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Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

> There doesn't appear to be a way to purchase a lot of content with a guarantee that you can access anytime you like.

This is outside the scope of the "studio canal" movies. But you're correct. And if I'm being frank (and probably being a bit of an ass too), there's no inherent right to view this content.

Personally, I view this the same way I do AAA games. There's so many good games out there without all the BS of modern (read: greedy) AAA games that I don't feel the least bit of need to play them. I pay for good games, and I get to play good games.

Don't let FOMO around shows and movies that companies don't want to make available in a reasonable manner control your watching habits. Pick other (often better, even if not as shiny) entertainment, and support those creators.

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If I cant buy (and when I mean buy, i do not mean "rent for a non specified duration"), then I pirate.

If content creator want people to buy their content, then they should sell it.

They do, it just isn't on the terms you want.

no they dont. Sony / amazon / apple / google can deactivate my account an any given time, and destroy all my content.

Cant do that with DVD.

Again, you can pay for it, but it isn’t on the terms you want.

I’m not saying you are wrong for not wanting those terms.

i did not said I cannot pay for it. I sait i cannot buy it.

Respectfully, that's a fantastic set of "rules" which will justify unconditional piracy, since no studios of any size will offer anything but a license to watch their content. That's how the market has been built.

Even DVDs will fail this test.

I disagree. People said the same about music, and now you can buy DRM free mp3 and flac downloads because of previous pirating pressure. Most piracy is a symptom of bad services.

Just because you're buying an unencumbered MP3 or flac file doesn't mean you're free to do whatever you want with it. You're still licensed for just you and you can't make copies to send to all your friends (how enforceable that is is something that's above my head).

I'd say that most modern media piracy is still a matter of cost and convenience. If you're the kind of person that watches a couple of movies a week, at $20 a pop the cost adds up fast. Plus you have to go to the store or order online and wait for a DVD to show up. With piracy you can watch right away. It's one of the reasons Netflix was such a game-changer.

Somehow along the way a lot of people got it into their heads that all entertainment (and also news and educational materials. Basically, anything that doesn't have a physical form) should be free (free as in beer and free as in freedom) and they'll go through some impressive mental contortions to rationalize their piracy any way they can.

"An unjust law is no law at all...has become a standard legal maxim around the world."[1]

"Thomas Aquinas [argued] ... a law only need to be obeyed if it is [among other things] ... for the common good."[1]

The question we have to ask is: Is current copyright law unjust?

Well, it allows telling people that they are buying something (in large print, even if the fine print says something else) then taking that thing away.

And copyright on digital goods allows unprecedented control over how tools are used, when and where content can be shown, and how things that we've paid for can be retained and resold.

And it is also clear that recent copyright laws were written for the benefit of a few corporations, not for the common good.

So I'm beginning to believe that current copyright law is unjust and should be disobeyed as a principled form of civil disobedience, not merely for convenience or to save money.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_unjust_law_is_no_law_at_all

I wish any studio good luck to disable a license on a DVD.

> Even DVDs will fail this test.

Maybe in theory. In practice, I disagree. Care to elaborate if you mean anything other than what's technically said on the box? Even the most recent DVD releases work on the oldest of DVD players without any firmware updates/online drm that could revoke a license or something.

> Respectfully, that's a fantastic set of "rules" which will justify unconditional piracy, since no studios of any size will offer anything but a license to watch their content. That's how the market has been built.

That's clearly not true, since starting from the 70s up until fairly recently one could always buy the movies to keep for life.

> Even DVDs will fail this test.

You'll have to explain that thinking, since they don't. I buy a DVD (which is the only way I buy movies) and it's mine to keep forever. If I get tired of it, I can resell it to someone else.

Ignoring the piracy aspect, I don't really understand this mindset. Why must you own a piece of media in perpetuity? Do you value things like going to a live concert where you only get the experience? IMO most Hollywood content made today is really not worth watching a second time.

That is part of the problem. I want to permanently buy records of older quality movies. Instead of offering me that, they want to sell me jurassic rehash 7.

> If content creator want people to buy their content, then they should sell it.

They are selling it. Just because they're not selling in precisely the way you want them to, that does not mean that you're entitled to the content anyway.

You justify your piracy all you want, but let's not pretend that you'd fork over the cash to legitimize your entire library of pirated entertainment if it showed up tomorrow on some store that offered exclusively freedom-respecting DRM-free downloads (okay, maybe you would, but most people wouldn't).

They aren't selling it, though, they're "licensing" it, which is indefinite rent.

Not the same. Honestly they should be forced to say "rent until we change our minds" instead of "buy" in the advertisements and interfaces.

> They are selling it.

Do you mean rent? See parent poster's clarification for the term "buy":

> and when I mean buy, i do not mean "rent for a non specified duration"

How is it renting? You purchase a license. At no time do you ever transfer this license over to someone else to "return the rental license."

The licence can be revoken at any given time. This might not be renting, but it is not buying.

> > If content creator want people to buy their content, then they should sell it.

> They are selling it.

The word "sell" means something different. They are not selling it if all they are doing is renting it.

Which is their right if that's what they want, but there needs to be some legislation to prevent them from calling it a sale when it's really merely a short-term rental.

>there's no inherent right to view this content.

this is true. I do like to support content creators.

The thing about TV and movies for me is that I hardly every re-watched things so streaming felt ok (I still do this). Though the pandemic though I did bust out some of my very modest DVD collection and rewatched and dug a little deeper, which I enjoyed.

Some of the DVD "extras" where pretty fun and haven't migrated to streaming/youtube. (for example some of the music in "The Life Aquatic" was music from "The Royal tannenbaums reversed and adjusted. Written by a guy from Devo).

This is the my take as well, that often gets me in trouble. I just don't get the entitlement. Someone makes a movie, and gives you one option to view it. Permanently, once, for 2 years, whatever it is. Now you have the choice to watch it or not. Instead, people go into the negotiations with the starting assumption that they will consume the content, and it's up to the producer of the content to get them to pay for it. I don't get it.

I think the underlying problem is that people assume that buying the movie means they own it like they own a DVD of a movie. Technically, a DVD also just grants you a license and doesn't "sell" you the actual movie, but you're holding the thing in your hand, and unless you physically break the DVD, you're guaranteed to be able to watch it forever, heck, you can pass it down to your grand-grand-children.

I think it's only natural that people make the same assumption when it comes to buying a movie on a service like the PlayStation store. "Buying" ultimately means "owning that thing" to people. You can put all the legalese you want in the fine print, but it's flat out fucking bullshit to be frank. You shouldn't need to be a lawyer to understand what clicking the button labeled "buy now" really does.

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