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Comment by roadnottaken | Hacker News Reader

It's about time. Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical medium. Eventually there should be a big database of all content (movies, books, music) and a listing of which ones you've ever paid for. Then, by providing your account details you can access those media from anywhere to download or stream. I've long suspected that this sort of system is unpopular among media companies because they can currently rely on customers re-purchasing all their favorites every ~10-15 years when CDs replace tapes, or MP3s replace CDs, or whatever.

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> " Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical medium."

And that is where I disagree. Something like UltraViolet for rentals, or all-you-can-eat plans, sounds perfectly fine.

But for purchased content? No. A thousand times: NO.

If I'm renting it, it's reasonable to have restrictions on it. If I'm buying it, I'll take just the bits, thank you.

No burden. No cruft. No phone-home or provider-based device support decisions. No fine print that the service may disappear one day, taking my library with it. No fine print that any terms may change post-sale. Because it's a sale. Not a license.

Just the bits, thanks; in a standard format.

Part of the problem is that the movie industry has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted in this area. You'd have to be an incredible optimist or on the industry's dime to really believe their claims.

Steam is an example of a service that has done this exact thing incredibly well, and it would absolutely not have worked without Valve building up a reputation for integrity and professionalism.

If Valve came out with UltraViolet, I'd be chomping at the bit for it because I trust them to honor their agreements and plan accordingly to do so into the distant future.

I wouldn't trust the movie industry at all, let alone enough to sign onto a service like this. They may never be able to regain the potential for consumer trust, and it's their own damn fault.

Heh... Somewhere there's a movie exec reading this article and thinking, "Hey, with this new system, we can update the ads that we force them to watch at the beginning of DVDs!"

it's called "file sharing", minus the DRM and accounting.

no, it's different. I want to be able to stream-content, as well. And I want netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon, and everyone else to know what I've purchased in my lifetime. Even if I bought the 'Shrek' DVD 10 years ago, I should be able to stream it from my Wii. Different from file-sharing.

Absolutely agreed. I want Steam for movies and music. I'd actually start spending money DVDs and TV series if a service like Steam existed. (Well, more money than my current "buy Supernatural on DVD and nothing else" policy, anyway.)

Movies/Music/TV are more portable than games, steam doesn't have to deal with portability (multiple different devices, not explicit PC's that run the games) (yet) which is why it's a good system for what it is.

Essentially a Steam for everything would never be able to have DRM otherwise certain devices would get locked out, which returns us to the original problem of DRM. Steam just locked onto a niche market and realized their potential.

Your description of this database sounds like an extension of Lala for all media. Is this what you're going for?

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