Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 December 29

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December 29

x-pack abs

I first heard the phrase "6-pack abs" and "8-pack abs" at the same time. Later, I kept hearing "6-pack abs" again and again, but almost never heard "8-packs abs" again. I did a search for "8-pack abs", confirming their existence. I did a search for "12-pack abs"—I'm not sure if the search results are photoshopped. Is each part of a "pack" a single muscle? If so, then what makes for the difference between a "6-pack" and an "8-pack"? — Melab±1 ☎ 02:15, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

The article Abdomen doesn't specifically address it, but you can see from the diagram that the muscles come in four pairs. If you google-image the subject, you'll see in some cases that what appears to be an "8-pack" is being called a "6-pack". Maybe it depends on which ones you include. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:23, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, the expression refers to the resemblance of the muscular ridges to the sides of a package of 6 beverage cans, whether it uses a six-pack ring like this one or is shrink-wrapped like this one. These 6-packs are very familiar in some English-speaking areas, to the point where describing a group of muscles as an "8-pack" sounds like an exaggeration of the basic phrase. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 04:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Similarly, "12-pack abs" are a bit of hyperbole on the term "6 pack abs" (i.e. "I don't just have a six pack, I have a TWELVE pack").OldTimeNESter (talk) 14:02, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I've always assumed that 6-pack became predominant simply because the bottom two "cans" are ill-defined and usually non-circular. Not that the upper six are particularly circular, but the bottom two are very definitely a different shape than the top six. 99.235.223.170 (talk) 16:35, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

What's the densest country that makes enough food and drinkable water to feed itself?

And what's the densest first world country like that? And the densest country not in the tropics (where they have more harvests per year due to the permanent summer and strong sunlight)? (I'd count dependencies like French Guiana, Gibraltar etc. separately because if you need colonies to be self-sufficient that kind of seems to defeat the purpose of self-sufficiency). Of course there'll always be food imports (i.e. no country makes both bananas and French wine) but my question is "do they make enough food and drinkable water that there's enough for everyone"? For the US, yes. For Macau, no. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:06, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to have to tell you this, but Macau is not a country and never has been. It was a Portuguese colony for centuries and is now an "autonomous region" of the People's Republic of China. I am unaware of any "country" that relies on imported drinkable water, but perhaps there are a few small ones in the Middle East. And only one country makes "French wine", although dozens make excellent wine. There is a big difference between food self-sufficiency in a time of peaceful worldwide trade, and survival self-sufficiency during World War. Japan is known to be a country especially interested in maintaining self sufficiency in staples such as rice, for example, even though world market prices are much lower than domestic production prices. Please see Rice production in Japan. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:28, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Singapore still imports some water from Malaysia, although they aim to achieve (and have made a number of steps towards) self sufficiency by 2061. See Water supply and sanitation in Singapore for details. The imports aren't just for drinking, and they could possibly always have survived solely on local water if all they used it was for drinking (not certain though). But it's a bit of a weird seperation anyway since they need to import food (which tends to be a component of water intake) and I doubt they could have grown all the food even if they had the infrastructure in place without using imported water. Plus if they really had no imported water long term, the impact on their economy (particularly in the 1960s when desalination and processing of waste water was a fair amount harder) would likely have been significant enough that a fair percentage of their population would have left. (In other words, if you're importing a significant quantity of fresh water, it doesn't make sense to seperate it in to what's needed for drinking and what's needed for other purposes.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking of deserts with plentiful saltwater when I wrote drinkable (like Bahrain). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:31, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Well Singapore is an island so it has a lot of saltwater. I guess potentially this could be used for a number of things that fresh water is currently used for like a lot of washing perhaps with modification of an appliances, chemicals (such as soaps/detergents) etc, but this isn't really done, just as it isn't done in areas of the desert with access to the sea. The key distinction is surely fresh water vs saltwater/seawater, not drinkable water. Most of the water used for most purposes is drinkable, but the imported water may not necessarily meet the standards for drinkable before it's processed locally. In other words, the imported water may not necessarily be drinkable even if it isn't seawater. Note also, theoretically, it is possible for a landlocked country with little groundwater or natural aquafiers or other water sources to import seawater which they desalinate themselves. Such a country is importing water and couldn't survive without it, but they aren't importing drinkable water even by what you were thinking. Nil Einne (talk) 14:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

