Amazon Argues Users Don't Actually Own Purchased Prime Video Content (hollywoodreporter.com) 140
When an Amazon Prime Video user buys content on the platform, what they're really paying for is a limited license for "on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time" and they're warned of that in the company's terms of use. That's the company's argument for why a lawsuit over hypothetical future deletions of content should be dismissed. From a report: Amanda Caudel in April sued Amazon for unfair competition and false advertising. She claims the company "secretly reserves the right" to end consumers' access to content purchased through its Prime Video service. She filed her putative class action on behalf of herself and any California residents who purchased video content from the service from April 25, 2016 to present. On Monday, Amazon filed a motion to dismiss her complaint arguing that she lacks standing to sue because she hasn't been injured -- and noting that she's purchased 13 titles on Prime since filing her complaint. "Plaintiff claims that Defendant Amazon's Prime Video service, which allows consumers to purchase video content for streaming or download, misleads consumers because sometimes that video content might later become unavailable if a third-party rights' holder revokes or modifies Amazon's license," writes attorney David Biderman in the motion, which is posted below. "The Complaint points vaguely to online commentary about this alleged potential harm but does not identify any Prime Video purchase unavailable to Plaintiff herself. In fact, all of the Prime Video content that Plaintiff has ever purchased remains available."
Self evident (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd always regard this as self evident from day one. It is why I pay my prime subscription for access to their included content but I won't pay for extra for specific content, I get it on DVD.
Or this could just be deliberate (Score:2, Insightful)
As in a deal between amazon and the plaintiff, to bring this to court, in the absolute weakest form possible, so it can be dismissed.
When Amazon actually start removing content, it will make all the more harder for people to sue.
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Re:Or this could just be deliberate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or this could just be deliberate (Score:4, Funny)
Which is probably because Amazon doesn't have the right to sell you a full license to begin with.
Seems like they still charge you pretty much the same price, though.
Re:Or this could just be deliberate (Score:5, Insightful)
I just pulled up the page for a movie on Amazon. It has buttons labeled "Rent", "Buy", and "More Purchase Options". You can't use the words "buy" and "purchase", then claim the user isn't really buying it. If you don't have the right to sell it, then you're committing fraud by making it look like you do.
Pointing to fine print in the terms of use doesn't change that. If you tell a lie in one place and then the truth somewhere else, the truth doesn't cancel out the lie. You still lied.
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Exactly this and the post above that says you have 'unlimited access' which can be ended, well that's immediately contradictory.
Re:Or this could just be deliberate (Score:4)
It's because you're not buying a downloadable item, it's all streaming. Steaming means you don't "own" anything and "buy this" is pretty much a lie. I think I used to chuckle at Stallman's diatribes in the old days, but they're mostly true.
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#60659638 = https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
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I'm not sure what you think that is, but it's the ability for the purchaser of a physical copy to in turn sell that specific physical copy. It has nothing to do with "buying" streaming content, where you're not buying the physical disk the content sits on, you're paying for a license to have new copies streamed to you.
But, Amazon shouldn't be able to get off the hook here - if they didn't negotiate content licenses which allow them to continue providing to "p
Re: Or this could just be deliberate (Score:3)
Disney is intent on bringing back the vault system and likely salivating to charge extra for temporary exemptions.
Re:Self evident (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd always regard this as self evident from day one. It is why I pay my prime subscription for access to their included content but I won't pay for extra for specific content, I get it on DVD.
Arguably, unless you rip and format-shift, buying on DVD is only buying on-demand viewing for an indefinite period of time. Disks break or wear out, and technology changes. If you still own a movie on VHS that you bought in the 80s it probably isn't useful any more. Even if the tape hasn't worn out and even if you can still find a VHS player and whatever adapters you need to connect it to a modern TV, you'll probably hate the quality. Digital formats are a bit better this way, but they're not a panacea, either, and come with additional challenges, such as DRM (though, IMO, it should be illegal for DRM to outlast copyright... but that may be moot since copyright appears to be eternal).
Personally, I'm coming to the conclusion that I prefer subscription streaming services over buying content anyway. A few years ago I'd have said that was a ridiculous notion, but the fact is that I just don't bother buying stuff any more.
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Now days, I can't keep up with my backlog of unwatched stuff, so there is a lot less reason to own copies of the stuff I like.
That's a big part of it for me, too. I find that I rarely ever watch something more than once, so buying doesn't make sense. I rent single titles from time to time, but mostly just watch what's available on subscription.
