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My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs

My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the owner of this copy sitting in the warehouse, we'll stream it to you right now instead of going to the bother of mailing it out" (This part legally qualified as a "performance", which was their big mistake.) 4. When user is done watching the film, VidAngel automatically buys back the Blu-ray – still sitting in their warehouse – for $19. So users could essentially stream any film they want (with optional self-selected censorship) for only $1 per viewing. Of course they get a flood of users since they're the cheapest shop in town, and of course since what they were doing was illegal they got taken to court and had to shut down 90% of their business. And then, they wrote an endless tream of publicity saying, "Big media doesn't want to give you the right to skip nudity and violence in your own home! Think of the children! They want to force their values on you!" Yeah, I don't think the film-makers loved the censorship platform, but it was the $1 performances that really got them riled up.

dj_gitmo 4y ago
This reminds me of Aereo. They provided each user with their own individual TV antenna, DVR and streaming server. Their case went to the Supreme Court but they ultimately lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo
- joezydeco 4y ago
  Part of me still thinks Aereo wasn't honest with their technology. They showed off massive boards full of miniature UHF antennae, but a tuner/encoder is more than that. They never showed that part.
  - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    It doesn't matter. The Supreme Court's logic was "sure, every individual part of this is completely legal, but if you consider it as a black box, it feels like a different thing which is illegal, so we're going to treat it like it's illegal thing." That conclusion was pretty likely, but it's utterly baffling to someone who thinks about the law like a programmer. To put it in the Supreme Court's exact words: "Given Aereo’s overwhelming likeness to the cable companies targeted by the 1976 amendments, this sole technological difference between Aereo and traditional cable companies does not make a critical difference here."
    - bentley 4y ago
      I always liked Antonin Scalia’s dissent in that case. “We came within one vote of declaring the VCR contraband 30 years ago in Sony [v. Universal]. The dissent in that case was driven in part by the plaintiffs’ prediction that VCR technology would wreak all manner of havoc in the television and movie industries. The Networks make similarly dire predictions about Aereo. We are told that nothing less than ‘the very existence of broadcast television as we know it’ is at stake. Aereo and its amici dispute those forecasts and make a few of their own.… We are in no position to judge the validity of those self-interested claims or to foresee the path of future technological development. Hence, the proper course is not to bend and twist the Act’s terms in an effort to produce a just outcome, but to apply the law as it stands…”
      - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
        Oh totally. Scalia's copy shop analogy was spot on, and the majority's rebuttal was just "this is more like a video on demand service than a copy shop" was weak as heck and just goes back to their main "shut up about how it works we know what we're looking at" argument.
      - jjeaff 4y ago
        I think Scalia is right in this descent, but applying the same textualist logic to many other decisions he made doesn't make nearly as much sense. In other words, his textualism leads to a lot of "there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball" type decisions.
- coryfklein 4y ago
  It was exactly like Aereo. Their Supreme Court battle set the precedent that made the VidAngel battle a no-contest. Which makes me wonder how VidAngel ever thought they could get away with that business model.
  - callalex 4y ago
    >“ Which makes me wonder how VidAngel ever thought they could get away with that business model.” Doing a thing, but with Jesus branding, can get you very far in America beyond all logic. See also: nonprofits participating in politics, nonprofits doing public performances without proper licensing, nonprofits advertising to children in public schools, etc.
  - cxr 4y ago
    If you read any of the responses by VidAngel's CEO (?), you'll find the answer: hubris.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but on a computer" is seen as a farce, not a fundamental difference from the [common thing]. Anyway, I guess the mormons could get around this and achieve their desired effect by instead selling DVD players with a subscription to a service that distributes EDL files; instructions to the DVD player about which parts of movies should be skipped.
- isk517 4y ago
  Even during the video rental days you weren't allowed to just go out and purchase a bunch of videos at Walmart and start renting them out, you need to have purchased the rights to rent out the video.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    Why would you say this? It is the opposite of the truth; the first-sale doctrine prevents the copyright owner from interfering with you while you rent out your cassettes. You need to purchase rights to display the video in public. No one can stop you from renting out the tape. You already possess the right to rent out your own property.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    As far as I'm aware, this is not true. The first-sale doctrine allowed the rental of VHS and video games bought normally at retail stores. The movie and video game industry went ballistic over this, a Nintendo executive called it "commercial rape". The movie industry took it to court and lost, and tried lobbying congress to no avail. IIRC, they then hatched a scheme where the retail availability of new movies on VHS would be restricted at least for a time, forcing video rental shops to pay more for copies of popular new movies.
  - pavon 4y ago
inopinatus 4y ago
The law is not a programming language. Believing so is a common misconception amongst engineers, but assuming as much is likely to lead to disappointment, frustration, anger, bickering, conflict, and vexatiously long and mostly unenforceable contracts. In particular, you can't just write up your own legal fictions and expect them to be honored. It would seem the developers in the story above learned this lesson the hard way.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I don't think this is really relevant. This isn't about logic or about programming, it's about trying to conform to the spirit of what the law says, and the intent behind it. The idea of copyright is "when you reproduce something, the creator should get a cut". Sure, we can argue all day what counts as a "copy" when it comes to computers, but... c'mon. One Bluray disc is bought, and one person gets to watch it. When they're done with it, someone else gets to watch it. This is how a library works. This is how Netflix's DVD-by-mail service works. But just because a computer and a network are involved, it's somehow different? No, sorry, I don't buy it. If the law really does say what VidAngel did is wrong, then the law is wrong and should be changed. I think it should be obvious to anyone who can read that the big media companies have (successfully) fought for decades to unfairly protect their bottom line, at the expense of everyone else. That's not ok; governments should not exist to protect crappy business models. Hell, there'd still be plenty of money to be made with much more lax copyright law.
