this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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I haven't used a DVD in 10-15 years and never used a BluRay but this is still a little surprising to me. Old non-tech-savvy people need movies too.
Physical media is still the best quality for those of us that care. I rip it to watch digitally, but I like having the physical backup and option to watch with minimal compression.
Just a reminder that anything digitally bought you don't own. The company you bought it from. Can do whatever they want with it. But you do sure as hell ownon a Blu-ray
There is actually DRM baked into BluRay that can prevent playback under certain circumstances. BD+ is one of those.
Some players require updates from the Internet to work with newer discs as the cryptography keys can rotate or be revoked. And then there are updates like where they can remove playback features.
I actually had an issue where a disc wouldn’t play in any of my players and I had to crack and rip it just to watch the content I purchased. I recommend people backup their blurays because newer players or internet updated ones can revoke access to playback.
Also, you may not be able to play BluRays on non-HDCP compliant TVs.
At this point, piracy is just easier.
There is software that can rip blurays and strip out the DRM. 4k only works with certain drives that have custom firmware available though.
MakeMKV for those wondering. I have yet to be unable to rip a disk with it due to DRM.
Right, which is why I recommend people back up their blurays. If you don’t, you may still loose access to your content on a normal player.
I wish people would stop saying this. There's a middle ground for digital media people should be reminded of: DRM-free digital media. In that situation it's much like a physical DVD/blu-ray or the like, you own a copy of it, you can back it up, share it (though the terms & conditions will often discourage this), and so on.
This all or nothing talk of digital media only encourages people to give up and give in to restricted digital media via streaming or limited downloads/installs, both of which do better enable them to diminish your ownership.
Where can I buy DRM free digital media please? Because as far as I know, there's not many large or easily accessible companies that most people are familiar with that offer that.
For music:
Bandcamp, mainly indie.
7digital, a decent mix of popular and indie.
Qobuz, like 7digital, a mix of popular and indie.
iTunes and Amazon also sell their music DRM-free to an extent, but I'm always skeptical of whether what I'm getting from them is or not because they don't make it a selling point.
For books:
Smashwords
Weightless Books
For games:
GOG
Humble Bundle Store, albeit you'll have to filter by DRM-free to ensure you're finding games sold that way.
Itch.io this is like the Bandcamp of games, meaning that most of the titles distributed here are indie and experimental.
I'm still on the lookout for digital tv/movies, so unfortunately I don't have any pointers for those, but hopefully the rest of these help if they're available in your region!