The History and Future of Digital Ownership
The History and Future of Digital Ownership
Time to buy physical games again?
I'd like to get the community's feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we're really doing is purchasing a "license" to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.
Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn't the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?
P.S. I know there's pirating and all, but that's not the focus of my question.
I just bought a taylor swift album and it gave me a zip file full of mp3s (wow).
Damn least they could do is give you FLAC…even Bandcamp does that
I have my home server backing up my whole GOG library.
What do you use for automating the backups?
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned this but a lot of physical discs nowadays are nothing more than glorified license checks, especially with games. Even buying the physical version does not guarantee you safety from these problems.
Also related is the fact that DVDs and Blu-rays can be region locked. Years ago I bought media from another region as it wasn’t available in my region yet, happily played it on my PC but later when I went to play it in my PlayStation, nope! Even when there was media, they tried to artificially restrict usage.
Piracy will always win whether corporations like it or not. I'll always try and buy physical copies of games. But movies and TV shows need to be on my hard drive if the price isn't right for a physical copy.
I have my fair share of streaming services. Peacock for WWE, prime video well cause of Amazon prime. But if I do wanna watch a movie or show, then I will have to sail the high seas.
Expect, there is no future in digital ownership.
You will own nothing and you WILL be happy.
That's cool, I just won't buy anything then.
Let's not forget that this is just as much Discoverys fault as Sony
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Affected users who may have spent years building a robust digital library were suddenly left without access to content they had bought through no fault of their own.
Even though downloading and accessing digital content is often easier than trudging to a retail store to buy a physical copy of a game, you’re putting your faith in the platform holders to maintain their digital storefronts, the content on those storefronts, and their account systems so that your access keeps working.
The recent closure of Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS eShops was a stark reminder that companies have the power to decide when you can buy digital content.
While you can still redownload Wii U and 3DS games that you’ve purchased, it seems inevitable that Nintendo will stop letting you do that one day.
And Sony isn’t offering any compensation for titles you’ve already bought or a way to transfer those purchases to another store.
The PlayStation account bans were as swift as they were unexpected, and while resolution for most arrived within a few hours, Sony still hasn’t shared any public communication about what happened or why users should continue to trust the platform.
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Digital media means that there is an ongoing service behind it. The servers use energy. The parts age and break. It requires a continuing feed of labor and resources to keep going.
Imagine a streaming service that is all based on buying media, instead of subscription or renting. Then suppose all the customers somehow decide that the media they own are enough for now (maybe because money is tight, because inflation). With no more cash coming in, the service goes bankrupt.
In principle, you could have a type of license that allows you to get a new copy in any way you can (torrent, etc.). That would be hard to police, though.
FWIW, owning a physical copy isn't all that, either. There are various ways built-in to make life harder for customers, like geo-blocking. Bypassing these tends to be a criminal offense.
And yet, somehow, GOG and Itch still exist, allowing you to download games completely DRM-free, as often as you like. If they ever go out of business, you can still use your local copies forever.
How do they do it? A mystery...
That takes a lot less bandwidth than streaming. All business have fixed costs. Blockbuster Video had to pay rent for physical stores, for example. Delivering via the net is relatively cheap compared to stores or physical postage. I'd be surprised if GOG's cost aren't much lower than anything physical.
Bypassing these tends to be a criminal offense.
lol no, nobody is in jail for ripping their stuff or even straight up torrenting it.
Digital media means that there is an ongoing service behind it.
I could download my file and be done with it. If I throw away or damage my super fragile bluray I'm not entitled to a new copy. I don't even need to be able to redownload (although it's a nice service). It means there is an ongoing service behind it because they decide it and because they are afraid I will share with my friends - which is about as difficult as finding the media elsewhere online.
With no more cash coming in, the service goes bankrupt.
Same issue with physical media. Suddenly your expensive factory is idle, your employees don't produce anything. We still get to buy movies and not rent them perpetually.
I could download my file and be done with it.
That's true, but that's kinda delivering a physical copy via the net, and you pay the storage medium. I understood OP as talking specifically about online "property".
Thank you! Lemmy seems to believe everything digital is free forever. There are real costs associated with maintaining infrastructure.
Having said that, I pay Google $100/yr. for 2TB of storage. I steal all my media and place it there. Local backups as well, of course.
Y'all do whatever works for you, but don't whine when these companies drop "your" media.
There’s a case to be made about “buying” digital media and being able to keep the file in your local storage, that way it wouldn’t cost anything to the publisher when you play the content.
I understand the piracy implications, but most of the content is pirated anyway regardless of DRM, so the only ones affected are those who actually pay for content.
Thank you! Lemmy seems to believe everything digital is free forever. There are real costs associated with maintaining infrastructure.
then dont fucking call it "buying"
"Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn't the same as purchasing and owning the physical media?"
Because Sony doesn't have the right to permanently sell you the content, that can only be done by the original rights holder.
So when Sony "sold" people every season of Mythbusters, they were limited by their contract witb Discovery. Once Discovery altered that contract, it becomes illegal for Sony to keep distributing it.
For physical sales, there's the "First Sale Doctrine":
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
Rights holder produces physical product. Books, movies, games, whatever. Bulk sells them to distributors, who then have the right to sell it to retailers, who then have the right to sell to you, the general public.
And then you have the right to do with it whatever you want.
There is no digital first sale doctrine.
Im gonna use a bad word, but NFTs would help with this issue
True digital ownership thats censor proof is pretty legit imo
Nfts don't give you ownership over anything but the nft itself. Everything else is a license system that says, "You can have this because you have an nft," you know, the exact same system we have now but will more bullshit .
Or just let us download the actual game/movie/song like the good old days.