  - inopinatus 4y ago
    This seems to be equating copying with performance. They're not the same thing, and for most artists in recorded media, it's performance royalties that generate their primary income. If you wanna change that, find some other way to compensate artists first. They are the value creator. Attacking the bloated middlemen in the delivery chain doesn't remove the need for creators to eat. That is VidAngel's moral failure, as least going by the scenario as described: they weren't returning value to where it came from, instead tried to create a legal fiction to justify rent-seeking behaviour.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
VidAngel had a brilliant business model, it should not be illegal. They are essentially acting as a public library that’s actually convenient.
IX-103 4y ago
What if they rented the customer the server that read and encoded the customer's copy of the Blu-ray on the fly and streamed it to them using bandwidth that was leased to the customer? Would that violate the studio's "performance" rights? What if the customer is in the same room as the server and loads the disk themselves? I, as a citizen and a consumer, want to know what rights I have when I purchase a product. The free market depends on perfect information when making purchasing decisions, and this is an area that is vague as all heck. If the rights the sellers of these movies claim I have matched the minimum guaranteed by law (or were even a super-set) then it would be clear. But they continue to claim I would get fewer rights than they are legally obligated to provide (technically playing it is a copyright violation according to their terms, never mind format shifting). They actually have it so ambiguous that it even seems anti-capitalistic.
- bacchusracine 4y ago
  >I, as a citizen and a consumer, want to know what rights I have when I purchase a product. Step one would probably be actually purchasing something instead of licensing it.
  - lliamander 4y ago
    VidAngel's model was that you are purchasing the disk.
    - bacchusracine 4y ago
      No, see everything is licensed. You cannot purchase anything. So yeah, first we need to see about actually purchasing things, then we can talk. Try again.
kelnos 4y ago
It's pretty ridiculous that this isn't legal. Sure, VidAngel could have built some custom software to play back a real Bluray disc, skipping certain scenes based on configuration file per title, and then would mail the disc to customers, who then have to mail it back, but that would be a worse experience for customers, and would be more wasteful (unnecessary physical shipping, as well as wear-and-tear on the discs). I guess the studios would actually see more money from this kind of scheme, since the discs would wear out and need to be replaced after a while. But... the world we live in where this sort of thing isn't allowed... is stupid. Calling this a "performance" is just a legal gambit to unreasonably restrict what people (or companies, even) can do with things they've bought and own. The $20 "purchase" and $19 "buy-back" is creative, but it should also be fine to just charge an all-you-can-watch subscription fee, as long as they don't allow concurrent viewing at greater than the number of Bluray discs they've purchased. "Performance", my ass. Fucking copyright cartels.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  A lot of the law we take for granted about copyright is really just a complicated compromise that worked out alright given the limitations of older technology. It's not some moral ideal. What about recording a song off the radio for your personal use? Or downloading one off Youtube? Or inviting your friends round to watch a movie? Or doing that but asking them to bring food, or it's OK if they just bring money instead of food and you buy the food, or they just bring money and you don't buy food but you let them watch the movie in your house, or they can bring their own friends too, or you're a full-blown movie theatre? There are no clear-cut boundaries of "stupid" and "own", just a complicated balance to keep things working well, we hope.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It was a compromise back when we had 28-year copyright terms. It has been chipped away almost entirely from one side.
vlunkr 4y ago
Vidangel is a pretty absurd company. I read recently that they are still around and trying to come up with their next strategy. It does raise an interesting question for me though: is Hollywood losing out on profits by not offering censored versions of their content? Clearly there’s some demand. People like to make arguments about artistic integrity, but they have no problem censoring content to air on network tv.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  I would absolutely pay for this service if it allowed me mute the audio during door knocks, door bells, dog barks, and squeaky toys. Have you ever seen a dog instantly wake up from a deep sleep because they’ve been summoned to play? You’re basically obligated to pause whatever you’re watching and play.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Exactly. There are already censored versions of most movies made by the production studios themselves. They will even have the actors record alternate lines for certain parts. These air on network tv as well as on airplanes. There are lots of families that would like censored movies. I don't understand why they don't want to offer it.
- dudeguy3301 4y ago
  so, censoring a film is editing the intended form. this seems damaging to creators. also, if a movie has a bunch of sex and violence that gets censored out, what remains is still the intended context for the sex and violence, so why would a concerned person even watch it in the first place? absurd! like, for example, pulp fiction...how the fuck would a censored version make any sense, and who in gods fucking name would watch it!? i think selling edited material via censorship and providing censorship as a service is criminal. if you dont like porn, dont watch edited porn ;(
  - 4y ago
Waterluvian 4y ago
That sounds clever and feels obviously legal and fine. I’m shocked that it’s not.

