Looks Like You'll Never Own Movies Again

[The Real MC]

2 hours ago, bill5 said:

I HATE that. Even worse is occasionally I'd get one with an initial commercial you couldn't skip wth? It's BS like this that just fans the flames of piracy. 

That's when I mute the TV, do a chore in the house or fix a snack while the previews run, then when I come back the DVD is usually sitting at the main menu waiting for me to press play.

But downloading previews over the internet port, that's asinine.  Another reason why none of my entertainment devices are connected to the internet.

[bill5]

19 minutes ago, The Real MC said:

That's when I mute the TV, do a chore in the house or fix a snack while the previews run, then when I come back the DVD is usually sitting at the main menu waiting for me to press play.

lol I do the same. I always hated previews, even in movie theaters. Just play the damn movie! 

[Notes_Norton]

To each their own. I rather like the previews. I've discovered a few interesting films I wasn't aware of that way.

[Anderton]

My wife considers previews a feature, not a bug. And, they help me decide which movies I don't want to see.

[The Real MC]

6 hours ago, Anderton said:

My wife considers previews a feature, not a bug. And, they help me decide which movies I don't want to see.

Previews can be deceptive.  They often show a movie that appears interesting then turn out to be disappointing.  Too much hype and I'm tired of sorting them out so I don't watch ANY previews.

[bill5]

8 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

To each their own. I rather like the previews. I've discovered a few interesting films I wasn't aware of that way.

I get that, but we should have the option to skip. Nothing loses my business quicker than forcing something on me.

[Notes_Norton]

4 hours ago, bill5 said:

I get that, but we should have the option to skip. Nothing loses my business quicker than forcing something on me.

I agree with being able to skip. The viewer should be in control.

 

Notes ♫

[Polychrest]

 

Quote

To save money, streaming services are axing finished shows without bothering to air them and deleting classics. What next? Game of Thrones? Succession? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

From The Guardian:  The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

 

There's a perverse inversion of power in big creative enterprises today.  Accountants thrive while writers and actors starve.

[Joe Muscara]

This thread title keeps getting to me. Like anything that is under a copyright, you never owned a movie (that you didn't make yourself), you owned access to a copy of it.

 

"Who cares?" you say. "We all know what @Anderton meant." But it means is that the owners of the movies can do what they want with it. They can ship it on streaming, DVD, Blu-Ray, DVD, Laserdisc, Beta, VHS, whatever. They can show it once and never again. Or, never show it at all.

 

Which reminds me of a South Park episode where they were jabbing Lucas and Spielberg for changing their classic movies. At then end, Kyle or Stan made a speech about how they couldn't change the movies, "they're ours!" he insisted. I looked at my wife and said, "he's wrong. Once we saw it in theaters, we paid for our ticket, got our showing, and that's it. What the creators do with it after that is completely up to them. We may not like it, but it's not up to us."

 

And as far as "cultural history," again, I get it, but what we're talking about here is a blip in the history of humanity and even less if you include prehistory. It sucks if a solar flare would wipe out all of it, but how much history has been lost that we'll never know?

 

One time, my godfather, who was best friends with my grandfather, gave me a picture of the two of them, with another woman in the photo. I asked him who the woman was, and he had no idea. Think about that. We take all these photos for "memories" but how many photos can you go through and have no idea who is in them or what they are of? I have a ton of my dad's old photos from when he was a Marine. I have no idea who is in them besides sometimes him (he did apparently take a selfie!) nor what the guys were doing nor where.

 

That all may make me sound pretty negative or pessimistic, but I'm not. Quite the opposite. I'm an advocate of enjoying the moment. Appreciate what you have. It could be all gone tomorrow. Or, the format might change and we'll have to adapt to that one. Whatever. It's fine.  

[bill5]

1 hour ago, Joe Muscara said:

This thread title keeps getting to me. Like anything that is under a copyright, you never owned a movie (that you didn't make yourself), you owned access to a copy of it.

 

"Who cares?" you say. 

Yes, I do.  I own plenty of movies, inlcuding many favorites, and if I never have another, I'll get over it. If Hollywood tries to force me to some general subscriber crap, they can bite me, it'll never happen. I watch little TV and fewer movies these days anyway and reading more and glad for it. Books = no commercials, no forced previews of other stuff, no subscriptions, no rentals, no theater, TV, or computer required, (in fact no electricity even required during the day) and it's mine forever.

