Simple example: My wife wants to consume certain Austrian/German content in Canada which are not available on any streaming service here. The streaming services there (Germany/Austria) do not support Canada. She was gifted DVDs of them, but that means she can't watch them on her phone or tablet (or laptop without a usb dvd drive that's region coded to Europe). Options are to:
- rip the DVDs (pain in the butt unless you have a specific setup for doing it en-masse. Some shows end up with episodes out of order, etc)
- download the shows
And this is when she's lucky enough the show/movie had a DVD release.
Similar problems exist for local content that doesn't exist on streaming sites altogether (bunch of things I grew up watching that I'd like to revisit).
Note that ripping DVDs is still piracy if said DVDs contain DRM[1], at least in the US. I don't know about CA, but I'd imagine it's similar, considering the state of copyright ...
[1] Region locking is a form of DRM, and most DVDs at least used to be region-locked. I don't know if that's still common practice nowadays.
Didn't say they were. I was replying to the folks saying that the distribution of flash without crapware was a free market solution. In a free market with no copyright, sure. In a market in which there is copyright though, adobe (copyright holder) decide on the distribution method. Which is what happened here.
The folks I was replying to seemed to think that adobe stopping them was anti free market. I just wanted to clarify that that meant they didn't agree with copyright in any form, which is quite an extreme position.
Ninite does not distribute Flash. Adobe does, and always has. Ninite merely provides an automatic way to download Flash from Adobe's servers and say "No" to every crapware installation prompt.
Adobe gets to decide on the distribution method, whether with or without Ninite. There's nothing stopping Adobe from bundling McAfee with Flash in such a way that it becomes impossible to install Flash without McAfee, it's a free market after all. Instead Adobe gave users a choice as to whether or not to install McAfee, and Ninite helps users express that choice.
> they didn't agree with copyright in any form
The article doesn't say anything about copyright or DMCA. Nobody else has expressed any view on copyright in this thread. The only person in this thread who is talking about copyright is you.
Other than the guy who posted a link to mises.org and agreed that copyright and the free market do clash. And I certainly didn't mention the DMCA, that was all you.
--edit-- And it could still be a copyright violation if the terms of the license require non-automated install. As it's adobe's product they get to say how it is copied (installed).
re: availability, try emailing the author of that book series as it is likely a mistake on the publisher's side. I was reading a trilogy on the Kindle, only to find the last book unavailable in my region; I emailed the author asking why that is, and got a reply the next day saying it was a mistake, and the final book became available two days later.
As for DRM, I just use Calibre to strip the DRM off my Kindle purchases. Annoying that I would have to do that, but its better than not having the option at all.
As for value-added from Amazon, I love the free international 3G access for the browser. It is amazing if you travel a lot and the money saved from data roaming fees has already paid for the Kindle itself.
Would you have them continue to use their time developing for the iOS platform despite the changes being accepted or rejected is a function of who they get to review their application and how strictly they follow their own rules? Didn't Apple post the guidelines to avoid this exact situation?
And what if they are small? How many companies had a large user-base from the beginning? Also, while small companies may not be of much interest to the readers of HN, they make up a decent chunk of the world's economy.
Honestly, it feels like they are trying to add to the pressure on Apple to drop this ridiculous cash-grab. If in the process they get some free publicity, all the better for them.
I don't disagree. Its a risk, but keep in mind Rhapsody had this same risk just trying to get their app approved initially. They can work around the TOS to get approved as well, thats part of my point. They are just a screenshot and share service.
In terms of them being small, thats fine too. I'm just stating things as I see it. The company is not stopping production because they can't come up with a solution, its that it likely is not worth their time because they are not all that successful on iOS.
In terms of pressure, this really does nothing to Apple. Rhapsody, Netflix, and Kindle are much bigger deals. It will be the big service providers that push the pressure on Apple.
Not to mention the world moving with its feet to Android.
A lot of tech people seem to be in love with the iPhone and the press made it seem like the only smartphone in town for a few years there. But realistically I don't think it's ever had more than a minority market share of high end phones.
Apple has historically been very comfortable with a minority share of the market, but I doubt their stockholders will have infinite patience to sit and watch Android eat up its market share _and_ developer mindshare _and_ all the top-brand content provider deals.
