5 ms·

> Physical media lets you have privacy without logging when you watch media, what media you consume, how many times you consume it, or how long you consume it.

> Physical media lets you have privacy without logging when you watch media, what media you consume, how many times you consume it, or how long you consume it. I am so excited for my great-great-great-great ... grandchildren to find a layer of plastic DVDs in the earth’s crust 25 generations from now /s. Seriously, Blu ray discs and DVDs are such a waste of resources.

lrvick 6y ago
As long as the disk still exists /somewhere/, a digital copy you ripped from it is legal to keep and backup for personal use indefinitely, and transfer to a new owner of the physical copy. One of your many rights if you -actually- own a copy of media. Many sites offer DRM-Free music and books without needing to have a redundant physical copy laying around, but in video media this is extremely rare, and that is a problem.
- iso1631 6y ago
  > As long as the disk still exists /somewhere/, a digital copy you ripped from it is legal to keep and backup for personal use indefinitely, and transfer to a new owner of the physical copy. Depends on your jurisdiction. Ripping a dvd or bluray in the first place would be illegal in the states. Any type of format shifting (including say CD to mp3) is illegal in the UK - even if you did buy a drm free WAV, unless the copyright holder explicitly gives you permission to copy it to your phone, or another computer, you're stuck.
  - lrvick 6y ago
    This is hotly debated in the US, I will grant, but it seems -most- US lawyers agree personal ripping of "encrypted" DVDs is Fair Use. https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-rip-a-dvd-for-personal-use--551306.html https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-rip-a-dvd-... Some like to claim DMCA could be used to prosecute someone for bypassing the encryption on a DVD for personal backups but this has, to my knowledge, never been tested in court when an individual defendant was purely using it for personal backups. There has been a case in favor of DMCA seeking to restrict the release of selling products that allow users to to this: https://www.eff.org/cases/realnetworks-v-dvd-cca-realdvd-case https://www.eff.org/cases/realnetworks-v-dvd-cca-realdvd-cas... That was an insane call, and it is a pity they didn't appeal as AFAICT. A similar issue to this was challenged recently with DMCA being used to stop the distribution of the open source youtube-dl tool making the same anti-circumvention claims but in the end this fizzled out as having no merit. If anyone from Hollywood really wants to test this in court I will happily publish a video of myself ripping one of their DVDs that I purchased for personal use. It would not be a good look for them to to anything about it, and would bet a -lot- that they lose. Still, I would like to see this chilling effect gray zone be put to rest so people are not scared to use their rights.
est31 6y ago
There is no requirement to forefit your rights once you transition away from physical media. E.g. you could trade DVD equivalent rights on a blockchain. The blockchain including the proof that you legitimately own this copy would stick around for as long as people want it to, it wouldn't depend on big tech companies like MS, Sony, etc. I'm not even a blockchain fanatic but this is one of the few good uses of the technology I think.
- teh_klev 6y ago
  What happens then if the blockchain you rely on as proof of ownership goes away?
  - est31 6y ago
    Blockchains, at least traditionally, work in a way that each full node has a full copy of the entire chain. Anyone can operate a full node. So it goes away when the last person who has kept a copy around somewhere deletes it. That happens way later than relying on a central party and its digital content store that it might close in 5 years (or they might just cancel your account for whatever reason they thought of).
ectopod 6y ago
How does the energy use compare of stamping out a DVD and of streaming a movie to your TV? Especially if it's a film you (or your children) watch repeatedly. The answer is not obvious. According to [1], mailing a DVD and streaming a film use about the same amount of energy. This doesn't include the energy cost of manufacturing the DVD, but stamping out plastic disks is cheap, so it can't be too high. On the other hand, other studies show that DVD players, being older, tend to use more energy than streaming boxes. For repeated watching, ripping a DVD and streaming it locally seems likely to be better. Or best of all, stream the movie and store it locally for future viewings. But that's not allowed. DRM is killing the planet. [1]: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/energy-cost-streaming-video https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/energy-cost-stre...
- criley2 6y ago
  How much landfill use does my stream use when it's been watched 100 times and becomes garbage? How much of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch will my Netflix stream take up? Plastic is killing the planet.
  - mavhc 6y ago
    So is CO2 though.
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      Yes, and oil converted to plastic sequesters CO2. Every plastic bag, every CD, is sequestered CO2. Of course, plastic is a problem on its own. I don't like it, its usage. Yet I am a realist, and in as such, believe that (sadly), every drop of oil will eventually be pumped. Thus, by this logic, any use which locks that carbon up may be a net benefit.
  - lrvick 6y ago
    I mean, I can play a movie on a DVD player on solar energy for a very long time if I take care of it. How much electricity and infrastructure does it take to deliver the same movie over and over again via the internet I wonder? Both are silly solutions that could be avoided if we were allowed to buy and download a DRM-free copy of a movie once.