BTW, to further explain, this sort of emphasises that even the seawater/fresh water boundary isn't actually that clear cut either. Nominally, any country with sufficient access to seawater could probably supply all their needs with desalination if they had the resources. After all, Israel is up to 40% and AFAIK, the land usage for desalination isn't that high. The big problem is cost due to the energy requirements. For that reason, it generally makes sense to look at other things like maximising reuse and recycling of water, ensuring you capture as much rain water as you can etc. If your neighbour has access to plentiful fresh water, importing it from them would often be cheapier (presuming they don't outprice themselves), although self-sufficiency and therefore trust is a big factor as well as the possibility of short term pain for long term gain (which complicates what you should be paying for your neighbours water).

While there are some similiarites with food, in that a number of countries which aren't self sufficient could probably become so if they were that interested and money, I think it would be quite difficult with current level of technology even with alot of hydroponics, roof gardens etc for somewhere like Singapore. And I strongly suspect if you think desalination is expensive, it will seem like nothing when you consider the costs for trying to become self sufficient in food. (And water will likely be a significant factor too in becoming self-sufficient in food.) However it may depend on what the population is willing to accept, with modern biotechnology, plenty of seawater etc, it's possible some sort of vat-grown or seagrown option (algae or whatever) could be feasible.

And as a minor point, you could theoretically have a country with a significant supply of fresh water, but which has been so severely contaminated by something such that turning it to drinkable water isn't cheaper than desalination.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:25, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Good question, I've thought about it because I thought about finding such a country (preferable less dense) to escape global warming catastrophe or economic collapse. First, almost any country could be self-sufficient if they did not eat meat. That way, the grain cows eat could be used to make tortillas. Instead of growing flowers, The Netherlands could grow food. Raquel Baranow (talk) 16:04, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

One major concern about continuing global warming is that it will certainly disrupt agriculture and cause changes in rainfall and snow patterns - either of which could seriously disrupt a country that formerly considered itself to be self-sufficient. When such places cease to be self-sufficient, they have to find revenue streams to be able to purchase food and/or water from elsewhere...and if their entire economy is based on exporting food, a rapid transition to a manufacturing or service-based economy isn't usually very easy. A country that already has strong international trade and a wide diversity of food sources has a much better chance of being able to weather the loss of a particular food supply than one where 100% of it's supplies come from a narrow region. I would bet my money on the opposite - a country that has broad international trade ties and a vigorous import/export economy. So I strongly suggest that you find some better criteria for your escape plan. SteveBaker (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Our article List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density lists Monaco as the most densely populated sovereign nation, at 18,900 people per square kilometer (48,951 per sq mi). However it has no agriculture. The same is likely true of Bahrain, so I would suggest Bangladesh, at 1,108 people per sq km (2,871 per sq m). For a first world country, Taiwan at 647 per sq km (1,676 per sq mi) fits the bill. DOR (HK) (talk) 14:51, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Network rail

Why doesn't Network Rail have a gov.uk site like Highways England or the Environment Agency or like any other arms length public bodies. 82.132.237.201 (talk) 12:05, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

www.networkrail.co.uk. 82.35.216.24 (talk) 13:29, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Unlike a lot of other British government agencies, Network Rail is legally a private company. It is controlled by the UK government, but it does have legal personality in its own right. So a .co.uk domain is accurate. As far as I know, there's no law that says government bodies have to use .gov.uk in any case. See also Railtrack, which played the same role as Network Rail between 1994 and 2002, and was a normal private company with shareholders. 93.51.68.57 (talk) 15:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

