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I don't live in the US, so I Don't know, but as far as I understand, DVD.com can legally offer essentially every title that exists. This is because in the US, i

I don't live in the US, so I Don't know, but as far as I understand, DVD.com can legally offer essentially every title that exists. This is because in the US, if you own a disc, you can rent it to someone. If true, this is awesome and so much better (for me) than any streaming service.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Legal grey area; iirc MP3.com operated on a similar premise and got burned to the ground. I believe there was also a company that had racks of video or dvd players and would stream the movie over the internet, claiming similar protections. Of course, in a nutshell Netflix is doing the same, only legally. Those companies were too early and too dodgy.
- chewmieser 8y ago
  Zediva. $1.8M in fines. There's a few others that skirted around similar laws as well, like Aereo which was shut down for rebroadcasting OTA signals using customer rented antennas.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It's only gray because they were copying the content. Shipping out the physical disc is fine, AFAIK.
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    Right. This presumably is also why library e-book collections contain a finite number of "copies" (licenses) of each book, and if all those copies are checked out, anyone else who wants the book is put on a waiting list. They're allowed to loan the copies they've paid for already, but not to make additional copies.
- gilbetron 8y ago
  DVD.com sends you the actual, physical DVDs. MP3.com streamed you songs you "owned" from elsewhere. DVD.com can't stream things legally.
cimmanom 8y ago
Yeah, that definitely depends on your preferred method of consuming movies and TV. If you're the sort of person who decides they really want to watch Film XYZ and is happy to wait a few days for it, DVDs are perfect. On the other hand, some people watch TV to fill an hour or two here and there on an ad hoc basis. If your approach is "I feel like vegging out now, so let's flip through the channels and see what's on", the instantaneous nature of streaming is perfect because you don't have to plan ahead to watch the things you're interested in.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

Legal grey area; iirc MP3.com operated on a similar premise and got burned to the ground. I believe there was also a company that had racks of video or dvd players and would stream the movie over the internet, claiming similar protections. Of course, in a nutshell Netflix is doing the same, only legally. Those companies were too early and too dodgy.

chewmieser 8y ago
Zediva. $1.8M in fines. There's a few others that skirted around similar laws as well, like Aereo which was shut down for rebroadcasting OTA signals using customer rented antennas.
icebraining 8y ago
It's only gray because they were copying the content. Shipping out the physical disc is fine, AFAIK.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Right. This presumably is also why library e-book collections contain a finite number of "copies" (licenses) of each book, and if all those copies are checked out, anyone else who wants the book is put on a waiting list. They're allowed to loan the copies they've paid for already, but not to make additional copies.
gilbetron 8y ago
DVD.com sends you the actual, physical DVDs. MP3.com streamed you songs you "owned" from elsewhere. DVD.com can't stream things legally.

cimmanom 8y ago

Yeah, that definitely depends on your preferred method of consuming movies and TV. If you're the sort of person who decides they really want to watch Film XYZ and is happy to wait a few days for it, DVDs are perfect. On the other hand, some people watch TV to fill an hour or two here and there on an ad hoc basis. If your approach is "I feel like vegging out now, so let's flip through the channels and see what's on", the instantaneous nature of streaming is perfect because you don't have to plan ahead to watch the things you're interested in.