Talking about the whole Neil Young fiasco, The Middle Finger Lady reminds us:
Oh, wait — wrong excerpt. I meant this one:
It’s even worse now. Consumers don’t even really “buy” content anymore — they rent it, suckered into paying a monthly subscription. If the stuff they love disappears from a service, it disappears. There’s nothing that can be done. I don’t want sometimes access to my favorite art and literature. I want it all the time.
So buy the DVD. Buy the book. Buy the CD or vinyl. You get to keep it. The digital powers may be able to make your words disappear, but to take away the stuff you can hold it in your hands is impossible.
Almost as bad, as I discovered the other evening when re-watching one of my favorite TV movies of all time (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ) on Amazon Prime, the streaming service can also alter the original content: the current version of Dragon has gaping holes in the plot where Amazon has clipped out whole scenes for no reason whatsoever.
Fuckers.
So I’m going to buy the Millennium trilogy on DVD. From Walmart.
Keep on preaching it!
we began cutting the cable cord about ten years ago. we downgraded our cable package and then later added Netflix and Amazon Firestick. With firestick we signed up for hulu, my outdoor tv, acorn for british tv and I forget what else. Our TV bill is a fraction of what we were paying for DirectTV.
There are some good shows and documentaries on the various streaming services but as the article says, sometimes the movie or tv show gets pulled from streaming. I found a couple of used DVD and CD stores and have been building up a library of DVDs and CDs to watch and listen to.
The problem with streaming etc is that they control when and if something is available. I tend to like things out of the main stream such as Zulu, Zulu Dawn, Breaker Morant, Sand Pebbles, The Caine Mutiny, The Maltese Falcon and those types of movies tend to have limited runs on the streaming services. Screw that. Build my own library then I can watch what I want at any time.
Orwell was right in 1984 when he predicted how easy information can be manipulated and purged. Look at what GoFundMe did to the Ottawa truckers and a host of other fund raising situations. If they don’t like it, they just cut you off. Can you imagine what would happen when your pay check and finances are completely electronic? Don’t pay a parking ticket, bam your checking and savings accounts are all frozen. Technology is supposed to improve our lives unfortunately it has become easier to abuse it.
JQ
Nothing new here.
Watch “2001 A space odyssey,” in the original movie made in 1968 there is a scene a the beginning where the primitive man throw is bone weapon in the air, then you see it become a space shuttle.
You will be lucky to find that in a more recent cut. Of course this make the whole opening scene meaningless.
> Hard Copies
…or at least your own copy, on your own server that you back up regularly. Last album I bought was a set of FLAC files: https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/sixteen-tons-youtube-favorites-southern-raised/phibnakxejdac. It’ll get backed up to BD-R, plus there’s an Opus copy on my phone (along with the rest of my collection). People tell me I’m a bit weird for that, then they wonder how I’m still listening to music while their phones all have no signal.
I would start with those most likely to be banned, Blazing Saddles is at #1, How to Murder Your Wife would be in there too (the “Not Guilty” celebration is in itself priceless as is the chalk button scene).
I pirate everything I want. It’s an experiment in socialism. They are socialists, so I figure I’ll act like their property belongs to me, and if that works out for them, then I’ll consider it with my property.