dj_gitmo 4y ago

This reminds me of Aereo. They provided each user with their own individual TV antenna, DVR and streaming server. Their case went to the Supreme Court but they ultimately lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

joezydeco 4y ago
Part of me still thinks Aereo wasn't honest with their technology. They showed off massive boards full of miniature UHF antennae, but a tuner/encoder is more than that. They never showed that part.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  It doesn't matter. The Supreme Court's logic was "sure, every individual part of this is completely legal, but if you consider it as a black box, it feels like a different thing which is illegal, so we're going to treat it like it's illegal thing." That conclusion was pretty likely, but it's utterly baffling to someone who thinks about the law like a programmer. To put it in the Supreme Court's exact words: "Given Aereo’s overwhelming likeness to the cable companies targeted by the 1976 amendments, this sole technological difference between Aereo and traditional cable companies does not make a critical difference here."
  - bentley 4y ago
    I always liked Antonin Scalia’s dissent in that case. “We came within one vote of declaring the VCR contraband 30 years ago in Sony [v. Universal]. The dissent in that case was driven in part by the plaintiffs’ prediction that VCR technology would wreak all manner of havoc in the television and movie industries. The Networks make similarly dire predictions about Aereo. We are told that nothing less than ‘the very existence of broadcast television as we know it’ is at stake. Aereo and its amici dispute those forecasts and make a few of their own.… We are in no position to judge the validity of those self-interested claims or to foresee the path of future technological development. Hence, the proper course is not to bend and twist the Act’s terms in an effort to produce a just outcome, but to apply the law as it stands…”
    - CobrastanJorji 4y ago
      Oh totally. Scalia's copy shop analogy was spot on, and the majority's rebuttal was just "this is more like a video on demand service than a copy shop" was weak as heck and just goes back to their main "shut up about how it works we know what we're looking at" argument.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      I think Scalia is right in this descent, but applying the same textualist logic to many other decisions he made doesn't make nearly as much sense. In other words, his textualism leads to a lot of "there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball" type decisions.
coryfklein 4y ago
It was exactly like Aereo. Their Supreme Court battle set the precedent that made the VidAngel battle a no-contest. Which makes me wonder how VidAngel ever thought they could get away with that business model.
- callalex 4y ago
  >“ Which makes me wonder how VidAngel ever thought they could get away with that business model.” Doing a thing, but with Jesus branding, can get you very far in America beyond all logic. See also: nonprofits participating in politics, nonprofits doing public performances without proper licensing, nonprofits advertising to children in public schools, etc.
- cxr 4y ago
  If you read any of the responses by VidAngel's CEO (?), you'll find the answer: hubris.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Leaving aside the matter of Mormons and their weird puritan sensibilities, what this company essentially did was reinvent movie rental, but because they did it on the internet instead of a brick and mortar shop we're all expected to think it obvious and self evidence that what they did was horrible. In other contexts on sites like this, "do [common thing] but on a computer" patents get mocked and derided because "but on a computer" is seen as a farce, not a fundamental difference from the [common thing]. Anyway, I guess the mormons could get around this and achieve their desired effect by instead selling DVD players with a subscription to a service that distributes EDL files; instructions to the DVD player about which parts of movies should be skipped.

