The increased capability of modern bandwidth and availability of streaming services has already begun to kill physical media. The ease of access to movies (Netflix/Hulu) and music (Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud) greatly reduce the demand for for relatively expensive physical copies such as Blu Ray.
(Source: PwC’s Entertainment and Media Outlook report, June 2015)
In basic practice approximately $10 a month unlocks a number of movies/songs that would cost a small fortune to physically purchase. For the average consumer (myself included) the benefits of this model are more than enough incentive to sign up. That being said, this paradigm shift of how we consume media has also changed the ownership dynamic for said media.
Who owns media?
Streaming, by definition, is funneling a continuous stream of data from a server over networks onto a client device. At no point is the data actually downloaded or stored on a client device in any permanent fashion. This is why streaming services can offer such a wide variety of content for relatively low prices and so conveniently. It also means that as the end user, you only own the right to access the content, not the content itself.
The most obvious and common issue brought about by this is price hikes. The early days of Netflix streaming had a monthly subscription of $4.99, half of what it currently is today. Furthermore, in 2016 Netflix got rid of all grandfathered rates. Spotify has undergone its own price increases as it reached maturity and these instances are the most probable outcome of the streaming business model.
Amazon took criticism recently when they pulled a Christmas movie from their library right before Christmas season. Amazon movies are streamed on a per-purchase basis as opposed to Netflix's all-size-fits-one approach. Natural disasters, mergers/acquisitions or a new CEO could also change a consumer's access to "their" content.
The video game industry is the streaming hold out so far in terms of digital media for a few reasons; 1) the size, depth and interactivity of a video game greatly trumps even the longest movie let alone song, and 2) video games are notoriously hard to pirate or crack compared to other media (more on that later). Even so many of these issues mentioned above are appearing in the realm of video games as physical discs are being phased out.
The EULA’s that no one reads cover a wide range of these instances and issues and more often than not the end user has no recourse regarding changes to the deal. Owning a physical CD, or even a flash drive with .mp3 files on it, eliminates these problems for the consumer but acquiring it is time consuming and either costly or illegal...
Intellectual Property in the Digital Age
Intellectual property (IP), piracy and torrenting have been hot button issues in the tech world for some time now and are intertwined with the phenomenon of declining physical media. Pirating movies and music was a popular method of circumventing IP owners long before the rise of Spotify and Netflix. A little bit of know-how and guile allows most anyone to freely download songs, movies and even expensive software suites.
As previously mentioned, video games (console) have always been difficult to pirate. Console manufacturers are so heavily involved in the specs and development of games for their consoles that cracking games was always relatively difficult. It would almost always require plugins, emulators or even physical hacks to the console. PC games have historically not had this issue, though even the top pirates report that anti-copy protection has become to hard to crack.
Your Choices
Given that most laptops being sold right now don’t have a CD drive and the phrase “Bluray player” is going the way of “VCR” you have two options for consuming media. There’s the high road:
And there’s the free road:
Most everyone under the age of 30 will take no issue with the convenience of streaming or saying good bye to DVD’s. I just find it interesting that the standard, legal and kosher mode of consuming media has had its ownership system so drastically changed.
Sources/Further Reading
Amazon does try to incorporate some unlimited streaming with their prime video, which is perk that comes with the annual prime subscription. However, the content is not as great like Hulu and Netflix's libraries. Not everything in Amazon's library falls under the prime umbrella and there are great movies and shows that unfortunately have to be pay-per-purchase . I believe in time, after Content Delivery Networks become more affordable to businesses, the amount of content provided by each subscription will increase and possibly get rid of the pay-per-purchase method. Also, i agree that Blu-Ray players on on their last legs. Companies cram apps like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Pandora, etc. to try and push some sales out before they get left in the dust.
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