But Highways England used to be .co.uk and they changed recently to .gov.uk and I thought they were very similar to Network Rail? And I thought Network Rail is completely state owned? 2A02:C7D:B91D:CC00:1898:2656:30F:AA72 (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Network Rail is a very special case. Railtrack was a public company, i.e. it had shares on stock exchanges. When it collapsed, the New Labour government had to take it over but did not simply want to make it part of the government because that would be nationalization, and they were concerned that Conservative-supporting newspapers (i.e. most of the press) would attack them for using 1940s policies. So, strictly speaking, Network Rail is not owned by the government; it's an association with members, much like your local bowls club, which just happens to have been lent billions of pounds in order to buy most of the assets of Railtrack. This structure was chosen for its spin benefits, but it had the side-effect of allowing Network Rail to borrow money without it going through the government's books (the German federal government has run most of its infrastructure borrowing through a similar company, KfW, for decades). The government maintained this position for over a decade, and the .co.uk address is presumably part of that. It finally admitted that Network Rail was a public body in 2014, which added £34 billion to the National Debt. The reason that Highways England has kept a .gov.uk address might be due to the fact that the Government Digital Service, which runs .gov.uk, had strong political backing for a rapid expansion of its turf in 2014. Highways England had no reason to start a fight over creating a website. Matt's talk 00:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

So basically it's a public body which the government wanted to masquerade as a private company but now they turned it into a public body officially? 2A02:C7D:B91D:CC00:80F:4610:E676:5711 (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

On their website, they now call themselves an arms length public body, which surely makes them no different to Highways England or NHS trusts. 2A02:C7D:B91D:CC00:80F:4610:E676:5711 (talk) 09:49, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

If Britain votes to leave the EU, what would be the process?

Some time next year, the UK is expected to hold a referendum on leaving the European Union. If the vote is to leave, what actually happens next? Would UK membership continue as usual until the details were negotiated, according to the Treaty of Lisbon, or would all trade be suspended and citizens of other EU countries ordered to leave? I can find lots of news articles predicting a panic and an economic crisis, which clearly would happen if there was anything so abrupt, but nothing about the procedure of leaving itself.

Sorry if this is posted on the wrong board, but the humanities one seems to have been locked until next March. A bit much surely?93.51.68.57 (talk) 15:07, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

United Kingdom European Union membership referendum#Procedure has a small amount of details. Also as far as I can tell, the European Union Referendum Act 2015 doesn't actually do anything other than legislate to hold a referendum by a certain date (including what the referendum will say), and the procedures etc for holding that referendum (including who can vote, campaigning including financing etc). In other words, the referendum itself likely won't cause the UK's withdrawal. The government and parliament would need to work and legislate for that. (Of course, even if the law said what would happen as a result of a vote to leave the EU, parliamentary sovereignty means they could likely just legislate to change that after the fact anyway.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

The long and short of it is that there isn't a provision in UK law for a Brexit, though there are basic provisions in the EU post Lisbon treaty (article 50 of Treaties of EU). This is merely one of the more technical reasons why this whole half-baked idea is so ludicrous to start with. Fgf10 (talk) 17:34, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like such a vote would be what we Yanks call an "advisory referendum". Supposing the UK were to officially declare their intention to leave the EU, would the EU have any practical means to stop them? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

See Withdrawal from the European Union. A request for withdrawal from the EU is effective after approval by the European Parliament and the European Council, or automatically two years after it's been submitted. (I'm not sure what happens if a state submits a withdrawal request and tries to cancel it before it's approved by the Council). Tevildo (talk)

• A request for clarification. I suspect that should the UK do the right thing, and withdraw, it would do it according to the current treaty process. But should it withdraw unilaterally and peremptorily, who and what army, would oppose it? μηδείς (talk) 03:04, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Good point, Medeis. The EU is just a club, and we abide by its regulations if we want to remain a member. However, it would take a major rift for the UK just to leave without due process. It would affect our international standing, and we would feel bound by honour to follow the terms of the treaties that we signed. Dbfirs 14:02, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

French Birth record

Can a user please tell me where online I can find the precise date of birth of a person who was born in France in about 1920. Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 17:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Doctor Who Torrents

I've noticed that unlike many major contemporary TV shows, Doctor Who torrents are just not that easily available online. There are either not enough seeders on the existent rips, or there are no high quality rips of some seasons, and even the latest seasons (2014 and 2015) are hard to come by on torrent sites like piratebay or kickass. Why is this so? Is the BBC especially vigilant in taking down Doctor Who torrents? It's not like there's a lack of people interested in the show. It's pretty popular globally. And yet, the number of healthy torrents are woefully low compared to shows like Game of Thrones or even newcomers like Jessica Jones. What can be the reason behind this? Just curious. 103.18.75.48 (talk) 18:59, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Doctor Who is a childrens show. I also don't see highly seeded torrents for Dora the Explorer or Postman Pat. 86.105.81.139 (talk) 19:07, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