[David Emm]

I'm having a different problem. I'm trying to think of a friend to whom I could pass my DVD of Kevin Smith's excellent film "Dogma," which would be seen as blasphemy on the hoof by a lot of people! I find it hilarious, but it kicks (pardon me) organized religion in the nads a lot, so it could be darkly offensive. Its not one of my goals. It would ruin the point.

 

I also think I could face some time in Purgatory for possessing Kevin's stunning "Red State," which stars the great John Goodman as the lead federal agent who is called upon to handle a Waco-type event with a (please pardon me again) strong religious component. You could kill a friendship dead by giving that to the wrong person. Its an all-too-possible HORROR film, with only human monsters. There's owning a film because its a prize and then there's winding up with one that feels like you have a monkey's paw, waiting to GETCHA. Example:

 

"People just do the strangest things
  when they believe they're entitled,
   but they do stranger things
    when they just plain believe."
        ~ John Goodman, "Red State"

 

Some films are better partially retained in memory. It can be safer. 🤔

[jazzpiano88]

3 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

"Who cares?" you say. "We all know what @Anderton meant." But it means is that the owners of the movies can do what they want with it. They can ship it on streaming, DVD, Blu-Ray, DVD, Laserdisc, Beta, VHS, whatever. They can show it once and never again. Or, never show it at all.

 

Yep, it can go out of print.   But just like music, there are copies that exist and will be available forever.   And legally, once the copyrights expire.

So actually, you will, effectively own movies eventually.

[bill5]

You can own a copy of most movies quite legally but regarding out of print or "forbidden" stuff, you're not owning a copy legally ever. Unless you live well past 100 or some such, as copyrights expire 70 years after the death of their creator,

[analogika]

15 hours ago, Polychrest said:

 

 

From The Guardian:  The great cancellation: why megabucks TV shows are vanishing without a trace

 

There's a perverse inversion of power in big creative enterprises today.  Accountants thrive while writers and actors starve.

 

Yeah. I’m paying a monthly premium in perpetuity to have access to content that will be removed at whim FOR TAX REASONS. 

 

Fuck these people, and fuck this system. 

[Anderton]

23 hours ago, Polychrest said:

There's a perverse inversion of power in big creative enterprises today.  Accountants thrive while writers and actors starve.

 

I wonder if the bean counters realize where the beans come from.

[KuruPrionz]

An interesting thread to be certain. 

I'm an outlier I guess. I haven't owned a television for 45+ years. I've seen a few movies in the theater, mostly Stanley Kubrick films. There have been a few others over the decades. I don't recall going to more than one movie in the last 18 years since I moved to Bellingham and I'm not positive what that movie was, only that a friend of mine did a brief music performance before it was shown. I'm pretty sure it was RUMBLE: The Indians That Rocked The World but I couldn't swear by that. That was a great movie. 

 

I have been visiting friends many times and the television is on. If that's all that's going to happen I may not stay long.

I guess that's a bit strange considering I'm a musician and a photographer and there is probably much to learn by watching other people's creative work. 

That said, I doubt I listen to more than about 30-40 minutes of other people's music per month. I'll watch a bit of YouTube but not much. I'm with Notes on watching somebody like Jeff Beck playing live, that's amazing. 

 

I do enjoy some of the conversations in forums like this. 

I stay busy, there are always interesting things to do. I'm not here to tout my own weirdness or to dismiss the weirdness of others, just thought it might be interesting to see if others think I'm onto something or just batshit crazy. Cheers! Kuru

[Notes_Norton]

10 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

I'm an outlier I guess. I haven't owned a television for 45+ years.

I'm close behind or close ahead of you, depending on how one looks at it. But only for about 38 years.

 

I do own a TV, but I disconnected the Cable in the mid 1980s. Although the house is wired for it, and I know how, I never installed an antenna. I'm in a fringe area, so I can't get anything on my TV. When I had the house repainted, I took the antenna mast down.

 

The last two TV shows I watched were Johnny Carson's last Tonight show, and Jay Leno's first Tonight show, and I had to go to my mother-in-law's house to see them. The Tonight Show was part of my childhood and young adulthood, so I thought I'd watch the end of an era, and the beginning of another.

 

But I do have a TV and a one-disc at a time in the mail subscription to Netflix. Mrs. Notes and I watch one movie per week. Before Netflix it was a visit to the Blockbuster store.

 

Besides for that weekly movie, the TV never goes on.

