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Second Hand Sales of Intellectual Property Do Not Make Sense
electricitylikesme
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The premise is the topic line: I don't think second-hand sales of intellectual property licenses make sense, and I don't think we as a society have the appropriate legal structures to properly recognize it.
As it is today, we essentially have a corporate driven "have your cake and eat it too" situation that is extremely anti-consumer. It has been successfully argued that intellectual property is somehow kind of like physical property, but not really essentially at the whim of corporate lobbying for convenience. Second hand sales are a quirk but one that is being attempted to be killed off in every arena (Steam, Tesla resale policy, streaming services etc.)
There are 2 parties being negatively affected by the current situation: users, and content creators - and realistically the solution should benefit both.
For users, the issue is that we are being exploited for more money, and then encouraged to do things which also deny content creators money to support the content (while allowing an uninvolved middle man to take potentially more aggregate profit then the creator). This is a negative for the user - when I buy something I should have a reasonable expectation that I'm supporting it's creation and availability, but this is not always the case. An example of this in perfect failure is a service like Spotify, which can arguably work out worse for music artist's on it then straight up piracy, since it creates the legal facade of fair trade while delivering most of the revenue to Spotify and not the artist.
Then there's what I would handily call "the install disk" issue - exemplified by Microsoft operating systems to do this day: you buy a computer which comes with a Windows license. You have the key and an identifier for it. You lose the OS install disk, but that's find, it's easily replicated digital content. Something in the OS then pops up a prompt to insert the install disk to continue - but you don't have it.
Until very recently, and even today, this results in the mad scramble to find a usable install disk. To this day, the system is still essentially primed to try and not let you have one - despite holding a provable identifier of a right to the license. And it is considered an acceptable user remedy to simply declare "well, buy another one at full price to get the actual content".
This is the corporate influence: it's intellectual property until there's a chokepoint in physical distribution, then conveniently it's all about the physical artifact.
I've already addressed the content creator issues loosely: but the issue is essentially, digital information - not representing a physical artifact, but instead a sensorium experience assembled by a content creator, isn't a limited distribution physical artifact that provides an ongoing function, but rather is the experience - and that is one which reasonably should be sold and distributed to individuals. Within this context then, how can a second hand sale make sense? I'm not removing or denying myself the memories and personality influence the original experience provided, I am at most removing my access to a trigger to remind myself of it.
This is, admittedly, an extremely complex concept to legally define but we have to be able to do better then we do: in the distribution of the digital data, there's obviously the cost of distribution - but BitTorrent and piracy pretty much shows us that's minimal - but there is obviously some reasonable exchange between the "experience" value to the user, and the "replay" value to the user in retaining access to the source material. Transferring source material access to another user, should, reasonably, result in a transfer of the "experience" value back to the content creator.
As a note: this is not an untested idea. Australia passed laws relating to the sale of art pieces at auction that did require a part of the sale price to be transferred back to the original artist, as a form of essentially social stabilizer: if art has a recognized value, then it's accumulation in value must in part recognize the contribution of the artist to that process - since no arbitrary art piece should increase in value without contribution (the use of the whole thing as a tax dodge notwithstanding).
So, my conclusions? If you're selling anything which attaches a EULA or other licensing agreement, then you're into the intellectual policy licensing domain - and this should activate special provisions and requirements. Specifically license holders should have an absolute right to access: digital media should be required to be available, and in the event of bankruptcy communicated in a usable form to the government for ongoing access. Owning a licensable IP that includes this component means you own the responsibility to make it available to license holders, and must do so on pain of having it removed into the public domain.
I'm less certain how to break down the "experience" vs. "replay" component - the distinction favors creators calling the entire thing "experience" and the "replay" worth nothing - how to make that distinction such that a 0 valued "replay" component has a counter-pressure is unclear, though possibly simply allowing the market to solve it would work - after all, forcing everyone to go full price on license transfer disincentivizes license-transfer and may kill overall profit. I do think that you shouldn't be allowed to revise that split after the fact.
