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‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services

*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be able to access the films and TV shows they had bought. *

ipkpjersi ,

That's why I'm always interested in self-hosting. I have my own Plex and Jellyfin seedbox server for the private trackers I'm in, with a VPS hosting an OpenVPN to make it look like I'm in a different country, just to make it that much safer. It works damn well.

UncleGrandPa ,

More and more it is becoming a good idea to store things on your own private equipment. If we don't demand ownership of our own possessions we will soon own nothing

duffman ,

Don't disagree but surely it's not impossible to add some regulations to protect the consumers here.

Vendetta9076 ,
@Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works avatar

While possible, by the time it comes around it'll be too late.

krush_groove ,

Legislation is always years behind tech.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot ,

Which means it's just about due.

StaySquared ,

Just another victim of WEF.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

My whole library is wipped out

I assumed this was about an actual library and not some shmuck who got suckered into a thinly veiled rental service.

unreasonabro ,

The idea that you could trust a corporation, any corporation, at its word is laughable on its face, and yet the courts have been relying on them to "follow the rules" unsupervised for years. Now capitalism doesn't make anything that isn't designed as a piece of shit that falls apart, and everything is a lie that they're also making money from, from plastics recycling (not real and they make money on the chemicals they sell to the recycling industry) to the content you make that they get paid for and you don't.

The whole thing needs to go, all of it.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

The idea that you could trust a corporation, any corporation, at its word is laughable on its face

We're surrounded by corporate entities all trying to leech profit out of us.

It's less a question of trust and more of information alternatives. When all you can hear is the din of advertisement, it's difficult to chart a path through the racket.

You're bound to get suckered by someone, eventually.

GenderNeutralBro ,

Even if they were trustworthy, nothing lasts forever.

Does anyone seriously think Google Play Movies or whatever they call it is going to be around in 50 years? Audible? Spotify?

Unlikely.

I grew up with access to books that were printed before my parents were even born. I doubt your grandkids will be able to say the same. Not if you buy into DRM-infected ecosystems and vendor lock-in, anyway.

The only consolation is that pirates are always one step ahead. But I wouldn't want to count on that remaining true in 50 years either.

Treczoks ,

You don't own anything that is not on your own system and/or without any DRM.

Shadowq8 ,

You will own nothing and be happy.

This is why sites like lemmy are important.

We need to put an end to corporate tyranny.

Humans in power are too egocentric to not be kept in check.

barsquid ,

Corporations had already proven they cannot be trusted with any long-term leasing or subscription long before they started passing that phrase around.

mPony ,

Corporations have also already proved very difficult to actually hold to account. They can basically do as they please, with relative disregard for any consumer protections that may already exist. It's not good, but it can get worse.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

You will own nothing and be happy.

Unironically the future of capitalism, as it devolves into feudalism with more killer robots.

You've got the CEO (Absolute Monarch) who owns all the shit and you work on it in exchange for not being killed or deported. Maybe you get some treats from time to time. More likely, you just get someone from the PMC to tell you to pray more.

Humans in power are too egocentric to not be kept in check.

A handful of humans with the power to deliver unlimited genocide on their neighbors are hard to keep in check.

ipkpjersi ,

Yep, we are what make these sites important.

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

She later said Telstra had contacted her and offered a free Fetch box, which she acknowledged was a “reasonable resolution”.

And we have learned exactly nothing here. See you in 2 years when Fetch closes down and you are not getting anything back because you actually did not "buy" those movies on Fetch but on the previous platform.

CaptKoala ,

Yep, assuming this new service lasts that long. Could be a year or less.

kureta ,

Stop trying to make fetch happen!

Neosnc ,

It’s not going to happen!

Aarkon ,

Well, that or go to court for a movie collection. I'd phrase my statement differently, but I can see the appeal of the settlement.

MonkderDritte ,

"buy"

NickwithaC ,
@NickwithaC@lemmy.world avatar

"own"

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

"piracy"

... Wait, no. Piracy is the answer!

MapleEngineer ,
@MapleEngineer@lemmy.world avatar

I download or capture everything I pay for. I paid for it, it's mine.