 

In the med to late 1980s I gigged on cruise ships for 3 years. At that time, the cruise ships didn't have any TV except for the movie that played over and over again, and the pre-recorded shore excursion advertisement station. I got out of the habit of watching TV and into the habit of passing the time by doing things. When we got off the ship, if I tried to watch TV, I would get antsy because I would rather be doing something.

 

Netflix is discontinuing DVDs in the mail. I found a couple of sites where we can stream movies for free with our library card. The new, blockbusters are of course missing, but it would take a couple of years for them to get to Netflix anyway. So we will be able to watch our movie once a week anyway.

 

Movies are like chewing gum for the eyes to me. I can watch them once, and then move on. No need to see all but a very few again, and then perhaps only once, years later.

 

What I do own and hate to give up to streaming is music. I own about 600 CDs and almost that many LPs. If I want to listen to an album, listen in its entirety, and not compressed enough to pipe down the Internet, I can. And I can whenever I want to.

 

Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

32 minutes ago, Notes_Norton said:

 

 

What I do own and hate to give up to streaming is music. I own about 600 CDs and almost that many LPs. If I want to listen to an album, listen in its entirety, and not compressed enough to pipe down the Internet, I can. And I can whenever I want to.

 

Notes ♫

I have boxes full of CDs I found at thrift stores. I have 2 or 3 CD player/burners, a couple of DVD player//burners and all of the aforementioned stuff just sits in boxes on a shelf. Currently I am de-cluttering and a fair amount of this stuff will find a new home. I plan on donating to one thrift store, a box at a time. They'll give me a 20% off coupon with each donation and I can get clothes or stuff I can flip for a profit. I'll keep a few CDs and at least one each CD and DVD burners. Maybe I'll even use them, someday...

[RABid]

12 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

I'll keep a few CDs and at least one each CD and DVD burners.

I've really been thinking about cutting back to 100 favorite CD's. That will be a good start. I probably have over 2000 CD's. I have a jazz collection, 5 boxes from 5 jazz eras, 100 cd's per box. 10 years ago I had to have it. Have not listened to one in 5 years. Time for them to go. I initially thought my Time Life series would be the hardest to give up. Several series from the 70's and 80's. Now I have a subscription to Apple Music.

[KuruPrionz]

8 minutes ago, RABid said:

I've really been thinking about cutting back to 100 favorite CD's. That will be a good start. I probably have over 2000 CD's. I have a jazz collection, 5 boxes from 5 jazz eras, 100 cd's per box. 10 years ago I had to have it. Have not listened to one in 5 years. Time for them to go. I initially thought my Time Life series would be the hardest to give up. Several series from the 70's and 80's. Now I have a subscription to Apple Music.

There are a few CDs that I might listen to and many that I know I never will again. 

At some point, reality rears it's ugly head and I just want a simple, uncluttered life without a bunch of "maybe someday" crap all over the place. 

In the middle of completing guitar projects that I ignored because I was working on guitars for customers. I don't want all of them any more either, some will move on. 

[RABid]

I went through the same thing with VLD movies. Gave away over 300 to a friend.

[Notes_Norton]

6 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

At some point, reality rears it's ugly head and I just want a simple, uncluttered life without a bunch of "maybe someday" crap all over the place. 

I have a hard time with the uncluttered thing. As soon as I dispose of a "maybe someday" item, I'll absolutely need it.

 

I don't collect a lot of possessions, I live a rather simple life, until it comes to music. At least my addiction is legal.

 

Notes ♫

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

I have a hard time with the uncluttered thing. As soon as I dispose of a "maybe someday" item, I'll absolutely need it.

 

I don't collect a lot of possessions, I live a rather simple life, until it comes to music. At least my addiction is legal.

 

Notes ♫

Well, I do have too many guitars. And a box full of various parts and pieces for guitars. But... I made a living as a guitar tech for many years and many players were thrilled to have their guitars set up by me and or repaired depending. 

In my experience, if you buy well (never buy a new guitar unless it was made to be a collectable and then never play it), most guitars will at least hold value and many will become more valuable over time. In a way, they are a savings account. 

[bill5]

19 hours ago, analogika said:

 

Yeah. I’m paying a monthly premium in perpetuity to have access to content that will be removed at whim FOR TAX REASONS. 

 

Fuck these people, and fuck this system. 

Basically. I don't advocate piracy, but stuff like this softens my viewpoint on it as the system is only encouraging it. 

