this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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The History and Future of Digital Ownership (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
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I'd like to get the community's feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we're really doing is purchasing a "license" to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.

Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn't the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?

P.S. I know there's pirating and all, but that's not the focus of my question.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Simple. When you license your show to a streaming platform, it is more lucrative to put in an arbitrary end date on the off-chance the platform decides to renew the license. Consumers have no say in this so they just have to take what is given.

Want to stream it forever? Be prepared to pay an exorbitant amount of money because the showrunnere REALLY don't want that.