As for distribution charges? This one's tricky: the big goal is to make it so that content-creators are compensated when license transfer happens for the "experience" component of the resale. Distribution should be compensated, but since we're acknowledging in this framework that it's all just digital bits, prohibitive distribution costs need to be addressed. Possibly this is solved as a part of the public domain threat: if you own IP proprietarily, then either you believe it's profitable and distribute it, or you don't, but then we put it public domain promptly if you just don't want to sell it (and watch as Bittorrent solves the problem for everyone).
The punchline of all of this does look a little anti-consumer, but we're so close to that situation today in a bad way that it's indistinguishable: selling the disk of something to a friend for $20 cash is a transaction that shouldn't happen. But selling the license to a friend for $20 total valuation, with an "experience" valuation kicked back to content creators can help stimulate a healthy marketplace for everyone. This example of course does raise another discussable topic: how to ensure fair pricing on initial valuations and avoid the "it was $0 guys" obvious scam.
tl;dr Second hand sales of intellectual property don't really make sense, this is bad for everyone important in the process and is mostly a state of affairs being continued to the benefit of corporations with political access. Legal solutions are needed.
As it is today, we essentially have a corporate driven "have your cake and eat it too" situation that is extremely anti-consumer. It has been successfully argued that intellectual property is somehow kind of like physical property, but not really essentially at the whim of corporate lobbying for convenience. Second hand sales are a quirk but one that is being attempted to be killed off in every arena (Steam, Tesla resale policy, streaming services etc.)
There are 2 parties being negatively affected by the current situation: users, and content creators - and realistically the solution should benefit both.
For users, the issue is that we are being exploited for more money, and then encouraged to do things which also deny content creators money to support the content (while allowing an uninvolved middle man to take potentially more aggregate profit then the creator). This is a negative for the user - when I buy something I should have a reasonable expectation that I'm supporting it's creation and availability, but this is not always the case. An example of this in perfect failure is a service like Spotify, which can arguably work out worse for music artist's on it then straight up piracy, since it creates the legal facade of fair trade while delivering most of the revenue to Spotify and not the artist.
Then there's what I would handily call "the install disk" issue - exemplified by Microsoft operating systems to do this day: you buy a computer which comes with a Windows license. You have the key and an identifier for it. You lose the OS install disk, but that's find, it's easily replicated digital content. Something in the OS then pops up a prompt to insert the install disk to continue - but you don't have it.
Until very recently, and even today, this results in the mad scramble to find a usable install disk. To this day, the system is still essentially primed to try and not let you have one - despite holding a provable identifier of a right to the license. And it is considered an acceptable user remedy to simply declare "well, buy another one at full price to get the actual content".
This is the corporate influence: it's intellectual property until there's a chokepoint in physical distribution, then conveniently it's all about the physical artifact.
I've already addressed the content creator issues loosely: but the issue is essentially, digital information - not representing a physical artifact, but instead a sensorium experience assembled by a content creator, isn't a limited distribution physical artifact that provides an ongoing function, but rather is the experience - and that is one which reasonably should be sold and distributed to individuals. Within this context then, how can a second hand sale make sense? I'm not removing or denying myself the memories and personality influence the original experience provided, I am at most removing my access to a trigger to remind myself of it.
This is, admittedly, an extremely complex concept to legally define but we have to be able to do better then we do: in the distribution of the digital data, there's obviously the cost of distribution - but BitTorrent and piracy pretty much shows us that's minimal - but there is obviously some reasonable exchange between the "experience" value to the user, and the "replay" value to the user in retaining access to the source material. Transferring source material access to another user, should, reasonably, result in a transfer of the "experience" value back to the content creator.
As a note: this is not an untested idea. Australia passed laws relating to the sale of art pieces at auction that did require a part of the sale price to be transferred back to the original artist, as a form of essentially social stabilizer: if art has a recognized value, then it's accumulation in value must in part recognize the contribution of the artist to that process - since no arbitrary art piece should increase in value without contribution (the use of the whole thing as a tax dodge notwithstanding).