[Notes_Norton]

9 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Well, I do have too many guitars.

Is that possible?

 

I have a gigging guitar, a backup guitar, and an acoustic/electric/archtop guitar. I have a gigging sax and a backup sax. The show must go on, so I have backups of everything I need to make a living.

 

To me, buying more guitars affects the profit/loss ratio of my business, gigging. I have a custom shop Parker that is perfect for me. It has Duncan P-Rail pickups, so I get P90, Rail, Series Humbucker and Parallel Humbucker sounds with the flick of a switch. It also has a piezo under the bridge, allowing me to play or blend acoustic sounds with the mags. Nice neck, well-balanced light weight, and contoured—it's like wearing the guitar instead of holding it.

 

I used to have an Epiphone bolt-on-neck flat top. After years of not playing it, I went to a music school, asked if they had a student who needed it, and I donated it to that student. I checked first to make sure it wasn't a collector's item that would have sold for a zillion dollars.

 

Mrs. Notes and I spend our money on travel, and not possessions. We've been to 49 US States, much of Canada, Mexico and down to Costa Rica, and countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. While we don't have a lot of possessions, we have a lot of memories. We were headed to Madagascar when COVID hit. It's still on the wish list.

 

There is more than one right way to go through life. This is our way. Life is short, do what makes you happy, as long as it doesn't harm others.

 

Notes ♫

[SamuelBLupowitz]

9 hours ago, bill5 said:

 I don't advocate piracy, but stuff like this softens my viewpoint on it as the system is only encouraging it. 

I grew up in the era of Napster and "you wouldn't download a car;" the implication being that pirating music and films harm their creators by keeping them from making a living from their art.

 

Now the same people who made those ads are doing their best to avoid compensating creators and performers for their work, hence, the SAG-AFTRA and Writer's Guild strikes (if only songwriters and musicians were that organized). So, it was never really about taking care of the people who actually *make* things, was it?

 

Art, culture, and history is far more important to humanity than the bank balance of the people who own, control, and fund the systems of distribution with little to no regard for the work or its creators. I have no problem robbing the robber barons. The trick is building a system that actually works for the creators and their audiences. Certainly this is within the realm of our collective imaginations and execution... but if it can't make some already rich people richer, it's tough to get off the ground under the current circumstance. I think the desire and the talent is there in our society, if we can manage to kick some old habits and ways of thinking to the curb.

 

On a side note, I am happy to know a few professional archivists/librarians who find ways to preserve film, television, etc that otherwise might be lost to time. They deserve a shareholder bonus! 😉

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Notes_Norton said:

Is that possible?

 

I have a gigging guitar, a backup guitar, and an acoustic/electric/archtop guitar. I have a gigging sax and a backup sax. The show must go on, so I have backups of everything I need to make a living.

 

To me, buying more guitars affects the profit/loss ratio of my business, gigging. I have a custom shop Parker that is perfect for me. It has Duncan P-Rail pickups, so I get P90, Rail, Series Humbucker and Parallel Humbucker sounds with the flick of a switch. It also has a piezo under the bridge, allowing me to play or blend acoustic sounds with the mags. Nice neck, well-balanced light weight, and contoured—it's like wearing the guitar instead of holding it.

 

I used to have an Epiphone bolt-on-neck flat top. After years of not playing it, I went to a music school, asked if they had a student who needed it, and I donated it to that student. I checked first to make sure it wasn't a collector's item that would have sold for a zillion dollars.

 

Mrs. Notes and I spend our money on travel, and not possessions. We've been to 49 US States, much of Canada, Mexico and down to Costa Rica, and countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. While we don't have a lot of possessions, we have a lot of memories. We were headed to Madagascar when COVID hit. It's still on the wish list.

 

There is more than one right way to go through life. This is our way. Life is short, do what makes you happy, as long as it doesn't harm others.

 

Notes ♫

So you have 3 guitars? Multiply by 5, not counting works in progress. 🙂

Bear in mind that I have 2 basses, one fretless, a small Asian made Strat tuned Nashville tuning and other varieties. Everything is different, I don't accumulate similar pieces. It's useful when recording to give things various voices and arrangements.