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Its a different psychological context for me. I look at purchasing bluray discs as collecting physical media art. I feel good about it, even if I only rewatch it once. The technology of commercially pressed discs will last for decades if properly stored, while its unlikely that inorganic dye writeable discs will even carry its data contents intact beyond a decade. Since I'm middle aged and organic, its likely those commercially pressed discs will outlive myself. I have been toying with the idea of buy
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I look at purchasing bluray discs as collecting physical media art.
Heh. i used to do that (not saying that I've "progressed", or that you're wrong, I've just changed) but after we accumulated shelves and shelves full of VHS tapes and CDs in the 90s, then replaced them with shelves and shelves of DVDs and more CDs in the 00's and 10's, we eventually decided it was just clutter, at least to us. We now aggressively eliminate that stuff and my wife fills the shelves with physical art and antiques. She's into collecting antique glassware and dolls. Movies and music we just stre
Re:Self evident (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mastered DVDs fail a lot more than you think. As a COVID stay-at-home project, I ripped my DVD collection... I have 303 discs (not a huge number by a good sample size). 6 discs, or 2%, were unrecoverable. Several would partly read, but not enough to be useful. A couple got nothing but errors, and one wasn't even recognized as a DVD in multiple drives.
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Sure, it seems self-evident to me too, because I understand the differences between purchasing a license to use information and purchasing a physical artifact on which that information is encoded. But for the vast majority of people, these distinctions is obscure; to them a streaming purchase is just the cloud equivalent of buying a physical DVD.
Amazon really *should* make more of an effort to educate their customers, but it's not obligated to. It just buries that information in a wall of legalese few cus
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But for the vast majority of people, these distinctions is obscure; to them a streaming purchase is just the cloud equivalent of buying a physical DVD.
Amazon really *should* make more of an effort to educate their customers, but it's not obligated to.
I look at it as legalizing fraud; any statement beyond "buy this movie at $X".
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I'd always regard this as self evident from day one. It is why I pay my prime subscription for access to their included content but I won't pay for extra for specific content, I get it on DVD.
All digital movies I buy online are through Amazon (and I've purchased dozens), but I still agree with you that it was self-evident to me that I was at best purchasing a license to view the movie for as long as Amazon kept it in their library. I always felt I could lose access someday, whether because the content creator stopped giving Amazon access to the movie or Amazon shut down their service all together. I don't have my VHS tapes anymore, and I don't have many of my DVDs anymore either.
Amazon digital a
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I always referred it to as a "long term rental". Because that's effectively what it is - you rented it, just instead of 2 days or 2 weeks, for hopefully a period of years, but at any time it can be recalled.
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I'd always regard this as self evident from day one.
I don't. There are plenty of examples of companies that don't have this toxic policy. I think back to my own example with Steam. I bought StarControl Origins just as the rights holders sued the developers. 2 days later an injunction prevented distribution and revoked the sale of licenses so you could not longer buy it on Steam. I was worried, but then my download worked perfectly fine.
It should have precisely zero to do with the user whether the service through which something was purchased has rights to co
Changes (Score:5, Insightful)
The DMCA needs to go, First Sale doctrine needs to beat licensing into a hole in the ground, we need a new look at Citizens' United vs. FEC and Buckley vs. Valeo.
Corporations are not people. Corporations are fictional structures involving some number of people, some amounts of money, and some property. There was no reason to legalize bribery by psychopathic fictions and sell our government piecemeal to the highest bidding megacorp.
Re:Changes (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure I really disagree with all that, but there is an even less controversial (i.e. multi-partisan) fix that ought to satisfy everyone: enforce fraud laws.
Amazon said the word "buy" to customers about something they now claim they're not actually selling. I doubt anyone can describe that as anything other than overtly criminal. It seems like if you just fined them a few billion dollars and put their officers in prison for a few years, this fraudulent behavior would stop (and if it didn't stop, just imprison the replacements too, along with more fines). Merely enforce the law. Any person who was alive 100 years ago, before all this "licensing" nonsense, would understand.
Re:Changes (Score:4, Interesting)
I tend to agree. What we appear to have here is (a) fraudulent misrepresentation, and (b) a purposefully ambiguous contract of adhesion, the ambiguity in which will almost invariably be decided in favor of the party that didn't write it (i.e., in this case, the consumer.)
In theory, fraudulent misrepresentation can be charged as a criminal offense, although, in practice, it's quite uncommon. It's hard to prove intent / mens rea against a corporation, and preponderance of evidence is a far easier standard to meet than beyond reasonable doubt. I'd think a class action for injunctive, monetary, and punitive relief would probably be the best way to force a settlement painful enough for Amazon to discourage similar behavior in the future.