isk517 4y ago
Even during the video rental days you weren't allowed to just go out and purchase a bunch of videos at Walmart and start renting them out, you need to have purchased the rights to rent out the video.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  Why would you say this? It is the opposite of the truth; the first-sale doctrine prevents the copyright owner from interfering with you while you rent out your cassettes. You need to purchase rights to display the video in public. No one can stop you from renting out the tape. You already possess the right to rent out your own property.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  As far as I'm aware, this is not true. The first-sale doctrine allowed the rental of VHS and video games bought normally at retail stores. The movie and video game industry went ballistic over this, a Nintendo executive called it "commercial rape". The movie industry took it to court and lost, and tried lobbying congress to no avail. IIRC, they then hatched a scheme where the retail availability of new movies on VHS would be restricted at least for a time, forcing video rental shops to pay more for copies of popular new movies.
- pavon 4y ago

inopinatus 4y ago

The law is not a programming language. Believing so is a common misconception amongst engineers, but assuming as much is likely to lead to disappointment, frustration, anger, bickering, conflict, and vexatiously long and mostly unenforceable contracts. In particular, you can't just write up your own legal fictions and expect them to be honored. It would seem the developers in the story above learned this lesson the hard way.

kelnos 4y ago
I don't think this is really relevant. This isn't about logic or about programming, it's about trying to conform to the spirit of what the law says, and the intent behind it. The idea of copyright is "when you reproduce something, the creator should get a cut". Sure, we can argue all day what counts as a "copy" when it comes to computers, but... c'mon. One Bluray disc is bought, and one person gets to watch it. When they're done with it, someone else gets to watch it. This is how a library works. This is how Netflix's DVD-by-mail service works. But just because a computer and a network are involved, it's somehow different? No, sorry, I don't buy it. If the law really does say what VidAngel did is wrong, then the law is wrong and should be changed. I think it should be obvious to anyone who can read that the big media companies have (successfully) fought for decades to unfairly protect their bottom line, at the expense of everyone else. That's not ok; governments should not exist to protect crappy business models. Hell, there'd still be plenty of money to be made with much more lax copyright law.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  This seems to be equating copying with performance. They're not the same thing, and for most artists in recorded media, it's performance royalties that generate their primary income. If you wanna change that, find some other way to compensate artists first. They are the value creator. Attacking the bloated middlemen in the delivery chain doesn't remove the need for creators to eat. That is VidAngel's moral failure, as least going by the scenario as described: they weren't returning value to where it came from, instead tried to create a legal fiction to justify rent-seeking behaviour.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

VidAngel had a brilliant business model, it should not be illegal. They are essentially acting as a public library that’s actually convenient.

