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Comment by zoogeny | Hacker News Reader

Recently a friend of mine recommended me to watch the movie Heavenly Creatures. I went to justwatch.ca to see if it was streaming anywhere in Canada [1]. Not only was it not listed as streaming, it wasn't even listed to purchase anywhere. I went to as many places as I could think to find it: Amazon, Apple, Netflix, even Cineplex online. I was not able to find it anywhere available in Canada to stream for any amount of money. I found an article online that corroborates this is true [2] and recommends using a VPN to access content in other regions.

It made me realize that we are very much at risk of losing our cultural memory. For this particular movie I could use a VPN I suppose, but I imagine that some movies/music/books will someday not be available in any region in any form.

1. https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures

2. https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-on-n...

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I simply can't find my favorite Graphic Novels in DRM-free format outside pirate streams. I want to pay for them, but there is no scenario where I'll shell out hundreds of dollars to rent content from big DRM providers like Amazon.

I'm not as afraid of completely losing our cultural memory exactly because "piracy" can't be ultimately defeated: As long as people can consume their DRM-protected content, there will be always a way to remove the DRM and offer it through alternate means. I understand the risk of civil disobedience, however it seems that there has never been a time without the risk-takers that effectively protect our cultural heritage.

Despite the immense power of the immoral US Copyright law, it's not all-powerful as places like sci-hub prove.

The media giants did this, with exactly what you mentioned. DRM.

I can download a movie for free, or I can spring $20-30 for the DVD, then sit through forced FBI warnings, then previews, etc. when I really just wanted to watch a damn movie.

They shifted the burden to the consumer (time wasted) and in a world with piracy, good luck with that model.

This reminds me of advertising in movie theatres now. I show up to a movie 15 minutes late to skip the insane number of ads.

Previews are pretty annoying to me too but I’m curious: if you like movies, how do you find out about them? I don’t watch ad-supported TV and opt out of ads wherever I can (YouTube Premium, Hulu etc).

When I was in my early 20s in the 2000s, I could go to a theater and just know what the deal was for 90% of the movies that were playing at a 20-plex automatically just from TV ads and a few late-night-show actor interviews. Today I know zero (other than recognizing which one is some Marvel thing). If you dropped me off at the movies I wouldn’t know what to watch without googling them all.

I'm more of a reader than a movie watcher, but the way I find out about new movies:

1. Word of Mouth 2. Internet reviews 3. IMDB 4. it's up on l33. ;)

It’s even worse. For example 4K blu-ray cannot be played on new laptops no matter what. Also 4K is not supported by Netflix, Disney+, Prime video, HBO Max, etc on PCs. So I can only watch them if I “purchase” them on YouTube, Amazon, etc to stream them. Hell no.

I wouldn't know, since I've never purchased a blueray movie.

To those that want to do this the legal way, purchase it, throw it in a box, then pirate a version of the movie that doesn't treat you like a clown.

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/library/4k-titles-on-netfli...

Netflix has a bunch of stuff in 4k. Do they not count for some reason?

They do count, but count less every time they raise prices, while dropping titles from their catalogs, and ending popular series within 1-2 seasons, etc.

They are racing to become the very thing that got them the traction they had in the beginning. People are fucking tired of paying more for less, while being told how fucking great it all is.

Yes, they have, but you can’t watch them in 4K on PC/Mac.

I've got slightly less sympathy (but still sympathy) for you than the GP - your issue is that it's not available on your terms, OP's issue is that it's not available legally.

> available on your terms

Why does this desire make them less sympathetic?

The irritating thing about this is that one may be unable to find some movie or song which they’ve already seen or heard. Even in a case where it is officially available, gating some record of culture behind a fee is just holding said culture hostage to ransom it back.

More charitably, it’s someone attempting a business model which is thwarted by how inexpensive it is for individuals to copy and share digital media. I instead lack sympathy for the people with an obviously bad business strategy and prefer to recognize this culture-renting as farcical.

(That question I asked wasn’t rhetorical; I am genuinely interested in the answer but I also wanted to explain a different perspective.)

Saying "I refuse to use the media as you provided it, will pirate it for my personal use" is akin to walking into a greengrocer, taking a 1kg bag of carrots and pulling two of them out and demanding to only pay for them because you only want two.

Particularly when it comes to arts - games (disclaimer: I work in games), music (disclaimer I make music), art, theatre, there is usually another person I the other side of it who has made decisions to get that to you in the first place. Saying "my way or the highway" doesn't show Amazon that you're not willing to engage with the Kindle DRM and will buy it if they provide CC licensed prints, it shows them you're willing to dodge paying $10 instead.

> it’s someone attempting a business model which is thwarted by how inexpensive it is for individuals to copy and share digital media. I instead lack sympathy for the people with an obviously bad business strategy and prefer to recognize this culture-renting as farcical.

An over idealistic belief of free market being the only way that a product can exist, and throwing jingoism and shade at at anything you disagree with furthers the idea that you're not open to compromise.

Compromising is the basis of any transaction - I want the item for free and you want to be recognised for it, so we come to an agreement.

> it shows them you're willing to dodge paying $10 instead

They assume what they want of my actions. They may instead choose to think that I don't like using their service; perhaps I don't like the licensing terms that a copyright owner might choose to not offer their stuff on Amazon anymore leaving me SOL on my purchase. I buy games on Steam because their service doesn't suck for consumers. Valve recognizes that Steam's revenue comes from people choosing to use the platform to purchase games and they act like it.

> music (disclaimer I make music)

How do you feel about the settlement between Tom Petty and Sam Smith[0]? Do you think your music is infringing copyright because you independently made a song that happens to contain a copy of a part of another song's melody? Does the other song writer deserve their 12.5% cut of your music "as is usual for writers of sampled or interpolated work" even if they clarify that they don't think your interpolation was intentional? I personally wouldn't think so; seems to me that it's just a cartel doing its thing. Even if said interpolation was unintentional, you, the song writer, made the mistake of not knowing that the melody in your song had already been popularized.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay_with_Me_(Sam_Smith_song)#...

> I want the item for free

No, this is just a common assumption that people make. I bought the item already, lost it, and recognize that making another copy is practically free. I no longer have my copy of Pokemon Red that I had as a kid and I'm not apologizing to Nintendo or Game Freak just because I found a ROM online to use instead. Let's take a more recent personal example: Monster Sanctuary[1]. I have purchased this game no less than 3 times (Steam, Playstation, Switch) because it was more convenient and reliable than pirating it in every instance.

1: https://monster-sanctuary.com/

> throwing jingoism and shade at at anything you disagree with furthers the idea that you're not open to compromise

Like how every time anyone speaks out against the copyright cartel it's immediately framed to be because they want something for nothing by someone who disagrees. Pot, meet Kettle.

I will stand by that statement. This copyright shit is a farce. 10-year terms would be fine but Disney didn't want to lose Mickey Mouse. Tom Petty doesn't need to go after Sam Smith for supposedly copying the melody of a song that was written 34 years ago. You personally shouldn't lose revenue on your own songs just because you accidentally copied the melody of a song you heard when you were 6.

------------------------

Where do you offer your music for sale?

So your viable alternative is for the customers to just get screwed by some shysty company that rolled out a beta as a GOLD release game? Maybe we should pay MORE for them taking the time to sell me a product, that I came to rely on, then suddenly, there is now a subscription model? Not because of costs, not because of added services, but because PROFIT.

You have a point, but this lacks the context that caused people to stop being shafted more and more and MOAR, making it more pollyanna, than useful, imo.

YMMV.

I mean if we're playing analogies...

What if all the shops that sold chocolate near you bar one decided to shut down? This chocolate shop (ChocStix) keeps selling, but says you need to keep eating it in the store or in an authorised location to ensure you don't share or give away the chocolate.

You can at this stage give up chocolate all together, or find an alternative. The manufacturer isn't at fault here. However if they've signed an exclusive deal to only sell chocolate to ChocFlix in your area, it's not unreasonable to buy your chocolate from a dodgey looking dude selling it out the back of a van.

The big issue is exclusive rights over media on broad scales here, not some niche demand for a specific use case.

Do libraries in Canada loan DVDs and/or Blu-rays (and I suppose do you have something to play those, a PS5 for example)?

Just checked my local library system and there are 7 available copies of Heavenly Creatures, I could get it and watch it in a few days via inter library loan. But I'm in the States.

95% of the films I watch via the library I would venture. But it depends on your system.

I do not own a DVD or Blu-ray player! I'm sure I could buy the DVD/Blu-ray on ebay (I saw it on Amazon for over $40!) and then buy a DVD/Blu-ray player. Or maybe it's on VHS or Laserdisc and I could obtain a physical copy of one of those and the necessary machines. That seems like a lot of work for a 2 hour movie. Probably faster to pay for a VPN and then stream from a region where it is available.

Of course, none of that has anything to do whatsoever with the point. As we transition as a society away from physical goods and towards digital goods, we are placing ourselves at risk of companies erasing those digital goods. For now we have backups (like DVDs) and workarounds (like VPNs). Reasonably soon that won't be the case. It is possible that the favorite content of toddlers today (e.g. on Disney+) might just be totally inaccessible to them one day.

Goodwill (or similar) is your friend here. Physical media players are likely to get purged when someone's de-cluttering their home.

Secondhand stores are also great for picking up CDs and DVDs for cheap.

If I understand correctly, the point is this won't be possible in the future with where things are headed. There won't be any physical media to play on it. It's not about what you can find at Goodwill or the library today. This is forward looking.

You can also buy USB DVD-ROM drives for $15 or so, then rip. I'm in the middle of doing that to my DVD collection.

Why won’t you just buy a $100 USB hdd with whatever TB (3? 4?) it is these days, and store your movies there? Is it some legal issue here? Is the optical disk somehow different?

Not really a direct comparison. Yes they can store it on a hard drive, but where are they going to acquire the actual bytes? A cheap optical drive and a secondhand disc is a pretty good strategy and carries zero risk of legal issues because it leaves no trace outside your own PC, as opposed to say, BitTorrent. It’s just possibly much less convenient if the disc is hard to come by.

Also (IANAL) but if you acquire the disc, back it up and then keep or destroy the original, it’s even fully legally sound.

Yes, I use the DVD-ROM to rip, and store them on a cheap HD.

What’s the difference, monetarily?

The library bought one copy of the dvd/BR and shares it with as many users as they can. How is that fundamentally different than downloading an “illegal” copy on file sharing? In either case, someone acquired the source material (afaik, “pirated” content is bought with actual money most of the time) and then shared without further revenue for the publishers.

Isn’t that fundamentally the same except for saying that libraries can do it but not scene groups?

Libraries are just a more convoluted and restrictive way of doing the same thing imho. While not everyone everywhere has access to a library system (let alone a well funded one), virtually anyone can download off the internet.

By downloading you create an additional copy of the work. Renting a dvd doesn't create a copy, the library doesn't retain access to a dvd it rented to you.

Isn't that a technicality though? 99% of the content I watch, I only watch once and never again personally. It's deleted/returned as soon as I'm done with it but I do keep a permanent copy in my memory as having read the book/watched the movie/tv show.

It’s not a technicality, in fact the spirit of the law is what matters. When you stream a movie on Netflix or hell even on actual over the air digital TV, by any definition bytes are being copied there too. However, you aren’t intending to copy it, just to consume the media and the “copy” is a technical implementation detail. When you rip the library‘a disk or BitTorrent the movie, you are making a copy on purpose, a copy you could keep (and I bet you or anyone would keep it if you enjoyed it so much you wanted to rewatch it many times). When you choose to erase it afterward, it doesn’t erase your infringing act you did in the first place.

Note: None of this is a commentary on what’s “right” just discussing the legal ramifications. I don’t personally care what anybody does or have energy to convince anyone of anything.

Anecdote, but I've gone back to public library DVDs and Blu-rays for titles unavailable on streaming for similar reasons to what you've described.

I'm in the States, so it's less of an issue of region/market lock-out and more an issue of no one being able to own their own media any more.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_...