So, my conclusions? If you're selling anything which attaches a EULA or other licensing agreement, then you're into the intellectual policy licensing domain - and this should activate special provisions and requirements. Specifically license holders should have an absolute right to access: digital media should be required to be available, and in the event of bankruptcy communicated in a usable form to the government for ongoing access. Owning a licensable IP that includes this component means you own the responsibility to make it available to license holders, and must do so on pain of having it removed into the public domain.
I'm less certain how to break down the "experience" vs. "replay" component - the distinction favors creators calling the entire thing "experience" and the "replay" worth nothing - how to make that distinction such that a 0 valued "replay" component has a counter-pressure is unclear, though possibly simply allowing the market to solve it would work - after all, forcing everyone to go full price on license transfer disincentivizes license-transfer and may kill overall profit. I do think that you shouldn't be allowed to revise that split after the fact.
As for distribution charges? This one's tricky: the big goal is to make it so that content-creators are compensated when license transfer happens for the "experience" component of the resale. Distribution should be compensated, but since we're acknowledging in this framework that it's all just digital bits, prohibitive distribution costs need to be addressed. Possibly this is solved as a part of the public domain threat: if you own IP proprietarily, then either you believe it's profitable and distribute it, or you don't, but then we put it public domain promptly if you just don't want to sell it (and watch as Bittorrent solves the problem for everyone).
The punchline of all of this does look a little anti-consumer, but we're so close to that situation today in a bad way that it's indistinguishable: selling the disk of something to a friend for $20 cash is a transaction that shouldn't happen. But selling the license to a friend for $20 total valuation, with an "experience" valuation kicked back to content creators can help stimulate a healthy marketplace for everyone. This example of course does raise another discussable topic: how to ensure fair pricing on initial valuations and avoid the "it was $0 guys" obvious scam.
tl;dr Second hand sales of intellectual property don't really make sense, this is bad for everyone important in the process and is mostly a state of affairs being continued to the benefit of corporations with political access. Legal solutions are needed.
+5
Posts
I don't think there's any need to do anything about combination physical media+licenses, such as Windows keys. Having a product that contains multiple items, each that are useless without the other, are as old as shoes. The issue comes when the producer puts onerous restrictions on the license, such as preventing resale, and that can be directly banned without needing to do anything about this as a concept. That should eliminate 99% of the bullshit reasons to be doing this.
As for making sure the original content creators get paid? Well, in Steam, I can buy and sell trading cards and in-game digital items. When I do so, Valve takes a cut, as does whoever put the game on Steam. I assume that if used games were added to Steam, they would use exactly the same setup. I could sell a game directly through Steam, and both Valve and the (publisher, most likely) would take a cut. (Even if I could buy and sell outside of Steam, that would be annoying.) No need for legislation to make this work right, just good-old-fashioned laziness and walled gardens.
I think the bigger problem is credit card fraud, where people purchase IP with stolen credit cards and then onsell the IP before the initial transaction is reversed.
I believe this is why we can't gift tradable redeemable game vouchers on Steam anymore.
.. you could do this with in-game items as well, although that would have to be outside the Steam marketplace, as that only pays out in store money.
Digital media distribution has made it so that the actual property of what you own that way is essentially meaningless. It makes some sense to say that you own something like a chair, but how can you claim possession of something that you can throw away and then get back and then throw away again without any permanent consequences whatsoever?
Viewing digital media as a contract between the provider and the customer granting the customer indefinite access and use is the only way to represent digital ownership that makes sense to me. And in that case, the contract being automatically transferable to other parties isn't an obvious requirement. There are certainly legal advantages to making it that way for both the provider and the customer, but that doesn't mean that they should actually be regarded as property.
Not obvious, no, which is why this will probably require legislation. Requiring right of first sale for digital goods would exist as consumer protection, not as some inherent human right.
---
Another consideration here is the rise of streaming completely removing "ownership" as a concept. The latest Netflix show (probably) won't get a DVD release; your only option to view it is to have an active Netflix subscription. Music streaming is at the point where the ability to buy the music still exists mostly because the record companies can't stop Spotify from streaming music for pennies. (Otherwise they would be pulling a Netflix.) Between Stadia-style streaming and EA Origin-style subscription services for games, there's a possibility that buying a license to use the latest AAA game might not even be an option at some point. (You can't even pirate it because it's using streaming. The exe never even makes it to your computer.)
