4 ms·

Hell yeah brother! It's our data, we should own it. How come I can "buy" a movie on Amazon prime, but I can't download it to any device I want? How come I can

Hell yeah brother! It's our data, we should own it. How come I can "buy" a movie on Amazon prime, but I can't download it to any device I want? How come I can only stream on spotify and not purchase digital albums? Our rights have eroded so quickly and so deeply that people forget one of the biggest selling points of the original iPods was carrying around YOUR music. Everything is a subscription. You'll own nothing, and like it. It's our data, it's our privacy. We should be able to own and control both.

andrewxdiamond 3y ago
Ironicly everything you’ve listed here is an example of companies expressing their rights to control their data. You don’t own music or movies, they aren’t your data. Data rights are for data about you and your behavior. If you retained copyright over all the data you produce by existing, you would be on the same level as companies today
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Except when you've paid for it? Then it's your data. This is not rocket science.
  - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
    You didn’t pay for the right to own those movies, you paid a small fee for a license to consume their data within the bounds of the contract they laid out. No one here is trying to outlaw Copyright, which is the mechanism that lets companies do as OP says; limit you from downloading their data. Data sovereignty is not at all related to streaming movies or music and this comment confuses people who are curious to what the effort really is about.
    - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
      Copyright regulates distribution, not consumption. What people mean by "own" is to own a digital file of the content that can be viewed at any time, anywhere, as long as the onus on keeping backups/moving the file around is on the consumer.
      - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
        If I share a private picture with you by showing you the image on my phone, do you now have a legal right to force me to give you a copy of that picture?
        EMIRELADERO 3y ago
        No. That's not an accurate analogy however.
  - biogene 3y ago
    Legally speaking, unless you have a work-for-hire type contract with the artist, you don't have an ownership claim. You purchased a digital 'ticket' that lets you view the artwork according to someone else's terms and conditions.
- bobbruno 3y ago
  While your point is valid, we’ve had (maybe for lack of a feasible alternative, but still), for many decades, the option to purchase a physical copy of media that was under our sole control and available for as long as the media itself lasted. We still have these options, but there is a clear preference of companies to sell a “subscription”, where our access to the content can be removed due to reasons completely out of our control. I can see a possible future where actually purchasing a permanent, non-revocable access to some content will not be an option anymore. When you consider the practices that some of these companies have, of “vaulting” content or removing access to it due to cost or tax reasons, I am not so much in favor of laws that protect their IP or copyright anymore. At least, not unconditionally.
  - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
    The problem you talk about is real, for sure. But it is nothing to do with owning _your data._ Your problem is much more aligned with right to repair rather than data ownership/privacy efforts. It’s important that people know what they’re advocating for and understand the fundamentals of what the problem is. Confusing this problem with another problem only muddies the conversation and gets nothing done.
- GenericDev 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Yikes. We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. We're trying for something different here. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
pjerem 3y ago
To be honest, I’m more and more going back to piracy for this exact reason. Most of the time, it’s the only option to truly own an unlocked sequence of bytes in a standard format. It’s such a shame. I’d gladly pay for movies if they gave you some DRM free file but as afaik, this still doesn’t exists.
biogene 3y ago
Digital media goods are more akin to buying tickets, rather than actual albums. We always had subscriptions for stuff like TV, so I don't know what the erosion is here. Even today, you have options for entertainment that don't involve a subscription. Anyway, as far as s/w is concerned the problem is not subscriptions, I believe its the symptom. The root cause is the lack of a sustainable model to fund mainstream/retail software development. You can find small/medium businesses that don't sell subscriptions, but for e.g. there is no counter to companies like Adobe. Devs want to work for "successful" software companies with high-pay, perks and benefits, and all "successful" software companies sell subscriptions.
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago
  > Digital media goods are more akin to buying tickets, rather than actual albums. We always had subscriptions for stuff like TV, so I don't know what the erosion is here. Even today, you have options for entertainment that don't involve a subscription. The point of contention is that people want to own digital files of the content they pay for. It's as simple as that. They don't want to be subject to any licensing terms besides the limits that are natively placed upon them by copyright law itself.
  - biogene 3y ago
    I agree about the contention, the counter point that I'm making is that nothing has changed or eroded. I believe that art works can have ownership claims, and that intellectual property is real. Assuming a work-for-hire type contract, you own the stuff you paid someone to create. Then YOU can do whatever you want with it including licensing it or selling digital tickets or copying it to a thousand different devices or distributing it for free.
    - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
      I don't think that people who complain about those things are saying IP isn't "real" or that they should get free media. Their (and my) point is that the practice of trying to put DRM (and licensing terms in general) into consumer products and IP goods that are meant to be experienced/viewed is a predatory and unethical practice. Copyright law allows for a balanced level of control over the works at issue, but the companies want more than that so they lock them behind contracts of dubious enforceability and essentially try to remove the rights consumers traditionally held over copies of media they purchased. Whether they can legally do it is a currently pending issue (see Andino v. Apple) but the main point is that even if they could, it's still wrong. Might doesn't make right.
nuancebydefault 3y ago
I find owning a copy of something a bit rediculous. When I watch a film or listen to a song, I would be glad to pay a small fee for the entertainment, rather than paying for the full rights of the film or song, which could be a million times more expensive. Compare it to going to a theatre. Owning a dvd, blue ray or cd does not bring joy, only more stuff that at some point in time would get thrashed.
- bobbruno 3y ago
  As the owner of a collection of over 1K CDs and several hundred DVDs and Blu-ray, I find that your last sentence should be expressed as your opinion, not fact. Particularly because you started the paragraph with “I find”, and then switched to not using it.
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    First of all apologies. Indeed the I find should have been repeated. Also, people collect a lot of different things and I shouldn't be judgemental about other people's hobby's.
atomicUpdate 3y ago
This comment isn’t related to what the article is talking about at all. They aren’t referring to data you’re “purchasing”, but data you’re generating. You can still purchase physical media and do what you want with it, within reason. The cheaper option is to stream it, but you lose owning it forever as a compromise. This seems like an option most people enjoy having, due to the popularity of Netflix and Spotify.
thedaly 3y ago
How can I drive in a car without having my data about my sex life sold to the highest bidder? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644