lrvick 6y ago

As long as the disk still exists /somewhere/, a digital copy you ripped from it is legal to keep and backup for personal use indefinitely, and transfer to a new owner of the physical copy. One of your many rights if you -actually- own a copy of media. Many sites offer DRM-Free music and books without needing to have a redundant physical copy laying around, but in video media this is extremely rare, and that is a problem.

iso1631 6y ago
> As long as the disk still exists /somewhere/, a digital copy you ripped from it is legal to keep and backup for personal use indefinitely, and transfer to a new owner of the physical copy. Depends on your jurisdiction. Ripping a dvd or bluray in the first place would be illegal in the states. Any type of format shifting (including say CD to mp3) is illegal in the UK - even if you did buy a drm free WAV, unless the copyright holder explicitly gives you permission to copy it to your phone, or another computer, you're stuck.
- lrvick 6y ago
  This is hotly debated in the US, I will grant, but it seems -most- US lawyers agree personal ripping of "encrypted" DVDs is Fair Use. https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-rip-a-dvd-for-personal-use--551306.html https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/is-it-legal-to-rip-a-dvd-... Some like to claim DMCA could be used to prosecute someone for bypassing the encryption on a DVD for personal backups but this has, to my knowledge, never been tested in court when an individual defendant was purely using it for personal backups. There has been a case in favor of DMCA seeking to restrict the release of selling products that allow users to to this: https://www.eff.org/cases/realnetworks-v-dvd-cca-realdvd-case https://www.eff.org/cases/realnetworks-v-dvd-cca-realdvd-cas... That was an insane call, and it is a pity they didn't appeal as AFAICT. A similar issue to this was challenged recently with DMCA being used to stop the distribution of the open source youtube-dl tool making the same anti-circumvention claims but in the end this fizzled out as having no merit. If anyone from Hollywood really wants to test this in court I will happily publish a video of myself ripping one of their DVDs that I purchased for personal use. It would not be a good look for them to to anything about it, and would bet a -lot- that they lose. Still, I would like to see this chilling effect gray zone be put to rest so people are not scared to use their rights.

est31 6y ago

There is no requirement to forefit your rights once you transition away from physical media. E.g. you could trade DVD equivalent rights on a blockchain. The blockchain including the proof that you legitimately own this copy would stick around for as long as people want it to, it wouldn't depend on big tech companies like MS, Sony, etc. I'm not even a blockchain fanatic but this is one of the few good uses of the technology I think.

teh_klev 6y ago
What happens then if the blockchain you rely on as proof of ownership goes away?
- est31 6y ago
  Blockchains, at least traditionally, work in a way that each full node has a full copy of the entire chain. Anyone can operate a full node. So it goes away when the last person who has kept a copy around somewhere deletes it. That happens way later than relying on a central party and its digital content store that it might close in 5 years (or they might just cancel your account for whatever reason they thought of).

ectopod 6y ago

How does the energy use compare of stamping out a DVD and of streaming a movie to your TV? Especially if it's a film you (or your children) watch repeatedly. The answer is not obvious. According to [1], mailing a DVD and streaming a film use about the same amount of energy. This doesn't include the energy cost of manufacturing the DVD, but stamping out plastic disks is cheap, so it can't be too high. On the other hand, other studies show that DVD players, being older, tend to use more energy than streaming boxes. For repeated watching, ripping a DVD and streaming it locally seems likely to be better. Or best of all, stream the movie and store it locally for future viewings. But that's not allowed. DRM is killing the planet. [1]: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/energy-cost-streaming-video https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/energy-cost-stre...

criley2 6y ago
How much landfill use does my stream use when it's been watched 100 times and becomes garbage? How much of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch will my Netflix stream take up? Plastic is killing the planet.
- mavhc 6y ago
  So is CO2 though.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    Yes, and oil converted to plastic sequesters CO2. Every plastic bag, every CD, is sequestered CO2. Of course, plastic is a problem on its own. I don't like it, its usage. Yet I am a realist, and in as such, believe that (sadly), every drop of oil will eventually be pumped. Thus, by this logic, any use which locks that carbon up may be a net benefit.
- lrvick 6y ago
  I mean, I can play a movie on a DVD player on solar energy for a very long time if I take care of it. How much electricity and infrastructure does it take to deliver the same movie over and over again via the internet I wonder? Both are silly solutions that could be avoided if we were allowed to buy and download a DRM-free copy of a movie once.