JackbyDev ,

I need to look into capturing. Feels like a nice middle ground.

experbia ,
@experbia@lemmy.world avatar

same. I buy a lot of software/games and media/music/movies, and before I buy I always make sure I can pirate it down the road if I need to. if I can't, I reconsider how much I need it. I'll switch to my pirated copy at the drop of a hat without a drop of guilt. if it has annoying or unperformant drm? it makes me sign up for an account to use my paid software on my own computer? its servers go down and it won't boot? switched.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

I'm finding it hard to feel any kind of sympathy for someone who thinks they have rights to permanent access on any sort of streaming service.

I say that fully cognisant normies don't spend much time thinking about where there data is and who has the right to it. I just don't think many people would think of movies they've watched on their "telstra TV Box Office" as being in "their' library.

That said, self hosting movies isn't for me. For many people it might be. In my case it just doesn't make any sense to have a server with all the tb. I was catch & release torrenting for several years but more recently stremio. Without any doubt stremio has been the most convenient.

venoft ,
@venoft@lemmy.world avatar

Iew, using the word normies seriously makes you sound like an incel.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Calling people incels makes you sound childish.

Don't make me tell your mother what you said.

KillingTimeItself ,

it feels good to host a media server.

It's also a fucking nightmare when shit explodes, but damn do i feel good in every other instance.

GBU_28 ,

"I grew my garden on my neighbor's lawn, and he mowed it over! I bought those plants!"

Meuzzin ,

*Arr Suite, QBT, and a Jellyfin Server. Done and done. There are scripts to set it all up in less than 30 seconds...

GuillaumeGus ,

Where, I'd like to know where there are trusted scripts.

Meuzzin ,

A simple web search reveals 3 such open-source scripts as the first results. Here's one: https://github.com/RandomNinjaAtk/arr-scripts

umami_wasbi ,

Don't use scripts unless you know how it works otherwise you will have trouble troubleshooting when something doesn't work. But by the time you read and understand how the script works, you already learn how to deploy it manually.

Meuzzin ,

This!

mfat ,

Which scripts?

Meuzzin ,

Here's a sample, but there are numerous open source scripts, depending on what you want, on git: https://github.com/RandomNinjaAtk/arr-scripts

rambos ,

No scripts and it was more like 30 hours on my side, but its worth!

_number8_ ,

i tried to get into streaming but i grew increasingly uncomfortable with paying forever as titles appear and disappear at the whim of suits. how could that possibly be a pleasant UX for customers?

i'd take the hassle of having discs or managing a server any day of the week over paying these goons for access to their files which they happily negotiate away for financial reasons. it's just a disgusting paradigm. when netflix was starting streaming, i thought (i was like 15) we were emerging into a great new age, where every show you could ever want was on one beautiful service.

now they won't even let you share accounts or screenshot the fucking show (a pig-headed anti-piracy measure which is mind-blowingly stupid given every single show on there is available for free if you know where to look ANYWAY. what are they DOING.)

fuck streaming, fuck netflix, fuck spotify. crash and burn. topple like the house of cards you are.

DeltaTangoLima ,
@DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com avatar

increasingly uncomfortable with paying forever

And paying more and more as time goes on. The thing that shits me the most is the increased prices but decreased range/quality of content. That's clearly not a business model aimed at customer satisfaction.

whereisk ,

All business models are aimed at company profitability. Customer satisfaction is an expensive early necessity which you can largely do away with as you become entrenched.

jeena ,
@jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

I never watch the same movie/TV show more than once, so I don't see a point in hording this data. So for me the UX of streaming is most of the time preferrable than having a physical media which I need to carry to the new appartment every time I move.

This is different with music, where I listen to the same Albums hundrets of times. There I can deal with vinyl and many files on my computer.

barsquid ,

Streaming was great when it was just Netflix and had a ton of content. Now it is just cable TV on demand.

RaoulDook ,

Streaming in general is great. Streaming services are a mixed bag of results, but overall our options are excellent at this point in time. You can have streaming services with no contract, pay for one month and abandon it if you don't like it. There are also numerous FREE streaming services with lots of great content.

It's important to understand the above in the context of how it used to be before Streaming was an option. There was basically only the option to have a cable or satellite TV on contract, or use OTA antenna TV, or watch everything on disc / tape. So yeah I think streaming is great.

Having said all that, I buy anything I want to keep perpetually on disc. 4k Blu-ray for movies and CDs for music (I bought 3 albums on CD over the last couple weeks). Games don't fit on discs anymore so I try to get stuff on GOG when it works out.

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