Why are people more possessive/materialistic with music than movies?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

A question for the non-downloaders...

Why is the movie rental industry continuing to blossom while "music rental" (aside from the library) is far less common?

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:05 (twenty-two years ago)

It's easy to listen to one song, but harder to watch one piece of a movie, especially while doing other things during the day.

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

What I meant was that watching movies is something you actively take time to do (time that we sometimes don't have the luxury of taking over and over - most movies only get watched once or twice, thus the demand for rentals), while for many people music is a background thing and if you don't care enough to actually buy the CD you'll just listen to the radio.

Also: It's far more likely you might borrow music from the library and burn yourself a copy, than to rent a movie and tape a copy (or burn a DVD? that's not particularly easy to do, is it?), so potential copyright problems might be discouraging would-be music rental businesses.

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:23 (twenty-two years ago)

well, watching movies began (and continues to a large extent) as a much more communal, social experience than listening to an album. having a hard copy of your favorite movie is a much more recent development than having a hard copy of your favorite song. so that could be kinda the root of it, sociologically at least.

― Al (sitcom), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:31 (twenty-two years ago)

In Japan renting music is very popular. Most video rental stores have large CD rental sections as well. I assume people just rent the CDs and copy them.

― Debito (Debito), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:35 (twenty-two years ago)

(ignore my waffle about copyright, I'm not sure where I was going with that) Maybe libraries have already been established as the places to go for [free] music in North America, the assumption is who's gonna pay to rent a CD? I know I've been less willing to pay to rent movies ever since our library started lending them.

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Only people who have no souls would rent music.

― maypang (maypang), Monday, 23 February 2004 06:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd totally pay to rent CDs, but I can't pretend that I wouldn't copy them - OF COURSE I would, and so would the majority of renters. I think it would be great to rent a CD (that I would presumably copy) and have the artist receive a portion of the rental fee which would equal the amount they'd receive if I bought the disc. Think the RIAA would go for that?

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:01 (twenty-two years ago)

But yeah, I definitely would continue to buy originals of CDs I really like, hell I still buy original video tapes too (they're like big obsolete CASSETTES! I just don't trust DVD yet, the only player I have is my computer and the few DVDs I own play kind of shitty on it.) I'm totally possessive about my favourite movies as well as music.

― Poppy (poppy), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:07 (twenty-two years ago)

you cant assume that people arent more obsessed with movies. maybe you are just exposed to more music geeks.
i for one cherish my dvd collection more than my music collection, mp3's included.

― todd swiss (eliti), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Only people who have no souls would rent music

Do people that download music have no souls as well?

What if the renter copies the CD? Does that grant them soul? Or is the presence of a soul only confirmed with the purchase of a CD?

― Debito (Debito), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:11 (twenty-two years ago)

There is something different about the experience of watching a movie versus listening to an album. I could only watch my favorite movie 10 or 15 times max, but I've probably listened to my favorite record 200-300 times.

― Debito (Debito), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Music Rental never took off for two reasons 1) When it started, the music you rented was of the same quality as the music you bought, but with movies there was a huge difference between seeing a movie on the screen, and on a small TV on VHS - hence Movie companies worried less about, which meant it grew.

2) Having used a CD libary a couple of times, my opionion would be: fuck that - every CD was badly scratched: 50% of people treat their own CDs like shit - how they treat rental CDs is obscene. Paying good money to rent out a CD in which every song is unplayable is a waste of time. Of course this is already happening with DVD rentals, which is depressing.

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 23 February 2004 07:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Although I admit that this is a relevant question, I think that at the moment it is one that is impossible to answer. Since compressed movies are now available and eisily downloadable, the question of data ownership in either the audio or visual fields has become impossible to answer definitively. Lets let the dust settle and we will come back to this one in a coule of years.
P.S. with regards to earlier postings on this site, do we think anyone will ever champion the virtues of VHS over DVD as they have Vinyl over CD?

― lukey (Lukey G), Monday, 23 February 2004 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I doubt VHS will ever be regarded in the same way as Vinyl - basically because a better comparison would be audio tape to CD with Laser Discs taking the significantly less successful version of vinyl (laser disc did have supporters who claimed it was better than DVD, but Movie companies took less time to get rid of sloppy transfers than music companies took to get rid of sloppy mastering. Which meant the DVD naysayers died to quickly to register any real complaints.

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 23 February 2004 11:28 (twenty-two years ago)

laserdiscs do look good! but seriously, i guess vhs can be compared to vinyl in the sense that they both wear down after time while cd's, laserdiscs, and dvds are all just dirt/dust/fingerprint/scratch sensitive. but no one in their right mind will say that vhs is better than dvd. i mean, there are too many facts against vhs.

― todd swiss (eliti), Monday, 23 February 2004 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

"50% of people treat their own CDs like shit - how they treat rental CDs is obscene. .... Of course this is already happening with DVD"

i'm a bit worried about DVD rentals because of this. Even some new releases i've borrowed have been scratched badly enough to cause freezing/skipping/blockiness during certain scenes. I doubt that any of those DVDs will live longer than 5 or so years.
What do people do to these discs? Chew on them?

Video tapes were practically tamper proof compared with this. Still, nothing beats well-looked-after Cds and DVDs.

I really can't stand when people mishandle the things. Don't they realise that you shouldn't pick them up by placing you're thumb on top, and all your fingers underneath, on the playing surface?? Gah!

I wouldn't care so much, except i think dvd rentals could be wonderful: buying one DVD costs about the same as renting 15 ... etc

*sorry. this is mostly unrelated to the question. i had to vent*

― Michael Dubsky, Monday, 23 February 2004 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm, in libraries in Australia and New Zealand, they do have a remarkably good range of rentable CDs. And of course people copy em.
In the chain CD stores here in NY, the DVD sections are becoming increasingly large.
Why do people buy DVDs in a way they never bought videos? I've never bought one of either, but I'm not such a big movie/music video person.

― paulhw (paulhw), Monday, 23 February 2004 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember in the early days (the late 80s) of the CD, you could rent them at various places. But I think the idea of having a record collection runs deeper in our culture than the idea of having a film collection, even though home video has been widespread for like a quarter of a century.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Monday, 23 February 2004 16:07 (twenty-two years ago)

People are more likely to buy DVD than they were video because a) extra features meant more time required to take in info, b) release schedules are completely different, unless you wanted to pay over a hundred dollars (Australian) for a rental copy, you had to wait ages to get reasonably new releases, c) marketing, and d) the previously mentioned high scratched rate of rental DVDs.

― Jedmond (Jedmond), Monday, 23 February 2004 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.