The future through the eyes of the MPAA/RIAA

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Of *course* they'd never go after your sister for downloading some ebooks while visiting a different country! They're not OGRES, you know! They only want to go after criminals!

In their world, anyone who doesn't pay them lots of money must be a criminal.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I think the "dream" future of publishers, record labels, movie studies etc. is one where super high speed internet is available to all and they can just sell access to all their content in streaming versions and not have many (or any) physical copies for sale.

Pirates would still capture streams etc., but they'd be happy to at least kill off the second hand market, loaning/borrowing etc.

It's seems all bad--but the older I get the more I'd go for it as I look at my shelves of DVDs/blu rays, CDs, books etc. that seldom every get touched as I just watch the latest movie I have from Netflix or listen to streaming music online or ripped MP3 versions of my CDs etc.

If we had super high speed and reliable internet, and Netflix has their entire collection available in streaming, I'd gladly sell/donate my 300+ movies so I could stream them in time I wanted for a monthly subscription fee. Same with my CDs if the internet was global wireless and I could listen to anything, anytime, anywhere.

And same for books since I seldom re-read anything. On that front I wish come company would come up with an e-book rental scheme so I don't have to buy e-books I'll read once etc.

In any case, back on topic, that type of digital streaming world is what I think publishers really salivate over as it gives them what they want--as much control over their content as possible.

You may not be aware but the Google "Orphan Books" initative is going to be a streaming read format, not a download format....

[asjogren]

Image the fun we could have with "fake" infringements!!! Especially if there is a monetary penalty for deleting a file from my computer that they don't own!

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

If we had super high speed and reliable internet, and Netflix has their entire collection available in streaming, I'd gladly sell/donate my 300+ movies so I could stream them in time I wanted for a monthly subscription fee. Same with my CDs if the internet was global wireless and I could listen to anything, anytime, anywhere.

The issue I have with this, is that NOT everything is available for streaming. There just isn't the storage on servers for that. Whenever I go to my parent's house, who have cable where I don't own a TV, I notice that HBO, Showtime, etc. shows only keep about 10 episodes on hand at any given time. What if I want to power through an entire season of Entourage one Saturday because my girlfriend left me and I need cheering up?

Or what if I want to do the entire Sopranos from start to finish in a month? Nuh uh! You only get to watch the few episodes offered this week, and get a few more next week when they're incremented.

The few music streaming services I've tried seem to pick one or two popular songs from an artist, and ignore the rest of their catalog. They also don't seem to have an eclectic mix.

Until this whole storage thing gets solved, having everything streaming just isn't viable, even with all the dark fiber laying around.

Originally Posted by Bill Gates

I have to say that in 1981, making those decisions, I felt like I was providing enough freedom for 10 years. That is, a move from 64k to 640k felt like something that would last a great deal of time. Well, it didn't - it took about only 6 years before people started to see that as a real problem.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

If we had super high speed and reliable internet, and Netflix has their entire collection available in streaming, I'd gladly sell/donate my 300+ movies so I could stream them in time I wanted for a monthly subscription fee. Same with my CDs if the internet was global wireless and I could listen to anything, anytime, anywhere.

And same for books since I seldom re-read anything. On that front I wish come company would come up with an e-book rental scheme so I don't have to buy e-books I'll read once etc.

I am the extreme opposite of this mentality. I almost never stream anything, and I have no desire to. I keep all of my content with me, mostly on SDHC cards, but I also have a couple of external HDD and USB thumb drives. I do not ever want to be reliant on an Internet connection just to read a book or watch a movie, that is a huge step backwards for me.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

The few music streaming services I've tried seem to pick one or two popular songs from an artist, and ignore the rest of their catalog. They also don't seem to have an eclectic mix.

But the governments of the world point at those services and say that everything you could possibly want is there already, so there is no excuse for piracy.

Though I'm sure that having a population that only listens to aproved music, only reads aproved books, and only watches aproved videos is a lot of the appeal.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by asjogren

Especially if there is a monetary penalty for deleting a file from my computer that they don't own!