This is a problem, both from a consumer rights perspective, and for preservation of culture, and I'm not sure how to even start fixing it. A law that would require Netflix to release a DVD set of their latest series seems dubious for multiple reasons, and doing that for games would be even worse for technical reasons.
There is no universally right answer here to if you should be allowed to copy that novel and sell it in this fashion. Laws don't exist yet to decide that, and there are plenty of arguments on both sides making reasonable points. The question it comes down to is who is more worth granting legal rights to, the content creator or the consumer. By granting it to the consumer you have greater freedom as an individual, but you also make it far more difficult for individuals to create content on their own as small creators are the ones who ultimately can't succeed without going to the huge publishing companies that create the problems with media in the first place. If you grant it to the content creators, nominally smaller creators have a bit stronger a way to produce content and ensure they keep getting fairly compensated for their work, but at the same time those very bad publishing companies have more tools to be dicks all around.
Art and media will still be created in either way, and people will find ways to keep their content and resell it on the fringe in either way. The question for litigation is ultimately who is more worth protecting. I think most people will lean toward their own experiences on which side they fall. People who have been content creators and felt the burn of reselling on their hard work will say content creators. People who have been burned by the big media companies removing things they have owned will say consumers. Both are right.
I've had digital content I've made and sold purchased by someone and then taken and resold dozens of times by 2nd parties on certain D&D platforms, which cost me probably ~$200 in sales over a year before I got it taken back down by the host. I fall under content creators, as that meant a lot to me at the time, even if the amount was trivial in the long run. The experience led me to stop making D&D content commercially and now I only do personal commissions for individuals because of it. Before I was producing 20-30 products a season. There is a chilling effect there, and if I was unlucky enough to not have other revenue streams or risky enough to go all in on digital art as my day job it would have been crippling.
Before the transfer of the license, an owner has entered into a contract with an original customer obligating them to offer the digital media and/or the necessary means to access it to that original customer on demand. There's also another person who might not have any existing contractual relationship with the owner.
As part of the transfer itself, the original customer notifies the owner that they're transferring their license to that other person (requiring content owners to honor transfers that they weren't directly notified about would be an utter mess). The owner has no legal ability to dispute this transfer (other than for reasonable things like concern about fraud). The original customer themselves does not have to directly transfer any property to the other person, but they have to stop accessing anything they've already downloaded.
After the transfer of the license, the owner is now in a contract with the second person obligating them to offer the digital media to that person on demand. They now have no contractual obligation to the original customer.
I have no further analysis on this that I want to make immediately, I just want to be sure that there are no issues with what I'm stating.
None of this "we reserve the right to change the contact without telling you" or "we won't tell you the contract before you buy" garbage.
It is legal in the US to rent movies, but not music. Why? Because it's much easier to copy a tape or CD than a movie. Both are experiences contained within a disc, but the laws covering them are different depending on the type of experience contained. This is not some fundamental abridgement of rights, it's just that the pro/cons of allowing movie rental are different from those for allowing music rental. (Or less charitably, the RIAA bought the right politicians.)
Where does this lead me? This isn't about fundamental rights, and it never was. Different types of experience and different distribution methods require different rules, which should balance consumer rights with producer rights. And, quite frankly, the ease of duplication should be core to this kind of rule-making. If I buy a MP3 off of a music store, I shouldn't expect to be able to sell my license to listen to that music to someone else, because the store can't force me to delete the MP3. Movies (where "buying" a digital copy basically marks it as "allowed to stream" in an account), and games (where there's probably some form of DRM) are a different story, where there is some form of difficulty associated with making an unprotected copy.
A law of "if you prevent copying of content via technology, you also must provide a way to resell said content" would at least be interesting.