andrewxdiamond 3y ago

Ironicly everything you’ve listed here is an example of companies expressing their rights to control their data. You don’t own music or movies, they aren’t your data. Data rights are for data about you and your behavior. If you retained copyright over all the data you produce by existing, you would be on the same level as companies today

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Except when you've paid for it? Then it's your data. This is not rocket science.
- andrewxdiamond 3y ago
  You didn’t pay for the right to own those movies, you paid a small fee for a license to consume their data within the bounds of the contract they laid out. No one here is trying to outlaw Copyright, which is the mechanism that lets companies do as OP says; limit you from downloading their data. Data sovereignty is not at all related to streaming movies or music and this comment confuses people who are curious to what the effort really is about.
  - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
    Copyright regulates distribution, not consumption. What people mean by "own" is to own a digital file of the content that can be viewed at any time, anywhere, as long as the onus on keeping backups/moving the file around is on the consumer.
    - andrewxdiamond 3y ago
      If I share a private picture with you by showing you the image on my phone, do you now have a legal right to force me to give you a copy of that picture?
      - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
        No. That's not an accurate analogy however.
- biogene 3y ago
  Legally speaking, unless you have a work-for-hire type contract with the artist, you don't have an ownership claim. You purchased a digital 'ticket' that lets you view the artwork according to someone else's terms and conditions.
bobbruno 3y ago
While your point is valid, we’ve had (maybe for lack of a feasible alternative, but still), for many decades, the option to purchase a physical copy of media that was under our sole control and available for as long as the media itself lasted. We still have these options, but there is a clear preference of companies to sell a “subscription”, where our access to the content can be removed due to reasons completely out of our control. I can see a possible future where actually purchasing a permanent, non-revocable access to some content will not be an option anymore. When you consider the practices that some of these companies have, of “vaulting” content or removing access to it due to cost or tax reasons, I am not so much in favor of laws that protect their IP or copyright anymore. At least, not unconditionally.
- andrewxdiamond 3y ago
  The problem you talk about is real, for sure. But it is nothing to do with owning _your data._ Your problem is much more aligned with right to repair rather than data ownership/privacy efforts. It’s important that people know what they’re advocating for and understand the fundamentals of what the problem is. Confusing this problem with another problem only muddies the conversation and gets nothing done.
GenericDev 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Yikes. We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. We're trying for something different here. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