If you're comparing Doctor Who to Dora the Explorer or Postman Pat, you've clearly either never seen the show or are trolling. Either way, your 'answer' is useless. Fgf10 (talk) 19:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I understand that Doctor Who is supposed to be a children's show, but the fact still remains that a significant portion of the viewer demographic includes teens and young adults, if Comic Con attendees are anything to go by. It's also pretty prominent in popular culture to not be treated as a children's show on the same scale as Dora the Explorer, say. (P.S: Whoever thinks this is a troll post and is trying to remove it, please note that just because the conversation is on the topic of torrents does not necessarily make it a "troll post". I've rolled back your changes.) 103.18.75.48 (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Doctor Who has much broader appeal than just for kids. As to why the shows mentioned are not so ripoff-able as others, maybe their viewers have better-than-average ethical standards. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

It's just bizarre to call Dr Who a children's show. It's adult science fiction. Sophisticated children can enjoy it, to be sure, but it's aimed at adults. --Trovatore (talk) 22:40, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Well.... that's a bit too much to the other side again. These days it's pitched as a family show, ie for adults and kids. (The spin-offs were more specific, Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for kids). The show did indeed start as a kids show, the original intent was to educate kids about history. Fgf10 (talk) 22:52, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Data point: I'm 60 years old and was pleased to get a sonic screwdriver for Xmas. SteveBaker (talk) 18:21, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

You remember what it was like to hunt dinosaurs without one! —Tamfang (talk) 05:47, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Unless the dinosaurs have fatal allergies to invisible ink - or fear of strange warbling noises combined with light from a small UV LED - I fear it could be difficult to hunt them down with the device I now own! SteveBaker (talk) 09:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The programmes can be downloaded free of charge by all UK residents from BBC iPlayer (even if they haven't paid the UK's television licence fee). Presumably that means many of the people who might illegally copy the show (as uploaders or downloaders) have no incentive to do so. I presume that fewer people would pirate Game of Thrones if it could be downloaded free of charge by all US residents. Matt's talk 00:58, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Not sure how valid the ethical standards argument is, because I'm sure it's not as if people with better ethical standards tend to watch certain kinds of shows. And far as I know, there are many viewers overseas who are forced to pirate shows because they are neither aired on TV in their regions nor are DVDs of the shows easily available. @M.R.Forrester: I'm guessing there are millions of people outside the who are keen on the show, and I was curious why the torrents don't reflect that. 103.18.75.48 (talk) 05:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

No one is "forced" to break piracy laws, they choose to. So if it's not ethics, what is it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

So-called "anti-piracy" laws are based on the modern concept of intellectual property rights, which imply that if you can see your neighbor has invented a better way to farm you can't copy it without paying a fee. This is based not on the idea of the government preventing violence, but on the granting of government monopoly. Copyright started Copyright Act of 1790 as a 14-year term (renewable once) which has new evolved to a term of up to 95 years in the US, under the influence of corporate lobbying Sonny Bono Act.

The result of this has been a strategy of charging what the market will bear for a franchise. Consider that Minions came out six months ago, but the Bluray is being sold for $39,95 after Christmas and for the steeply discounted rate of $37.95 for the basic DVD version. Corporations are counting on state-granted-monopolies to enable them to charge these prices, when corporations are glad to sell other DVD's for $5 at a respectable profit. The big farm down the street has basically made it illegal to look over the fence.

What is needed is a new paradigm, and media companies have begun "piracy is not a victimless crime" campaigns. This translates to "our mega-mansions are built on your lack of tech savvy." For libertarian arguments against such excessive copyright scope and in favor of new paradigms, see especially https://mises.org/. μηδείς (talk) 04:14, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

That sounds like a socialist argument, not libertartian. Why should someone create something if it's going to be allowed to be blatantly ripped off? Copyright encourages creativity. Piracy discourages it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:23, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

@Medeis: No, that's incorrect. The BBC is a special case here.

