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Post by Nester the Lark on May 22, 2006 19:38:58 GMT -5
I don't doubt the technology or practicality. But could it possibly give too much control to the industry? What if you were charged for every single time you decided to watch a movie, or listen to a song, or press start on your favorite video game? I've heard a little rambling about that (at least, with the downloadable movies).
Also, I feel better having something solid to hang on to rather than storing everything in a single, corruptable, magnetic format. What happens when the memory goes bad? Do you have to re-purchase your entire library of movies/games? Will we be allowed to make back-ups, or does that violate copyrights?
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Post by amazingeee on May 22, 2006 21:03:37 GMT -5
As far as I know, making backups has never violated copyrights.
And so far, with iTunes and iTunes video, and soon with the Virtual Console, it has all been purchasing of the media. I can't imagine everything becoming pay-per-view and pay-per-play. Not in a competitive market.
With digital music, it has to some degree moved power back to the consumer. Artists can get levels of exposure they previously couldn't get without record company promotion, and people can stream music from every artist out there on demand on MySpace. You can see the results in the rapid growth of indie labels over the last 5 years. In the end the indie artists who find the most success end up with the major labels, but its almost like they're getting hand-picked by consumers instead of by record execs.
As for it being corruptable- books weather and CDs scratch. Nothing lasts forever. I'm not yet 20, and I own some music in three different formats. That's nothing new. I suppose a harddrive failure could be very expensive, but so could losing your CD case, and at least if you lose your iPod, you still actually have all your music- and you can back it up as many times as you want.
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Post by Fryguy64 on May 23, 2006 4:27:41 GMT -5
I have no doubt that when you "buy" the digital movie/music/etc. you are also buying the right to store it. Whether this is on DVD, backup drive, memory sticks, iPods... You can make copies, but you can't sell them on - that's breaking copyright. You also can't put them in the public domain. Technically you shouldn't let your friends borrow them... but no court in the world will crack down on that. I imagine even the highest policemen and judges in the country have borrowed Die Hard on video at some point. It will put more power in the hands of the manufacturers, but it will also put more power in the hands of the consumer. The only person that really loses out is the retailer. There's money to be made in storage devices, memory extensions, and online distribution. No retailer means lower prices - competition between the distributors means lower prices still... It's an exciting time to be a consumer  |
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Post by Nester the Lark on May 23, 2006 10:38:57 GMT -5
As for it being corruptable- books weather and CDs scratch. Nothing lasts forever. I'm not yet 20, and I own some music in three different formats. That's nothing new. I suppose a harddrive failure could be very expensive, but so could losing your CD case, and at least if you lose your iPod, you still actually have all your music- and you can back it up as many times as you want. I have never once had to re-purchase a video game because the cartridge/disc went bad. I have not had such luck with computer hard drives. If my entire video game collection were stored on a giant hard drive that went kaput, it'd be an extremely expensive replacement. The money you save for not having to buy the media is kinda made up for with the price you have to pay for the broadband Internet access, isn't it? It's an exciting time to be an ISP, isn't it? |
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Post by Fryguy64 on May 23, 2006 10:47:55 GMT -5
Oh indeed... but with developments in the internet it's now cheaper for me to have a broadband internet connection that's fast and on 24 hours a day than to have a slow 56k dial-up connection. Wacky! I would pay double what I'm paying now just to stay online. But don't let the ISP know that |
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Post by Nester the Lark on May 23, 2006 10:57:48 GMT -5
Actually, the kind of content downloading scheme I would like to see it similar to what has been speculated for the Wii Virtual Console. That is, you set up an account, and once you purchase an item, you are allowed to download it whenever you need to at no extra cost. That way, if you lose the data or run out of space and have to delete stuff, you can get it back without having to buy it again.
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