 

For what it's worth, buying guitars that need some fixing at bargain prices, fixing them and selling them has been an income stream for decades. I'm guessing but probably not stretching the truth to say that I've bought, fixed and sold hundreds of guitars over the years. I am especially fond of thrift store guitars, no thief is going to give a guitar to Starvation Army so it's a clean deal and I can make the world a better place one guitar at a time. I made a living as a guitar tech in Fresno, decades of doing it. I enjoy it, the more guitarists the better!!!! 😇

[Stokely]

re: too many guitars

That is not too many guitars.  The guitarist in my band has too many guitars.  I'm not sure how many, because the number seems to change weekly.  He very often shows up to gigs with a new (or used) one.   And I don't think he's selling off most of the older ones.  This is not some rich lawyer gigging for yucks, he's a full-time musician doing just ok from what I can tell.  It's a disease I tell you.  Have a few, and here's my thing--pick the ones that stay in tune the best, please.  Especially for all the (awful, hate 'em) outdoor gigs we do, which of course cause tuning issues at the best of times.

I haven't watched a movie I own in decades, and really don't watch movies period anymore.  Just lost my interest in almost all of them.  I'll be in the theater whenever Dune part 2 is release, that might be it for a year or so.

[KuruPrionz]

6 minutes ago, Stokely said:

re: too many guitars

That is not too many guitars.  The guitarist in my band has too many guitars.  I'm not sure how many, because the number seems to change weekly.  He very often shows up to gigs with a new (or used) one.   And I don't think he's selling off most of the older ones.  This is not some rich lawyer gigging for yucks, he's a full-time musician doing just ok from what I can tell.  It's a disease I tell you.  Have a few, and here's my thing--pick the ones that stay in tune the best, please.  Especially for all the (awful, hate 'em) outdoor gigs we do, which of course cause tuning issues at the best of times.

I haven't watched a movie I own in decades, and really don't watch movies period anymore.  Just lost my interest in almost all of them.  I'll be in the theater whenever Dune part 2 is release, that might be it for a year or so.

If he is "buying well" then it is sort of a "savings account that can be useful" concept and I'm not against it. If he buys new guitars, that is a mistake many people make. 

Carefully purchased used guitars can be worth more than the ask price right off the bat. Fix them up, make them play great and look good and value goes up. Some of them will continue to increase in value at a much better rate than the bank will give you. It's a gamble, like buying stocks but like stocks if you do your research and purchase wisely you can show a good profit over time. 

 

I agree with the tuning idea, I've got my guitars well tweaked to stay in tune for the most part. I don't use guitars with whammy bars live. My other tendency is to take "beaters" to gigs, mostly screwdriver guitars that I put together out of the parts that I prefer. I'm 6'2" with large hands and prefer the wide fatback Warmoth necks, I have a Strat with a 1 7/8" wide at the nut fatback neck. I scalloped the fretboard so you have to play relaxed, which is the best way to play in any case. I know way too many guitarists who stress their hands out trying to "muscle" the sound out of the instrument. That's not my game. Thick pick, light touch, relaxation wins the game. 

[Polychrest]

7 hours ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

I grew up in the era of Napster and "you wouldn't download a car;" the implication being that pirating music and films harm their creators by keeping them from making a living from their art.

 

Now the same people who made those ads are doing their best to avoid compensating creators and performers for their work . . . 

Not the same people, but their more ruthlessly efficient corporate descendants.  When Napster first reached Toronto, Canada’s music business capital, among its earliest and most enthusiastic adopters were A&R directors, promo guys and other employees of Canadian record companies.  They already had a culture of never paying for music, so they were blind to the existential menace of the Trojan Horse they’d just welcomed into their homes.  An old friend of mine, an A&R director for the Canadian branch of a major American label, once boasted gleefully that he’d just downloaded the entire Beatles catalogue and was working his way through the Stones and The Who.  Copyright?  What copyright?
 

He belonged to the large caste of industry insiders who for years had traded promo copies of new releases with their competitors.  Half the albums in their record collections had holes punched in the upper right corners—the mark of promo copy freebies.  I confess I’ve still got a small stack of them myself.

 

Back in the record industry’s golden age, wilful corporate hypocrisy was rampant.  Decry Napster publicly, but fill your home hard drives with every album by every artist you’d ever fancied.  Freeloading at the expense of artists was camouflaged as a business perk, not blatantly deployed as a profit-maximizing strategy as it is today.  They didn’t recognize the terminal malignancy of this mindset until it was too late.

 

That generation is long gone, along with the music world they knew.  Their successors have taken artist-mining to new depths of exploitation.  In the still-relevant words of Hunter S. Thompson, “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.

 

There's also a negative side.”