The BBC is not a profit-making enterprise, it has no owners (in the traditional sense) and no shareholders who might profit and build "mega-mansions" - and the salaries they pay to their employees are notoriously low. "Aunty Beeb" is almost entirely paid for by British television license fees, foreign media sales and a small amount of product licensing (like my Sonic Screwdriver toy). The BBC doesn't get to set the amount of it's license fee - that's determined by the government - and 100% of the money they collect goes back into the production of new shows and the construction and maintenance of equipment and studios. BBC shows are free (and advertising-free) to people in the UK - and money from foreign media sales helps to pay for more shows to be made. That's why you can stream all BBC content online if you live in the UK (because you've already paid for it).

So if people outside of the UK were to pirate Dr Who episodes, the effect is to directly decrease the funds available for making more new shows and definitely not to decrease the profits of some fat-cat investors as you seem to imagine. So pirating Dr Who is most definitely NOT a victimless crime. The victims are the entire TV-viewing population of the UK.

SteveBaker (talk) 09:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that the lack of overt piracy such as torrents outside of the UK is because it's easier to view BBC programs online using a service that fakes your DNS/IP geolocation information so that the BBC cannot tell that you're watching from outside of the UK. With such a thing installed, you can stream any BBC show directly from their "iPlayer". For obvious reasons, I won't go into details as to how you do this - but it's simple enough to make it not worth the effort of uploading shows into a torrent and worrying that the BBC might just take them down again. SteveBaker (talk) 09:46, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• In response to User:SteveBaker and User:Baseball Bugs: The BBC situation is the socialist one. The BBC requires by law that TV's be licensed, for which it offers its viewers a small selection of shows, many of which are then elitist, unpopular, political, or air irregularly and for very short runs. In the US, broadcast TV is free and addresses a wide range of tastes, the price for which is commercials or cable fees, if you wish to pay them. I happily paid for HBO when OZ, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under were running, and cancelled my subscription in anger when the "finale" episode of The Sopranos was aired. The fact that a socialist set-up like the BBC seeks foreign income streams doesn't surprise me; it's no different from the Soviet Bloc then and China and Cuba now.

The libertarian alternative is different according to who's making the argument. But, basically, a return to the 14+14 copyright system would mean that all works since 1988 should shortly be in the public domain, and artists would need to produce new products, rather than repackage old ones endlessly, and often in bastardized editions, like the censored Looney Tunes cartoons and the two "improved" versions of the original Star Wars. They would be in the public domain, and you could get the originals for a pittance over the cost of production, as well as buy the improved editions, if you like. (Take a look at the college textbook racket while you are at it.)

The current system means that lobby-heavy conglomerates, with guaranteed revenue streams from reruns and compilation sets, are faced with a dilemma. They can back new artists, but they want a formulaic approach, which means plenty of Taylor Gaga's and Jonas Direction's, which do well in concert sales. But they rarely risk investment in anything new, for which see point two in Jaron Lanier's Where did the Music Go?.

In general, there's a dichotomy. There's the old revenue stream, mostly over 50, who will simply pay for high-priced CD's or DVD's once or twice a year, or get them from the library, since there is no childish rush. (My mother reads two books a week, but always from the library; she can wait for the new book, she doesn't need it on opening day.) Or there's the tech savvy generation (anyone under 40) who know that the day after the next Better Call Saul airs they can find it on the internet. This group will still buy books if they know how to and have the patience to read. They will still pay hundreds of dollars for concert tickets for live performances, and go to see a movie on the opening day for the price of the DVD when it comes out a few months later. But they are simply not going to pay $39.95 for a Minions DVD that could be sold for a profit at $5.00.

Technology is not going away. The law has to recognize the facts. Drug and Sex laws are being repealed, not just because such laws are immoral, but because they can't be evenhandedly enforced without corruption. The US media conglomerates would love to make it impossible for you (by using the government as their enforcers) to get their products at monopoly rates for 95 years. They even tried to make it illegal for you to use TiVo or create a back-up of your own VHS or CD recordings. Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. But people are cutting the cord. People will willingly pay for Netflix and Hulu if they get good premium products and unlimited access to things like the original Star Trek and Doctor Who. In a world not run by lobbyists, rent-seekers, and crony-corporatism, these works would be available for a royalty and the cost of transmission, rather than as if they bought the physical product on the opening day. μηδείς (talk) 20:58, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Fairly confused about some of the prices here. Minions seems to currently be ~$19.96 for a Bluray [1]. Likewise on iTunes, Google Play etc. I'm not sure what it was before Christmas, but [2] makes me thing it was probably similar. This is still quite an expensive price, but if you're paying $39.95 for Minions Bluray, I think you need to shop around more, particularly if you're just going by whatever random crap you see in your local supermarket or video store.

