority of potential customers there isn't much pushback in the market to discourage this behavior.

In my view, no one should feel guilty in any way by making a personal backup of a Disney movie that they purchased. I won't advocate for this though. This is not the same as piracy and governments should be smart enough to figure out the difference if they weren't all so corrupt.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Darinbob]

Let's say in the future your auto stops working. The text on the console says "License Revoked". You tow it to have service and they say "sorry dude, you need to get a new car, it seems you attempted to change the oil by yourself." This amazingly is not as far fetched as it sounds.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Darinbob]

Sure. Too bad taking a case to court takes a lot of time and money vastly exceeding the cost of the original product.

Re:Digital != Physical

[Anonymous Coward]

Purchase a John Deere Tractor and you have this already.
http://www.aglaw.us/janzenaglaw/2017/3/29/fixing-the-right-to-repair

You don't have to move country to have this happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an audio book on audible which I had downloaded and partially listen too. I later after upgrading to a different phone went to download it and was told it was no longer available. Fact is when you "buy" a title you only buy the right to play it while the provider is licensed to supply it. Yes... all those movies you have bought on Google Play/itunes can just go away when the contract that google/apple had with the movie studio expires.

ThePirateBay

[Anonymous Coward]

ThePirateBay has a copy, in case you need backups...

Who buys movies these days? Just stream them.

[thisisauniqueid]

Who buys movies these days? Just stream them. Do you really watch the same movie enough times that it makes sense to own it? I can count on one or two hands the movies I have seen more than once.

Re:Who buys movies these days? Just stream them.

[Anonymous Coward]

When you stream it you transfer the same (okay similar at least) amount of data you would if you downloaded it.
Might as well save the data, for when you are offline or if you have data caps.

Re:Digital != Physical

[adolf]

Good thing that such a thing only needs sorted out one time for the benefit of many, then -- eh?

It's not like we all have to individually file our own lawsuits.

This Is Not News

[mschwanke97402]

See Microsoft “Plays for Sure, “Zune” and most recently “Groove Music”.

dont buy, be a pirate

[Torvac]

drm means you dont buy stuff, you buy the right to use stuff. you dont own products anymore. if you dont like it, remove politicians who are constantly bribed to allow such nonsense.

Format Shift to Non-DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem solved?

Re: CDs' lifespan is ~20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

I am using Syncthing on my phone and desktop which seamlessly syncs my FLAC songs which I can then play locally on my phone, works wonders and I don't need to rely on some unreliable cloud or streaming service since I technically have my own cloud service.

I Boycott All DRM

[rally2xs]

If I have to get it with DRM, I don't get it.

We had it made with vinyl and tape. I used to have the dolby-enhanced cassettes for the car, made tapes with exactly what I wanted to hear, and played them, no corporate interference involved. For home, I had a big reel-to-reel, with the 10 1/2" reels, with hours of music that a played through my 100 W / channel Sansui electronics that I bought while in the Air Force at Ramey AFB, Puerto Rico in the early 70's. There was, BTW, no tape hiss with that. Everything worked, I didn't have a EULA to deal with, and was happy.

We've given up way too much just to avoid a little tape hiss. Cassettes were fine. Vinyl was fine, and even I was "taken in" for a while with the idea that digital is somehow better-sounding than vinyl. Then I fired up nearly-60-years-old turntable, put on some of my 60's and 70's vinyl, and it played with fidelity equal to or better than CD, just a few clicks and pops from dust on the record. That's all we really need. The price in hassle is just too damned high when we have to deal with DRM. Just say no.

Re:You don't have to move country to have this hap

[rally2xs]

Yeah, you better record them to MP4 and save that file with multiple backups when you can, or it will eventually go bye-bye. F them and their DRM.

Explain to me again how this is "simple"

[RockDoctor]

To stay with the Apple and iTunes example, the old-fashioned way to watch a movie purchased from the iTunes Store would be
(1) to download it in the iTunes desktop app,
(2) and then watch it there,
(3) sync it to a portable device,
(4) or keep iTunes running as a "server" in your home where
(5) it can be streamed to devices such as the Apple TV. But this is just not how things are done anymore.

Whereas my system involves (1) insert disc in player
(2) press desired buttons on front of player.

Sounds like things are getting more complicated with time.