(This isn't legal advice; I'm not a lawyer, I'm not *your* lawyer, I don't play one on TV or Youtube; etc., etc.)
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It seems like if you just fined them a few billion dollars and put their officers in prison for a few years,
That's the largest "if" in the history of capitalism.
You see, the whole PURPOSE of company laws, corporate structures, shares and whatever is to DILLUTE RESPONSIBILITY to the point where no one is responsible for anything, so nobody can be punished and the corporation can do whatever.
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Likewise, videotapes were mostly copy protected so when the tape broke you lost the product th
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When you bought an vinyl record or tape, you did not have explicit ownership of what was on it.
You had legal precedent that allowed you to format shift and make a copy for personal use/archiving. At least since the Betamax case, probably earlier. This carried over to CDs, but by no means started there.
The law is the issue here, not Amazon (Score:2)
People are forgetting that they did have explicit ownership of what was on a DVD; namely that specific copy of the movie. Amazon are providing a download for up to four compatible devices which can be viewed for an indefinite period of time, effectively selling not one but four copies of the movie to you in exchange for
Stare Decisis (Score:4, Interesting)
The DMCA needs to go, First Sale doctrine needs to beat licensing into a hole in the ground, we need a new look at Citizens' United vs. FEC and Buckley vs. Valeo.
How was Citizen's United wrongly decided? The government was arguing they could regulate *any* commercial speech attached to elections, including books and newspapers.
Corporations are not people.
If you revoke corporate personhood for legal purposes, you also make it a lot harder to tax corporations (the constitution only allows for the federal taxation of individuals, not groups) you make it more difficult to sue corporations, and more difficult for shareholders to have input into corporate governance, along with a myriad of contract law issues.
Re:Stare Decisis (Score:5, Insightful)
If you revoke corporate personhood for legal purposes, you also make it a lot harder to tax corporations (the constitution only allows for the federal taxation of individuals, not groups) you make it more difficult to sue corporations, and more difficult for shareholders to have input into corporate governance, along with a myriad of contract law issues.
Revoking corporate personhood would simply mean that the assets would be divided among the various owners, and then those owners would be taxed on the assets and any revenue generated by them. The same would apply for law suits - there would be a hell of a lot of defendants, and 'class action' concepts and procedures might have to be made available to defendants instead of just plaintiffs.
The evolution from corporate governance to co-operative governance would probably be the most difficult, but I don't think it would be impossible. The first several corporate revocations would be messy and costly, but in the long run the benefits to society and the planet would far outweigh the effort and expense. I see this as one of those 'difficult but necessary' things - I think our survival depends on ending corporations as we know them.
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Good point - I like it. Keeping something like a corporation structure, but making individuals in the corporations responsible and punishable for corporate misdeeds could work. But I think individual investors should be forced to have more skin in the game - perhaps financial penalties over and above what they might lose as a result of the stock price falling.
I would want to treat that kind of structure as an interim phase though. I really think we need to evolve toward a co-op model where ALL employees hav
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Corporations are not people.
If you revoke corporate personhood for legal purposes, you also make it a lot harder to tax corporations (the constitution only allows for the federal taxation of individuals, not groups) you make it more difficult to sue corporations, and more difficult for shareholders to have input into corporate governance, along with a myriad of contract law issues.
How so? If corporations aren't persons, they have no constitutional rights, only rights specifically enumerated by legislation and regulation. It doesn't mean they suddenly don't exist.
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How so? If corporations aren't persons, they have no constitutional rights, only rights specifically enumerated by legislation and regulation. It doesn't mean they suddenly don't exist.
Because the constitution only gives the federal government and, in most cases, by proxy, state governments, the power to regulate certain individual behaviors. For instance, contracts are only valid between individuals. If the corporation is not considered an individual, then you wouldn't be able to sign a legally binding purchase agreement with one, for example. Without that proviso, a contract would have to be with a specific employee of the company. Then, what happens if that employee quits, or is fired,
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Everything you posted makes *perfect sense* from the perspective of the consumer. Power to the people!
But, it all made perfect sense even back when each of these harmful laws and doctrines were put in place. Nothing has changed since then.
These laws were put in place to protect and empower content controllers, not consumers. They have a sideways argument about how this disempowerment of the consumer enables more and better content to be made available to consumers at better prices. Its all hogwash, of c
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I got a refund for all my purchases (Score:5, