I had this idea, and it’s probably dumb, but hear me out and let me know what you think.
I really like movies. Streaming services are currently the best legal option to watch movies afaik, but often they don’t have that specific and maybe also old movie I want to watch - even with 3 different streaming services. Then I could rent it, but paying like 8 bucks every time I want to watch a movie is too much.
If I could buy and download a free (free as in no drm or other bullshit shenanigans) digital copy of a movie for a reasonable price I would be all over that shit.
But as we all know the greedy capitalists can’t keep milking the same old cashcows if the users have a permanent copy that they can potentially also distribute so that won’t happen any time soon.
So my idea was what is we as a public group (movie enthusiasts) joined and made a company funded by something like gofundme or similar. The sole purpose of the company would be to buy rights to movies and hosting digital copies free to download for anyone.
Wouldn’t that be something. Legal digital movies by the public for the public.
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GOG.com tried to launch that 9 years ago (source). The problem is getting the rights to sell the films without DRM. No major production company would want an easily shared file so readily available…
It would cost millions to get the rights for a single film. And you’re going to sell it DRM-free for $10? Good luck getting financial backing on that.
youre forgetting that in the real world if its not about making money, it wont happen. youre immersed in a society that doesnt even want to give life-saving medicine at-cost to those who need it, cuz profits.
theres this insane notion that if your business or portfolio isnt growing financially, your business is a failure. untenable is putting it nicely.
Film companies aren’t generally in the business of selling the rights to their products. As you say, it’s a cash cow they can keep milking for years. They can re-release the same film on new platforms and continually contract it out to different streaming platforms for years. Why would they sell you a distribution license in perpetuity for anything resembling an reasonable cost?
But the the greedy capitalists are the ones you’d need to buy the rights from if you wanted to do this above board. Typically a company will only either sell you a license that lets you stream it to your customers, with requirements to make the film unavailable if your license is revoked, or the company will sell you DVDs, and let you sell those as is with no rights to rip or otherwise make the DVD available for download. It’s not impossible, GoG sells some pretty big name video game titles DRM free, and you could probably get smaller independent films onto the platform, but I doubt true media giants like Warner Bros or Disney would go for it. You’d have to target movies too obscure to be on Netflix basically.
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@basic_user Someone beat me to it. Rights holders would never allow their movies to be distributed without DRM of some kind.
But as we all know the greedy capitalists can’t keep milking the same old cashcows if the users have a permanent copy that they can potentially also distribute so that won’t happen any time soon.
Might I introduce you to a greedy capitalist invention called reels, vinyl records, cassette tapes, 8track tapes, VHS, DVDs, Blu-ray, game cartridges, and game disks.
What you say won’t happen any time soon was the way it has worked since the invention of cassettes until “we all” decided that netflix was better than blockbuster. This is the consequences of our own actions as consumers, relinquishing physical discs that can be burned in favor of digital only copies controlled by their companies, held on their servers. My DVD copy of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist can’t just be taken off of my shelf like netflix can take it off their server, nor can they take the mp4 with commentary and extras stored on my external hdd ripped with handbrake to bypass the DRM attempt.
And frankly, I’d personally rather pay for a physical copy, but a “free” digital copy as you suggest I’d also settle for. I can resell the disc though, and I can do so after I rip its contents.
A free ,as in non DRM, digital copy is the best from a customers perspective. It’s after all what you get after ripping your discs.
Physical media can also have DRM, just because we were able to break DVD, BR etc does not mean we are always going to be able to do so. Nor is DRM on physical media inherently weaker than on digital files, quite the opposite. If they got it right you could be unable to resell the disc afterwards, or more precisely the guy you sold it too could not use it.
True, but this “digital only” world we increasingly find ourselves in is what really gives the companies the real-world ability to control stuff as they do, so in that sense physical media is still better, which is what I was getting at. Also reselling is pretty cool, can’t do that with a digital file. While I do have a digital copy after ripping a disc, I also still have the disc.
I’ve yet to see a disc that could kill itself after one user. How would it differentiate between the user having both a DVD player and a computer VS a resale? What about even just the upstairs DVD player and the downstairs one? Is it tracking my 2002 dvd vhs combo’s IP address without an internet connection? That just doesn’t seem like something that could practically be done without destroying the “original sale” value to spite the “resale” value, nobody is going to buy a disc if it has to be married to one DVD player. To be fair, making your product so bad nobody buys it is technically an effective way to cut out resale though haha. I’d wager that the DRM is generally always breakable given enough time and effort, but theoretically they could update their DRM (or even just change something in their API to break youtube-dl or newpipe, for instance) if it is on their server whereas the disc is harder to change considering you’d have to break into my house to do it. A digital file could have something to prevent me transferring it, rendering the file unplayable, but how would they do that with a DVD while also accounting for multiple devices owned or operated by the original purchaser?
They could make you log in online before unlocking the drm to watch it. You could imagine a world where you have to log in on your Blu-ray player before playing anything and then discs would be locked to that user after the first play or something.
I probably shouldn’t have said that. Don’t want to give them ideas
But many blu-ray players lack wifi cards and eth ports, so it wouldn’t work in those, or they bypass it? Again killing the original value of the disc at all, which again is pretty good DRM, security through obscurity and all, but not good for the company.
Your idea sounds a lot like how the libraries operate here in Toronto. They have lots of media available to borrow besides books: movies and tv shows on Blu-Ray, video games for various consoles, etc. I’ve seen folks come borrow armfuls of Blu-Rays, all free of charge. You also have access to various media via streaming/online as well, although I’m not sure how extensive the collection is.
It’s not perfect though; there are limits on how many copies of a digital item can be checked out simultaneously. It’s a rather artificial constraint.
I wonder…what it would take to get a license to start an institution like a library to allow for others to borrow media like this?
like half the movies i want to watch are not available anywhere legally in my country, so the choice is piracy or not watching it