This is so frustrating. I went from Netflix+Disney Plus+Prime Video to just Netflix, because every single time I wanted to watch something specific, it’s not available on any platform. I kept Netflix because they fill the « I don’t know what to watch, give me something » correctly, and I have a few shows in progress. For the rest, I’m back to TPB, torrent is once again more convenient than the alternatives.

There was a TV show starring JK Simmons called Counterpoint. I was able to watch it at one point but now it is completely unavailable in the UK. Can’t even buy the series!

Despite subscribing to the Showtime channel on Amazon Prime, I cannot watch Homeland. I can watch it on Netflix though and the audio and quality is absolute shit. And I don’t want to give Netflix 20 quid a month for that.

Why homeland? Was on a Damien Lewis binge. Love that guy’s work.

Counterpart. Was a really good show. It's available in the US but it looks like you have to buy or rent.

That’s the thing. Can’t do it. Unless it was released on physical media.

I really wanted to watch it again considering severance s2 has been in limbo for ages.

It seems to be available on DVD in the US. Though going forward--and given the number of people who don't even own DVD players any longer (even some older folks think it's weird I still have one)--I expect more and more things won't be released on physical media any longer.

> Was on a Damien Lewis binge

Guessing Band of Brothers, Billions, what else?

Life was a good one. Sadly, not enough people agreed and it was cancelled after 2 seasons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(American_TV_series)

That crime procedural where he was a Good Cop who went to jail on a bad rap or whatever it was?

E: Should have refreshed before replying.

Don't forget about Life. The show that ended too early.

Worth watching the 2 seasons that were made? Will I be annoyed when it ends abruptly?

Wasn't that Counterpart? The one that takes place in Berlin?

Yeah, sounds like it is.

Watch Wolfhall if you haven’t

In the US (and perhaps elsewhere) I recently witnessed this with Angels & Insects, the 1995 movie based on a novella by A.S. Byatt (who died last week). Not only does it not appear to be available streaming, but the DVD is out of print and used copies seem to be going for $40+.

Some, someday? Most are already not available, it's about half of all produced that are available. There are online archives that try to assemble access to many of these lost or otherwise inaccessible films or other media, but they get shut down or lock access over time.

Recently I tried to purchase an exercise book to find that the printed copy released in 2013 was nowhere to be found new or used although I remember it being for sale as recently as last year. Instead there is only a kindle version available.

I pay for prime currently and Netflix in the past

I still used torrents for content that I had access to because it was significantly more convenient to have an mp4 file. I prefer to use my player of choice. Also stupid restrictions on quality per device. You can’t get more than 720p on Netflix unless you use edge. That kind of restriction is so boneheaded stupid.

The economics of it all is so insane anyways. How much money is a company getting if I watch their film once on Netflix vs how much are they getting if I buy it on physical media. The difference is difficult for me to justify . Also I don’t want to have a bunch of physical media taking up space.

Do I rip them and sell the discs? Throw them away? Donate them? What is the morality of that?

Anyways instead of trying to square the ethics of capitalism with the content I like, I’ll just do it on my own terms. Things do go down the memory hole though even in piracy. Less obscure stuff vanishes entirely.

Yandex searches another section of the internet. That’s how I saw Ahsoka.

Is it this one? Available at Youtube: https://youtu.be/gyCMRwHkGCw

My trick is to just google it and click the videos tab, filter by video length. Surprisingly often you find it.

Our cultural memory and our ability to develop it and pass it on was erased when we decided that a small group of people had to be in charge of writing, recording and broadcasting it. Recorded culture is dead and frozen culture.

>Our cultural memory and our ability to develop it and pass it on was erased when we decided that a small group of people had to be in charge of writing, recording and broadcasting it.

When did we decide that? It's never been easier for an ordinary person to write, record, and broadcast...

Write, record and broadcast what? What happened to the stories, music and performance handed down by cultural tradition? Unless you think Mr Beast qualifies. “Broadcast” is also part of the problem. Audience size is the goal, not the story, moral or history.

You're free to tell stories and perform to whatever size audience you want.

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