Another reason to sail the high seas

Zach@sh.itjust.works to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 1020 points –

$25 to rent the movie, one watch within max 24 hours after you start watching it... Or $5 more to own it. Scammers.

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Man, I spent 15 bucks to watch it at the movie theatre. Why is the rent option more expensive than that? Even with the popcorn and drink I stayed below that.

My only argument I can come up with is that other people have friends, so $25 will be less than going to the cinema because they don't have to pay that price for each person watching. It's still ridiculously expensive though.

This is the logic publishers apply to libraries when they charge them more for books than general retail price.

They do ? I assumed they get better deals as they buy shit in bulk.

Mainly relates to eBooks now;

https://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/here-is-a-breakdown-of-how-much-libraries-pay-for-ebooks-from-publishers

Edit; found a good summary.

Libraries pay more for books than a customer would at retail.

There are different payment models libraries use. And not all options may be available to all authors.

The one-copy method pays for the book up front, while the cost-per-checkout method pays a small amount each time (and can be more profitable in the long run).

With the one-copy method, libraries often pay two or three times the retail cost of a print book—and sometimes even more than triple the retail price of an ebook.

With the pay-per-use model, a book makes an amount less than the retail cost—but each time it’s “checked out,” the author gets royalties. If a lot of people read your book, you win!

Source; https://danieljtortora.com/blog/are-libraries-good-for-authors#:~:text=With%20the%20one%2Dcopy%20method,%2C%E2%80%9D%20the%20author%20gets%20royalties.

Don't most friend groups pay for their own ticket?

Who out there paying for a ticket for all their friends? And are they really friends at that point?

Family sounds more likely in this case. Two adults and three kids could be like 50 euros for tickets unless the kids are small enough to sit in your lap.

I'm trying to imagine a Barbie watch party and I'm having trouble.

It's less than 2 movie tickets and people usually don't go to the theater alone.

Oh God just wait until they realize they can use cameras/IP geodata from your phone to determine how many people are in your house while you stream something so they start charging per person.

Wouldn't work because if you live in an apartment, then your neighbors are going to skew the numbers. There's no way for them to know if the guy who lives on the floor above you is in your apartment or theirs.

Cameras would work, as would AI to know which device identifiers tend to be close to one another. Besides, they wouldn't need or want perfect accuracy. I'm picturing basically something like the British does with TV licenses where they more or less assume you're guilty and then badger you into proving you're not. You have some friends over for the game, then you get a bill in the mail that says something like "This address has been linked to a broadcast without express, written consent from the NFL. Please pay $5 or we shut your service off. If you believe this letter is in error feel free to hire an attorney, take a day or two off of work and drive hundreds hundreds of miles to the dispute resolution center you agreed to use for such purposes when you accepted our EULA. We pay them, but who knows? Maybe they'll rule in your favor!"

You are exactly right. This whole thread is full of people complaining about the price, but it's perfectly justifiable for this one reason. If you have a significant other then it's actually cheaper to rent than it is to go to the theater. And big screen TVs are commonplace, so the experience is about the same (arguably better since you can pause if you have to go pee, can rewind if you missed something, can be as obnoxious as you want, don't have to commute there, and don't have to deal with sticky floors and overpriced popcorn).

I'm not saying the price is reasonable (it's too high in my opinion) but people need to stop pretending like it makes no sense from a business perspective. It's a no-brainer to the average non-pirating consumer: they are getting something better, for cheaper.

I love all the good and the bad of the movie theater experience, except the price. But having a young child now, it's just not worth going most of the time. I am still an avid film viewer so it's nice that I have an option to rent at home with only a slight delay behind the theatrical run. If I'm feeling really patient, I can usually wait a little longer and stream it for free. I recently did that with the TMNT movie.