EDIT:
I don't see how you get unconsenting license transfer. If I own a game that has "after 10 days, you owe us one million dollars" in the EULA for some reason, I can't transfer that license to Mitch McConnell without him agreeing in some fashion. This is for the same reason that I can't write a game, put that in the EULA, then gift McConnell a copy. If the other party didn't agree, then there's no agreement. (I assume legit stores will at some point during the transfer process pop up any relevant agreements, because that's just how these things work.)
But what if the other party refuses to accept the agreement, but still claims ownership of the license? If license transfer is a universal consumer right that businesses can't veto, then wouldn't that mean that they'd have no right to demand that the other party agree to things before they allow the transfer?
I can see ways to handle this, but it would require that the government legally encode licensing contracts and make them inherently legally binding on all license owners regardless of whether they are the original customer. That's certainly a thing that could be done, and now that I think of it has already partially happened in the form of some consumer protection laws.
The same thing that happens if I buy a digital good, but refuse the license.
With most digital stores, that's something that pops up on purchase and is required in order to complete the purchase, so this isn't something that's actually possible to do. Just add the same gate to transferring a product between accounts. If it's possible to own a product without agreeing to the license (like if I bought a physical game, but declined the EULA on install) I have ownership of the product, but not in a useful manner. I could transfer the ownership to someone else, I just can't use it.
More concretely, if I sell you my copy of Quake on CD, an EULA will pop up during install. (I assume. I haven't actually checked.) Between when I sell you the game, and when you actually install it, neither of us are bound by the EULA, and that's OK. If we're dealing with something where it matters that there's someone on the other end of this agreement, then we are no longer dealing with a product where First Sale Doctrine is applicable.
I'm struggling to see why any of this is a problem.
Worst case scenario: it renders shrinkwrap EULAs unenforceable. I'd consider that a feature, not a bug.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This doesn't seem an onerous problem to me though: to use the license you're accepting the EULA of most things today, for all the enforcement it represents. In the case of license transfer, it seems like the remedy is just that unless the second-party agrees to the original creator license obligation, the transfer stays pending regardless of monetary exchange. Which is basically a necessary step for second-hand aggregator markets to operate as well.
Assuming a legitimized secondary market for all content, I'm not sure how much the under-the-table sneakernet loophole matters. It's functionally similar to selling a used durable good to a friend without charging them VAT or sales tax. If working as intended, the new secondary market system will increase revenue to creators, by legitimizing secondary market sales. Regulators could concern themselves with large-scale policy violations like businesses. A failure to capture precisely 100% of the new revenue stream rather than some large proportion thereof because we're not busting sneakernetters wouldn't bother me too much.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I mean yeah, I think this is a reasonable answer (and also has precedent: you could try to backdoor art transactions in Australia, but people don't - it's all risk and little demand). My bigger concern is really how you accurately assign those creator percentages - or reasonably, in a way which stimulates the market. Though it's possible you really just need to draw a line somewhere and see how it goes.
Agreement regarding the bolded:
As I've said many times in threads like this in the past, the purpose of modern copyright law is to incentivize the creation of art, for the enrichment and the education of the public. The rights given to artists are utilitarian in character: if writing a great book would leave a learned author destitute, then we wouldn't have nearly as many great books.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This seems like it's trying to work out, from an a priori perspective, what portion of a secondary sale an original creator has a right to capture. I'm not sure I really buy the conceptual framework of sensorium experiences and replay values, but, even bracketing that, this just seems like the wrong approach. Property right in general are not natural rights and they get chopped up in all sorts of weird ways. You could think about the inherent nature of a house all day long without anticipating that timeshares would be a thing, and a priori analysis of househood isn't a great way to try to assign a value to timeshares.
So if the market is currently failing because content creators are under-incentivized, then sure, maybe give them a portion of secondary sales; regulate the market however leads to more general utility. But the right way to pick the size of that portion of secondary sales is (as in your later post) drawing a line somewhere and seeing how it goes, not trying to analytically diagram the content of a digital sale and assign distinct values to each of its component parts.
While agree with the practical solution, I'm not sold that there's no value in that breakdown: ephemeral "goods" like intellectual goods, if we're going to address them legally (I agree: they're not natural rights) should have some basis of which we can talk about how we're doing that even if the conclusion is a formula or a constant.