pjerem 3y ago

To be honest, I’m more and more going back to piracy for this exact reason. Most of the time, it’s the only option to truly own an unlocked sequence of bytes in a standard format. It’s such a shame. I’d gladly pay for movies if they gave you some DRM free file but as afaik, this still doesn’t exists.

biogene 3y ago

Digital media goods are more akin to buying tickets, rather than actual albums. We always had subscriptions for stuff like TV, so I don't know what the erosion is here. Even today, you have options for entertainment that don't involve a subscription. Anyway, as far as s/w is concerned the problem is not subscriptions, I believe its the symptom. The root cause is the lack of a sustainable model to fund mainstream/retail software development. You can find small/medium businesses that don't sell subscriptions, but for e.g. there is no counter to companies like Adobe. Devs want to work for "successful" software companies with high-pay, perks and benefits, and all "successful" software companies sell subscriptions.

EMIRELADERO 3y ago
> Digital media goods are more akin to buying tickets, rather than actual albums. We always had subscriptions for stuff like TV, so I don't know what the erosion is here. Even today, you have options for entertainment that don't involve a subscription. The point of contention is that people want to own digital files of the content they pay for. It's as simple as that. They don't want to be subject to any licensing terms besides the limits that are natively placed upon them by copyright law itself.
- biogene 3y ago
  I agree about the contention, the counter point that I'm making is that nothing has changed or eroded. I believe that art works can have ownership claims, and that intellectual property is real. Assuming a work-for-hire type contract, you own the stuff you paid someone to create. Then YOU can do whatever you want with it including licensing it or selling digital tickets or copying it to a thousand different devices or distributing it for free.
  - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
    I don't think that people who complain about those things are saying IP isn't "real" or that they should get free media. Their (and my) point is that the practice of trying to put DRM (and licensing terms in general) into consumer products and IP goods that are meant to be experienced/viewed is a predatory and unethical practice. Copyright law allows for a balanced level of control over the works at issue, but the companies want more than that so they lock them behind contracts of dubious enforceability and essentially try to remove the rights consumers traditionally held over copies of media they purchased. Whether they can legally do it is a currently pending issue (see Andino v. Apple) but the main point is that even if they could, it's still wrong. Might doesn't make right.

nuancebydefault 3y ago

I find owning a copy of something a bit rediculous. When I watch a film or listen to a song, I would be glad to pay a small fee for the entertainment, rather than paying for the full rights of the film or song, which could be a million times more expensive. Compare it to going to a theatre. Owning a dvd, blue ray or cd does not bring joy, only more stuff that at some point in time would get thrashed.

bobbruno 3y ago
As the owner of a collection of over 1K CDs and several hundred DVDs and Blu-ray, I find that your last sentence should be expressed as your opinion, not fact. Particularly because you started the paragraph with “I find”, and then switched to not using it.
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  First of all apologies. Indeed the I find should have been repeated. Also, people collect a lot of different things and I shouldn't be judgemental about other people's hobby's.

atomicUpdate 3y ago

This comment isn’t related to what the article is talking about at all. They aren’t referring to data you’re “purchasing”, but data you’re generating. You can still purchase physical media and do what you want with it, within reason. The cheaper option is to stream it, but you lose owning it forever as a compromise. This seems like an option most people enjoy having, due to the popularity of Netflix and Spotify.

thedaly 3y ago

How can I drive in a car without having my data about my sex life sold to the highest bidder? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443644