Buying Digital Copies of Movies

Factual Questions
41

Slight side track, but bearing on the OP’s usage.

When digital copies or digital only versions of media started out - iTunes, ebooks, etc, one of the big selling points is that they were normally significantly cheaper than the physical copies. After all, nothing to create, package and ship, so there savings to be made, some of which trickled down to us, the consumer.

As it became more mainstream, then all of a sudden, they started marketing the ease-of-use factor, to the point where the digital media was nearly the same (or on several occasions, MORE) than the physical copies to keep the publishers/studios happy.

It is infuriating to me, but I’m a part of the problem, although mostly with ebooks. I was long past the point of overflowing shelves years ago, so the ability to store another 4-500 books on my kindle/phone/cellular tablet overrode my concerns. But it infuriates me to see a kindle edition for $9.99 when a paperback is still $7-8.99. Fuck that.

It’s actually caused me to buy fewer books in the last 10 years than what I would have done in any SINGLE year prior to that. And series or authors I’m emotionally attached too (and will likely re-read) still get old school paper purchases.

ETA - although as my eyes age, the ease-of-use that comes from adjustable font sizes becomes a lot more important than impulse buys and delivery of a new book. le sigh

42

I suggested the OP try OBS Studio (cost: $0), but don’t know if it worked. Certainly there is hardware that will capture an HDMI stream, for wireless transmission to another screen and/or recording.

You still have to go out of your way to use any of those; if everything is still DRM (except maybe for some music on Apple) then the underlying problem is not solved, maybe not enough people are voting with their wallet and refusing to buy DRM content.

43

I have no DRM issues at all using the recorders I suggested, regardless of source. If you want to know how, PM me.

44

I don’t know of any places that sell movies without DRM, and it’s unclear to me if recording the movie as it plays and putting that file on Plex counts as a DMCA violation or not, as the DMCA came quite a few years after the VHS revolution and is pretty liberal in how it defines “circumventing access control” regarding copyrighted digital works. Will you actually get in trouble for this? I extremely doubt it, but like a lot of things people do all the time with zero consequences it is technically illegal.

45

I do have OBS, having done some Twitch streaming, and I did see your earlier suggestion, but didn’t reply to it since (at least based on the very first response in this thread), it may open up a can of worms about legality.

Also, I wasn’t sure and forgot to ask about how “well” it can record - if I play a BluRay on my PC and use OBS to capture it, how “well” is it captured? And I assume it’s not recording, say, 5.1 sound, but rather condensing everything into a single audio stream?

46

And ultimately, it’s just all very frustrating to me, that I can’t buy content in the format most useful to me. Looking at all these roadblocks and workarounds, as easy as they might be, just kind of leaves me asking the question, “Why is this necessary?”

And of course, I know the answer to that question, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.

47

I have no DRM issues recording either—I meant that

it is IMO no more or less than poor customer service that a commercially sold video stream or file comes with DRM, and then someone (i.e., the OP) ends up asking for help in a thread like this, and has to mess around with extra software or hardware, instead of them providing a file that works on all his or her devices in the first place. But opinions are beyond the scope of a Factual Questions thread (plus I have nothing really insightful to say about it that will help solve the OP’s issue), so I apologize for the digression.

If you record your screen as usual in OBS, everything gets re-encoded. Lossless x264 recording is certainly possible depending on your disk size and performance, and it also supports lossless audio, though I have not tried it with 5.1 sound and I am not 100% sure it supports 5.1 sound (maybe newer versions have it?)

If you use the right settings, lossless if possible, it will not look and sound like crap. But this is not the same as ripping the original file or stream (or cracking any access controls). It may be indistinguishable, though, and certainly good enough for watching an episode of your TV show on the bus.

48

You’ve purchased access to the content.

49

iTunes for Windows? All bets are off.

50

Yeah, that’s called “renting”.

51

That’s also called DRM’d content needing a login which you’ve said is a bad scheme for you to buy into.

52

I thought i was clear. I’m willing to borrow or rent material encumbered with DRM. I’m not willing to buy such material.

I’ve purchased a lot of music, but very few books because it’s easy to get drm-free music and hard to buy drm-free books. Amazon is walking away from a fair amount of money because of their choices re books.

53

I thought this was at least partly up to the publisher, not Amazon. At least, I’ve seen e-books with the label “At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.”

I wonder if you have any evidence to back up your assertion that “Amazon is walking away from a fair amount of money.” Are there substantial numbers of people who refuse to buy books with DRM? Are there substantial numbers of people who illegally copy DRM-free books? And how do these numbers compare?

54

While it wasn’t the answer @yearofglad was hoping for, I think we’ve more or less answered the OP, so I’ll feel free to continue the sidejack.

@Thudlow_Boink, I believe your assertation is correct, in that the pricing is largely set by the publisher these days - when ebooks were a niche thing, well, there was a lot of flex and freedom, which got locked down the more successful they got, kind of like we saw on Netflix’s streaming service which was once a sidebar to the discs, then a standalone service, then the majority of the business, before the vast splintering began.

Is an …accessible article, although I find it a bit apologetic overall, but lays out most of the main points. It brings up points we mentioned earlier: ease/speed of access and agency pricing set by publishers, but brings up another we haven’t mentioned.

Almost all the digital publishers are arms/branches of traditional publishers - and they don’t want to sacrifice one side of the business for the others. If you price the ebook too attractively, you kill your paperback/hardcover market. And I’m sure that applies to music and movies as well - if you kill your in theatre sales (well, prior to COVID) or whole album sales with inexpensive online offerings, you’re really leaving money on the table as things stand.

Back to the DRM issue though. IMHO (and sorry, I know this is FQ) it’s part of the backlash from the years of pirating. I just don’t think it’s a rational one. The golden age of music and movie piracy being bold and brazen is long gone, but it’s just as prevalent, and only somewhat hidden. The various publishers don’t want to make it even easier, and DRM is a tool to discourage even the less malign versions. Back to the OP for an example, why let the licensees of a DRM free movie share it with their friends via PLEX, when there’s a chance said friend would rent/buy a copy of their own. Again, from their POV, that’s money lost.

And that’s just an individual, there are/were plenty of people who would put up digital copies of films on youtube, pirate sites that constantly move, or sites that are otherwise largely out of reach of their armies of lawyers.

It’s freaking frustrating to the private user who wants to consolidate access to their digital content, but it’s understandable.

What really irks me though, is that every once in a while, a digital carrier will experiment or embrace a virtual sharing system but it gets immediately crippled by cross platform or ‘eligibility’ requirements. Again, no money to be made by those publishers, the same ones years ago who wanted used bookstores dead with extreme prejudice.

So long story short, I’m betting that while the DRM based services are indeed leaving a bunch of @puzzlegal’s money on the table, they figure by using DRM to stop/slow piracy, they believe they’re keeping a lot more of the public on the whole’s $$$.

ETA - and we’re also leaving out other factors, like Amazon selling it’s Kindle tablet lines fundamentally at cost, assuming that the captive digital sale of books/music/movies/games on those devices will quickly recoup those losses and become profits in short order.

55

Well, I’ve illegally copied DRM-free books because i wasn’t allowed to buy that content.

I dunno. I’m not in that industry. Maybe it’s completely rational of them. Maybe I’m weird for caring. But I used to buy a lot of books, and now that I’ve mostly switched to reading on a Kindle, I’ve almost completely stopped buying books. I’m reading books from the library that I’m less interested in, instead.