IX-103 4y ago

What if they rented the customer the server that read and encoded the customer's copy of the Blu-ray on the fly and streamed it to them using bandwidth that was leased to the customer? Would that violate the studio's "performance" rights? What if the customer is in the same room as the server and loads the disk themselves? I, as a citizen and a consumer, want to know what rights I have when I purchase a product. The free market depends on perfect information when making purchasing decisions, and this is an area that is vague as all heck. If the rights the sellers of these movies claim I have matched the minimum guaranteed by law (or were even a super-set) then it would be clear. But they continue to claim I would get fewer rights than they are legally obligated to provide (technically playing it is a copyright violation according to their terms, never mind format shifting). They actually have it so ambiguous that it even seems anti-capitalistic.

bacchusracine 4y ago
>I, as a citizen and a consumer, want to know what rights I have when I purchase a product. Step one would probably be actually purchasing something instead of licensing it.
- lliamander 4y ago
  VidAngel's model was that you are purchasing the disk.
  - bacchusracine 4y ago
    No, see everything is licensed. You cannot purchase anything. So yeah, first we need to see about actually purchasing things, then we can talk. Try again.

kelnos 4y ago

It's pretty ridiculous that this isn't legal. Sure, VidAngel could have built some custom software to play back a real Bluray disc, skipping certain scenes based on configuration file per title, and then would mail the disc to customers, who then have to mail it back, but that would be a worse experience for customers, and would be more wasteful (unnecessary physical shipping, as well as wear-and-tear on the discs). I guess the studios would actually see more money from this kind of scheme, since the discs would wear out and need to be replaced after a while. But... the world we live in where this sort of thing isn't allowed... is stupid. Calling this a "performance" is just a legal gambit to unreasonably restrict what people (or companies, even) can do with things they've bought and own. The $20 "purchase" and $19 "buy-back" is creative, but it should also be fine to just charge an all-you-can-watch subscription fee, as long as they don't allow concurrent viewing at greater than the number of Bluray discs they've purchased. "Performance", my ass. Fucking copyright cartels.

sacrosancty 4y ago
A lot of the law we take for granted about copyright is really just a complicated compromise that worked out alright given the limitations of older technology. It's not some moral ideal. What about recording a song off the radio for your personal use? Or downloading one off Youtube? Or inviting your friends round to watch a movie? Or doing that but asking them to bring food, or it's OK if they just bring money instead of food and you buy the food, or they just bring money and you don't buy food but you let them watch the movie in your house, or they can bring their own friends too, or you're a full-blown movie theatre? There are no clear-cut boundaries of "stupid" and "own", just a complicated balance to keep things working well, we hope.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It was a compromise back when we had 28-year copyright terms. It has been chipped away almost entirely from one side.

vlunkr 4y ago

Vidangel is a pretty absurd company. I read recently that they are still around and trying to come up with their next strategy. It does raise an interesting question for me though: is Hollywood losing out on profits by not offering censored versions of their content? Clearly there’s some demand. People like to make arguments about artistic integrity, but they have no problem censoring content to air on network tv.

elliekelly 4y ago
I would absolutely pay for this service if it allowed me mute the audio during door knocks, door bells, dog barks, and squeaky toys. Have you ever seen a dog instantly wake up from a deep sleep because they’ve been summoned to play? You’re basically obligated to pause whatever you’re watching and play.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jjeaff 4y ago
Exactly. There are already censored versions of most movies made by the production studios themselves. They will even have the actors record alternate lines for certain parts. These air on network tv as well as on airplanes. There are lots of families that would like censored movies. I don't understand why they don't want to offer it.
dudeguy3301 4y ago
so, censoring a film is editing the intended form. this seems damaging to creators. also, if a movie has a bunch of sex and violence that gets censored out, what remains is still the intended context for the sex and violence, so why would a concerned person even watch it in the first place? absurd! like, for example, pulp fiction...how the fuck would a censored version make any sense, and who in gods fucking name would watch it!? i think selling edited material via censorship and providing censorship as a service is criminal. if you dont like porn, dont watch edited porn ;(
- 4y ago

Waterluvian 4y ago

That sounds clever and feels obviously legal and fine. I’m shocked that it’s not.