There's also letting the market figure this out. Again, Steam gives the publisher 5% of every 3rd-party sale of in-game items and the like, and would probably do something similar for used games. Create the requirement that storefronts need to allow used game sales, and storefronts that give developers a cut, even if it's not a big cut, will have an advantage in attracting developers, while storefronts that give too large of a cut will have trouble with customers selling outside of the storefront. There is a natural equilibrium there, and I think the market can find it.
The difference between art sales and game sales is that there's enough multinational conglomerates involved that the storefronts don't have all the power.
I think the ease of which you'd be able to buy second hand games on a virtual platform like Steam, along with the guarantee that the product will be 100% like new is different than buying a second hand disk.
What incentive would you have to buy new if there's a second-hand copy available on Steam?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
If everyone does that there aren't any second hand copies available?
I mean, sure then you don't have a choice, like you have now.
But I think that if Steam allows the sale of second hand games, in a similar setup too how they handle cards and items, I am assuming the number of second hand games for sale will increase, due to how easy it would be.
And buying them would be just as easy as buying new, and it'll be the exact same product just cheaper and with a cut going to the seller.
So either Steam makes less money from that sale or the Publisher does over a direct new sale.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Which would lead to Steam dominating the market even more as only accounts/customers with a large amount of buy-in already would sit through the mandated waiting period or provide proof of identity or whatever before buying a second hand game.
So I don't see how you could do this without siezing the means of distribution.
Spotify is theft done by large business, and the install disc issue is primitive DRM that acts in bad faith, which are, as you say, artifacts of a previous age.
Digital goods are purely a service, and not a good, and should be treated as such. You’ll notice at the same time the cost of these services trends sharply downward as the distributor does less work and availability (supply) goes up dramatically.
The value of cable television is now roughly $10/month, and streaming music is similar. Steam games are trending toward $5 with the exception of AAA titles, which are only that high because of price memory and a willing audience.
This is a consumer-focused change, there is no requirement for this to be fair to the game publishers.
Yes, that's how it is now. The question is if things should change. When I buy a game on Steam, and Steam tells me I just bought a license to use a game with specific limitations, we as a society can tell Steam that they're not allowed to add those limitations.
I mean I also don’t pay for any tv, movies, or music because I don’t think current prices are worthwhile to me for the service. You can always boycott if you want things to go differently, and should.
Alternately, make distribution legal and make everyone fund via the band camp method :rotate:
We disallow terms in contracts all the time. Running a service doesn't mean I can put whatever terms I want in it. The question is if disallowing reselling is something that we should allow or not.
Although it strikes me as an antitrust thing at least, distributors shouldn't be content creators, it also makes me wonder if IP should become public in a timeframe short enough that free-to-air channels can keep their content fresh, albeit out of date, even if subscription services consume it all.
I think it's a public good to ensure everyone has access to entertainment, even if they can't pay for a subscription. And that's what free-to-air TV does, funded by the ads, but showing the second-hand IP.
... Maybe libraries need full theatres for displaying subscription content?
How can you define a "distributor" when the internet exists? Is every ISP a distributor?
This feels like other side of the argument that goes "But if you have an issue with capitalism, why do you purchase and own things?" and is equally without merit.
One should be concerned with how businesses are run, even if one does not personally frequent that business. Because if one company gets away with something, others are going to follow in their steps. That's why regulations exist in the first place - because if we didn't lay out in clear terms "you cannot do this shit" they literally would be doing that shit, up to and including having you work 18 hours a day seven days a week at a job that poisons and maims you and pays you only in scrip that can be redeemed at the company store.
If I purchase a book from Amazon and the book is later the subject of a lawsuit and all remaining copies are ordered to be recalled, I still have my copy of the book. But if I purchased that book on the Amazon Kindle, they can remove that from my digital library, even though I paid money for it. Saying "well the EULA says they can do that" doesn't mean it's okay.
