EricBall's Tech Projects

It's an interesting debate that we may never know an answer to but I personally think the answer lies within a change of mindset: The notion of ownership. How many of those MP3's that you "own" do you really listen to? What percentage of your library is really used? And how many devices/disks do you have to store it all? And the problem is magnified a zillion percent when you start talking about video or software. Where do you store all those DVDs or tapes or hard drives? And what happens when a disk crashes? Or a tape snaps? Or a drunken friend hell-bent on revenge for something you allegedly did to him 20 years ago, steals your favorite DVD?

 

I think the answer to all these questions comes as soon as we let go of the notion of owning. If there was an easy and consistent way to rent, borrow, or stream content that was stored offsite and delivered to multiple devices on demand, we would embrace it. Eventually. We pay for monthly cell phone contracts, cable bills, electricity bills, gaming services, utilities, what about a media bill?

 

Believe me I understand many people wanting to own outright. I was one of those people. But the practical concerns of storage vs how often I actually watched/listened to the content just don't seem worth it over time. I'm not an owner, I'm a hoarder. If there was an easy way to deliver to me what I need, when I need, I would adopt it.

 

Eventually.

 

After you do it first.

Netflix could somewhat be regarded as a media bill. However, there's also a control aspect which I dislike intensely. Consider the people who "bought" Animal Farm for their Kindle, or those who used Linux on their PS3, or anyone who "bought" DIVX Silver DVDs. I can still listen to the first CD and DVD I ever bought. And yes, physical media is subject to loss, but it can also be replaced via the secondary resale market.

 

This is not to say I won't buy digital downloads, but even those I prefer with no strings attached. Otherwise it's just a rental I am keeping at someone else's pleasure.

Ownership issues definitely are a problem. On the media side, they want to abolish fair use and control the distribution and viewing totally (HDCP comes to mind), on the viewer side, they want to abuse fair use as much as possible and get everything for free. I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. You need to have the ability for fair use such as timeshifting and a way to do legitimate backups of media without giving the opportunity to pirate. The problem is, all we have now is encryption and that usually can be hacked easily. Another option, activation, can't really be used because it would require users to have internet access to view the media. I really don't know what the answer is. Maybe go to dongles or something (I am kidding).

 

Cliff