Don't hold your breath for that one.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

I am the extreme opposite of this mentality. I almost never stream anything, and I have no desire to. I keep all of my content with me, mostly on SDHC cards, but I also have a couple of external HDD and USB thumb drives. I do not ever want to be reliant on an Internet connection just to read a book or watch a movie, that is a huge step backwards for me.

It definitely would be currently.

But if in 50 years there's blazing fast wireless internet freely available worldwide that pretty much never has outages etc....then I could go for it.

With today's splotchy internet service, huge geographic gaps in availability of broadband, still pretty high costs for broadband which keep everyone from being able to have access etc. it would be a huge step backwards.

Solve that problem (which will take decades) and my resistance would melt as I'm getting tired of having stuff I never use clutter up the house. One of these days I just need to bite the bullet, quit holding on to this stuff and have a garage sell or just say screw it and donate cds, dvds etc. that never get used. I've been gradually getting rid of stuff, but have a hard time parting with a lot of movies I feel I may want to watch again some day etc.

Hell, even a burglary would be fine as at least then I could get insurance money for all this crap!

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

Until this whole storage thing gets solved, having everything streaming just isn't viable, even with all the dark fiber laying around.

Agreed. But like I said I was talking 50-100 in the future where all the internet speed, coverage, storage and other issues have been resolved.

It's not something coming any time soon.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

It's not something coming any time soon.

Or ever.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Or ever.

You can never say never.

I think we'll get their eventually when internet es everywhere and everything in on cloud storage etc.

Will it be in our lifetimes? Probably not in terms of that being where all content is. But we'll probably get to the point where one can stream pretty much any movie or book or song they want in the next 50-75 years if I had to guess.

But not to the point that one can't buy a digital version to keep on their own storage. And maybe that part will never happen. But I think it will as publishers, labels, game developers etc. have a huge incentive to see it happen as it would completely end all used sales.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

But if in 50 years there's blazing fast wireless internet freely available worldwide that pretty much never has outages etc....then I could go for it.

I would hope that in 50 years, SD cards will hold 10 terabytes of data and you can just have what you want with you already, no need to access the Internet for content. I just don't want to rely on any kind of network connection for my content when I can just have it with me at all times. As far as all those DVD's and CD's on your shelves, just convert them to a digital format that you can keep on a HDD, then store the originals in the attic or basement...

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

As far as all those DVD's and CD's on your shelves, just convert them to a digital format that you can keep on a HDD, then store the originals in the attic or basement...

I just don't have the time or patience to convert the DVDs. CDs have long since been converted.

I also own a condo with very little closet space and no attic or basement.

The CDs I don't mind so much as I know I'll want to have that music around in case all my MP3 backups get lost.

The movies I just need to bring myself to whittle down to 100 or so as I can always Netflix any movie I want to watch. I've cut way down on movie buying the past 2 or 3 years since relying more on Netflix (and getting busier and not having as much time to watch movies0

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

You can never say never.

Originally you said free wireless that pretty much never has outages. I'm pretty sure you can chalk that up under "never".

But we'll probably get to the point where one can stream pretty much any movie or book or song they want in the next 50-75 years if I had to guess.

The same will happen that always happens, as bandwidth speeds go up. so do the bandwidth requirements. Could everyone easily stream today's version of a movie with the bandwidth speeds/availability we'll likely have in 50 years, probably. But by then the data formats will be an equal number of orders of magnitude larger as well. 50 years from now, movie/book/song digital data will also look a lot different than it does today. It's not just one side of the equation that will scale upwards.

It'd be like kids 20 years ago talking about how fast they could play the latest 4-bit graphics game on a "futuristic" computer compared to their 25MHz PC. Sure, we've got 4GHz PCs now, but not many people want to play 20 year old games on them. Modern content stresses modern hardware, they go hand in hand.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I just don't have the time or patience to convert the DVDs.

These days, ripping a DVD is basically as easy as ripping a CD, and almost as fast.