The question really boils down to a conflict between what companies want, and what's good for consumers. Companies don't want consumers to own anything. They want you to pay them over and over again, in perpetuity, because it's not enough to be a customer once or even multiple times over a period of time. You must be a consumer of theirs forever.
It goes far beyond a streaming service like Netflix not making (almost all) of their programming physically available, but extends to software companies discontinuing versions of their product that you purchase and are entitled to use in perpetuity, instead going to subscription models where if you ever stop paying them you lose access to the software and also all the projects you made with that software. And it goes even further, to where DRM has moved beyond computer games and CDs to inkjet printers, coffee makers and tractors, not for any benefit of the consumer, but so that the company that manufactured the physical item can tie you into their proprietary ecosystem and force you to pay them a premium for repairs, replacements, refills, etc.
Every time our glorious capitalist system sees a glimmer of competition, or any means thought of to grant the consumer a modicum of control over the items they have purchased, companies have pushed hard to develop and implement methods to deny those choices and freedom to the consumer.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Except the whole point is to balance the consumers vs the creators in order to ensure that people can keep making money off of making content. It does have to be fair to publishers. That's half the point.
Except consumers are the ones rejecting physical media. You frame this like it's all some scam by companies to take away your right to own things. But consumers for the most part are giving that shit away without a fight. Companies would love to keep selling your physical media and physical media players. Disney still wants you to buy their DVDs/Blurays/etc. A lot of media still exists on DVD. But way less people are buying it. Stuff is shifting to digital because consumers value the convenience and don't value the ability to own a piece of media over the convenience.
Yes, but the comment comes from the monopolistic behaviour that the businesses are pursuing.
For instance, Google directing traffic to YouTube should be similarly not allowed.
If an ISP started directing traffic to specific content in the same way, then they should be subject to action as well.
It's what net neutrality should prevent.
Doesn't net neutrality not exist
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
These aren't mutually exclusive.
Consumers are moving to digital for a combination of convenience, control, and relative inexpensiveness compared to other competitors. The main competitors are cable/sat TV and physical media. Looking at these:
1) Convenience - Can watch programming whenever desired. Cable/sat TV is competitive here, but physical media isn't. Note that my start-point is that you don't own the media, and want to see it now.
2) Control - Can watch whichever program when desired, which isn't possible with cable/sat TV due to their scheduled nature, and is possible with physical media because you control the choice of media.
3) Cost - Netflix + Disney/Hulu+ + Amazon Prime is $40-50 per month, which is cheaper than most cable/sat TV packages, and gives you a much greater amount of programming than an equivalent purchase in physical media will.
At the same time, distributors/publishers/whatever are also working to exert greater control over their media and in many cases through their media their physical products. Apple is basically a closed environment in which you can ONLY use Apple products. Auto manufacturers are supplying vehicles that require proprietary tools in order to perform repairs. Nintendo used a proprietary USB charging connection for the DS/3DS. And on and on.
Companies recognize that users are moving to a more digital space, and are doing what they can to exert control over the digital space. This includes putting barriers in place to prevent their customers from easily being able to go to their competitors. Buy convincing their customers to "buy in" to their environment, they are assuring future revenue generation. These are VERY monopolistic practices, because the end goal is that the companies will have a monopoly in their market.
Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems, and is using that monopoly to push their other products. My PC with a brand new installation came with the Microsoft Store, and any microsoft app I use to do anything on the internet with (like searching in the store for a game) does their best to push MS Bing on me. Apple has more cash available than the bottom 100 countries (Apple has $193,000,000,000 in cash as of July 2020) because of their success at building an exclusive marketplace for their products.
my actual position on this issue is literally "boycott disney, hulu, and amazon streaming," though.
entertainment is not a necessity, you will not starve or die without netflix.
you can destroy these companies just by not giving them money, and we should do so, en masse.
do not pay for content and they will not have the money to do shitty legal things.
my, uh, further opinions are explicitly verboten.
i've been trying to argue within the bounds of acceptable discourse, since i do like this topic, but apparently failed there.
I made a pretty long post, and literally the next two sentences after the part you quoted already addresses what you're saying.
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