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There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equiva
by parasubvert 7y ago
There... is an iTunes for movies. I mean, I own hundreds of iTunes movies, some of which I purchased 13 years ago. Microsoft, Google, and Sony all have equivalents.
- ce4 7y agoYou're not owning them. You own a license to watch on Apple's terms and as long as iTunes is around. Microsoft shut down the drm servers and killed their clients' ebooks in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20318852
- feu 7y agoMicrosoft gave their customers a full refund, what's the problem?
- michaelt 7y agoAs a purely practical matter: maybe your ebook reader only supports the format that was discontinued; maybe the ebook has gone out of print or has a change you don't like; or maybe you brought it when there was a big discount and to re-purchase elsewhere will cost you more. As a broader matter of principle, it proves your property rights over a DRMed ebook are weak compared to a regular physical book; if you had a physical book, the seller couldn't barge into your home and remove it, refund or no.
- scarface74 7y agoThat’s not strictly true. If the movie you purchased was from one of the five major studios that support Movies Anywhere, you can link your Amazon Prime, Google, iTunes, or Vudu account (along with others) and any movie purchased on one can be transferred to the other services. https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome https://moviesanywhere.com/welcome
- ericd 7y agoAnd if I want a DRM free copy so that I don’t have to ever keep track of this landscape of shifting alliances? This is way more mental overhead than I want to devote to movies.
- scarface74 7y agoYou’ve never been able to buy commercial video without copy protection. Even in the VHS days you had Macrovision.
- Goladus 7y agoNot true. Perhaps you meant to say that copy protection has existed for a long time. But plenty of commercial video has been available without copy protection.
- scarface74 7y agoif you are referring to mainstream commercial movies by the major studios, Macrovision was introduced in 1984 for VHS tapes. DVDs from mainstream studios also had DRM. What commercial video from the major studios have not had copy protection?
- Goladus 7y agoI'd have to go to my fathers house to find the stack of VHS tapes that were duplicated from rentals. Meanwhile I have my own modest stack of DVDs that I copied in the 2000s using whatever generic DVD ripper was available for windows at the time. I recall once or twice being unable to rip a DVD for copy protection reasons but it was rare. Either there was no copy protection, or the copy protection was so trivial to circumvent that I never even knew it was there.
- scarface74 7y agoGeneric DVD rippers used DeCSS to remove DRM. There were also plenty of devices that could remove MacroVision while you were copying. I never said that the copy protection schemes weren’t easily circumvented. I said that commercial video has always had copy protection.
- parasubvert 7y agoTechnically we don’t own the content on DVDs and Blu-Rays either, we get a license. So long as those old players keep working....