[antoinec]

> Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it.

I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, or a DVD with scratches on it.

[chucksmash]

> As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes?

Because it is the same thing, but cheaper.

> And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes?

Because otherwise people won't buy it from you, they'll buy it from ITunes.

Even if the lower price doesn't make sense for digital media that aren't degraded through use, lower price (that lets you recoup, say, 90% of what you paid) would be needed to make people go through hassle of not just buying it "new."

[Avicebron]

True, and if the market economy was working as it should. Then if enough people were selling old digital music at lower prices, Itunes would have to lower their prices. Essentially what their doing is anti-competitive.

[shockeychap]

The only problem with this is that with physical media, there's an intrinsic amount of "friction" that prevents gaming the system. It's not convenient to, for example, have five people buy and share one set of DVDs. The hassle of moving the disc around (which gets dramatically worse with distance) incentivizes people to buy their own copy. But digital buying and selling would make it rather easy for one person to "sell" their movie to a friend for next-to-nothing and then "buy" it back when they want to use it. And we can be a thousand miles away with no problem.

There are ways to correct this, such as imposing reasonable floors on the sale price, or not permitting the sale of a title for something like 30 days after a transaction.

I'm just saying that these things would need to be factored into any proper solution, ideally via legislation.

[antoinec]

I'd be curious to see if a system like that exists already for some kind of digital asset: secondary sales for something that is not limited in quantity, and can still be bought from the source at a higher price.

[LegitShady]

@antoinec

steam does exactly this. you can sell on steam and pay steam their cut, or sell steam keys elsewhere for the same or more money without steam taking a cut.

[bigyikes]

>as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes?

A seller would do this to undercut iTunes, making a sale much more likely.

>As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes

Because the seller would likely price it lower than iTunes.

The real question is: how does this affect the digital goods market overall? Does allowing re-sale make iTunes unprofitable? Does it make movie production unprofitable?

[IanCal]

This I think is one of the places where smaller technical differences make things legitimately different. I'm not coming from the side of "it shouldn't be allowed" or "it must absolutely be allowed like physical goods".

Second hand items are often

* Lower quality, as they've been used * Lack consumer protections

The first just doesn't apply to digital goods and the second is much more minor (not expecting technical faults to become apparent after a while owning a digital item).

Selling physical goods also has a reasonable time commitment to it, you have to physically move things - there's friction. Digital goods could be sold between regular people near instantaneously. Buying a DVD and selling it after watching is do-able but still some work. Buying a film second hand the moment I press play and selling it on a market straight away after I stop watching seems trivial. I know this is ~rental, but theoretically users only need to buy in total enough copies for the concurrent number of watchers. A big enough market and this could impact how things are released, a "watch anytime" vs a "you really need to be up to date (e.g. sports)" would make a vast difference in total required copies floating around.

The resale value impacts the price you can sell at too. If a customer knows they can easily sell an item for 80% of what they bought it for, they're likely to be willing to pay more for it. However the customer also takes on more risk.

It feels like such a small change, but I can see it making a very large difference.

[the_af]

> Does allowing re-sale make iTunes unprofitable?

I doubt it. Does reselling used physical books make the book publishing business unprofitable?

[oneeyedpigeon]

As a buyer: to get it cheaper. As a seller: to obtain money for something you no longer value at its purchase price.

[frankfrankfrank]

It’s rather simple, because you want to sell it. If you want to hold out for selling it at market price while the buyer will prefer buying it directly from the source, then so be it, or if you want to sell it immediately, you price it at bargain prices or even free if you don’t care, i.e. value the item anymore. What we are witnessing here is a total destruction of markets and commerce between free humans.

What you and many are are also missing, including the author, is that the whole system is a fraud because the prices we asked to pay (I refuse) are fraudulent themselves because of it. You are “buying” a movie at a price, precisely because the whole system is rigged in a fraudulent manner where you are not able to actually own it and you are not able to sell it, and you can’t rent it or even lend it; therefore it is not actually a market price, it is a monopoly price based on cartel control and total cornering of the market. It’s essentially no different than the fraudulent price of diamonds or any of the frauds that have been prosecuted where people corner and manipulate the market of, e.g., onions, famously.

Some may have heard the phrase “you will own nothing and be happy” expressed by your global rulers. This topic is precisely manifestation of that and people don’t seem to realize it. You own nothing related to media that you think you own and you think you are happy for it, without yet realizing what a fraud and trap it is, even as the encirclement of slavery progresses all around us.

Especially in America there are many people who, if you were to look at closely, literally own not a single thing they think they have; and in many cases own less than they are even worth. Every single thing can be yanked out from under people like that on a whim … legally. A recent famous example of that is the Tesla that was disabled because Tesla didn’t like something. Slaves of the past were also “happy and didn’t own anything” since their healthcare was “free” and their groceries were “free” and their housing was “free”, etc.; all provided for “free” by government of and by the feudal lord or plantation owners.

In case people have forgotten the most relevant case of what the author writes about; remember when Amazon simply deleted a book from users’ kindles without even asking, let alone receiving consent? This was about 4 years ago now. That book that Amazon just disappeared off people’s devices with no evidence of their actions other than some coincidental proof of purchase people had retained … 1984.

[rvz]

Yes. That is the scam.

It's no different to the rest of them. If Stadia hasn't already taught anyone that it is a scam then I don't know what will.