Definitely I think few people under 40 are going to consider the price for the Bluray to be $39.95 or whatever, since most who are remotely interested will check the price online. (Frankly I don't think that many will be remotely interested in the Bluray, if they did want to buy it they'll probably look at iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant Video etc despite the restictive DRM.) They may still consider it too expensive, but if you want to understand them, you need to better understand how they operate and it isn't by checking the supermarket and thinking "that's what I need to pay".

People who aren't remotely interested may happen to see the price while in their supermarket and go "that's ridiculous" but they aren't necessarily going to blame the copyright holder. Which isn't to say they like the copyright holder, simply that they may recognise the extra revenue going to the copyright holder from the $39.95 supermarket copy compared to the $19.96 price if you buy it from anywhere with remotely competitive prices is probably minimal.

P.S. While some people under 40 buy books sometimes, just as some may buy videos from iTunes etc, quite a few do not, regardless of whether they read books. And before you say it, for those that still read books, they often aren't getting them from public libraries either. Books have the disadvantage that it's relatively trivial to accumulate personal libraries of thousands of ebooks without requiring much storage space, or time. Even more so than music. And while people may want the newest book in a series or from an author which has to be downloaded later, it isn't quite like music where there's the extreme trendy and newness expectation meaning that a book collection from 8 years ago isn't going to be seen anywhere close to outdated as a music (or TV) collection that old. And the time taken to go through such a collection is also generally longer, even for a voracious reader. (Books also have the disadvantage that many people are reading them less with the increasing number of alternatives.) Until recently, they had the advantage that "consuming" (i.e. reading) the content wasn't that pleasant for many (by comparison for music digital files were preferred, TV was more complicated but was never that bad). But while some people still prefer physical books, with the rise of tablets + phablets and to a lesser extent ereaders and smaller smartphones, many people have found something which is good enough for them.

Likewise while some will happily pay for Hulu Plus, Netflix etc, not all will do so, and often not liking the content or not wanting to watch the content (or having the content they want to watch) is only a small factor. In fact, while I'm far from a fan of the current copyright enforcement regime, particularly not the extermities of the US, it's not that hard to see that without any government supported enforcement (which doesn't have to mean criminal) it gets easier and easier to simply not pay a royalty and many people will choose that alternative like the infamous Popcorn Time.

For many, the key selling point of services like Hulu Plus, Netflix is not so much that they are doing the right thing (it may be a minor consideration), but that they don't have spend their time finding the content, waiting for it to download, finding it has unwanted subtitles or the wrong language (and even many of the tech savvy generation seem too stupid to know how to switch language streams for dual language files or switch off nonhardcoded subtitles which you see in the complaints about the content) etc. And in some countries, worry that you're going to get a nasty letter from the copyright holder demanding certain stuff. Particularly for older content e.g. binge watching. If you're fussy about quality it can be even worse. Depending on popularity and other things, finding a SD file is normally trivial even after a while, finding a 720P broadcast a bit harder, finding a 1080P broadcast even harder, find a a 1080P webdl even harder, finding a 1080P bluray rip a while after the bluray was released even harder. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime etc is normally just click and play and while they may not be quite Bluray quality (except for the UHD ones which are complicated) they're generally similar to WebDl. (Of course many people don't care to that level, although quite a few do want at least 720P.)

Nil Einne (talk) 10:33, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

The price I gave for Minions was for an on-shelf copy at Walmart; paying $24 after standard shipping ($33 for overnight) and before sales tax and having to wait for delivery makes exactly the same point as mine. But I am not offering shopping tips, I am addressing the issue of how moneyed and lobbied-up conglomerates that own artificially-created 95-year monopolies skew the system; how they hope to recoup in outrageous prices on discs what they lose from people who share digital copies, or use DVR's to skip commercials. See the year wall street cut the cord on most us media stocks. μηδείς (talk) 17:58, 1 January 2016 (UTC)