Ramblings, citations and "brainwaves" of a college librarian in Toronto. 475 square feet refers to the size of my home, not the size of my office or library.
Renting Content On CD/DVDs, 2nd Hand Stores
Published Wednesday, March 01, 2006 by James | E-mail this post
Although media coverage of movie, music, software, and video game piracy has overwhelmingly focused on downloading activities and technologies, the "Sneaker Net" is a bigger problem. Hardware and software available today makes copying onto media (CSs, DVDs) easier than ever before and people are sharing what they've bought (legally or illegally at street vendors, flea markets and mall kiosks), or copied from friends, family, libraries, video stores, online video, game stores (Gamefly, NetFlix) and second hand stores. There's a business model problem when you can buy new or second hand and return it to a retailer for half your money back after you've made yourself a copy. You could even barter (Lala.com, Peerflix.com, BarterBee.com, TitleTrader.com, etc.) It is quite a dsyfunctional retailing environment.
Why do I care? I can imagine a day when libraries are forbidden from acquiring and lending out movies, music and other content. Commercial rental establishments for movies and video games cease to exist. The only way to get access is to buy at what I would argue is at great expense. $20 or 30$ for a first run film on DVD is at least three times higher than I feel it is worth. Look at the film selection at Blockbuster, want to show your kids your favorite films, they don't have them. Maybe your indie rental store does, but they're closing everyday. I get them at the library. I don't want to buy, archive, collect, I just want to rent or borrow. If it was $3, I could buy and throw it out, I guess that is similar to renting. Video on demand remains pathetic in terms of selection and is overly costly.
Ubiquitous robust DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies are needed to keep our current borrowing (commercial or not) environment intact. Alternatively, films, video games, music need to be sold for less than $3 so we can use and discard without feeling guilty about it. The difficulties libraries are having licensing online access to non-text content is foreshadowing a future where borrowing or reselling content is legally and technically impossible. George Bush's "Ownership Society" realized.
Why do I care? I can imagine a day when libraries are forbidden from acquiring and lending out movies, music and other content. Commercial rental establishments for movies and video games cease to exist. The only way to get access is to buy at what I would argue is at great expense. $20 or 30$ for a first run film on DVD is at least three times higher than I feel it is worth. Look at the film selection at Blockbuster, want to show your kids your favorite films, they don't have them. Maybe your indie rental store does, but they're closing everyday. I get them at the library. I don't want to buy, archive, collect, I just want to rent or borrow. If it was $3, I could buy and throw it out, I guess that is similar to renting. Video on demand remains pathetic in terms of selection and is overly costly.
Ubiquitous robust DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies are needed to keep our current borrowing (commercial or not) environment intact. Alternatively, films, video games, music need to be sold for less than $3 so we can use and discard without feeling guilty about it. The difficulties libraries are having licensing online access to non-text content is foreshadowing a future where borrowing or reselling content is legally and technically impossible. George Bush's "Ownership Society" realized.
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