Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Wednesday September 19 2018, @01:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-a-reminder dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

In this day and age ownership of digital media is often an illusion. When you buy a book or movie there are severe restrictions on what you can do with these files. In some cases, purchased content can simply disappear overnight. These limitations keep copyright holders in control, but they breed pirates at the same time.

[...] Millions of people have now replaced their physical media collections for digital ones, often stored in the cloud. While that can be rather convenient, it comes with restrictions that are unheard of offline.

[...R]esearchers examined how the absence of the right to resell and lend affects people's choice to buy. They found that, among those who are familiar with BitTorrent, roughly a third would prefer The Pirate Bay over Apple or Amazon if they are faced with these limitations.

These rights restrictions apparently breed pirates.

"Based on our survey data, consumers are more likely to opt out of lawful markets for copyrighted works and download illegally if there is no lawful way to obtain the rights to lend, resell, and use those copies on their device of choice," the researchers concluded.

The paper in question is two years old by now, but still very relevant today. While we don't expect that anything will change soon, people should at least be aware that you don't always own what you buy.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/you-dont-really-own-that-movie-you-bought-but-pirates-180915/


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:19AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:19AM (#736918)

    Representing digital goods in a quantified manner is the only use for so-called "tokens" that have bcome popular in the cryptocurrency space that has ever made any sense to me. A token that represents a game/album/book and is saleable/tradeable by the possessor would restore much of the rights that are currently missing in digital goods. How you would tie the token to the good without depending on centralized control would need to be solved before such a system could exist.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @08:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @08:50PM (#737218)

    It is a moot point, pirates will still be able to pirate. Maybe since the whole system has not come crashing down yet we should just stick to "please pay for your digital goods". If pirates become too common then we may start getting less garbage content. Win fucking win.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @03:02PM (#737528)

      Download what you want.
      Run a program to find what it costs and who to pay for what you have.
      Pay them. Keep it up until your collection is covered.

      Win = Win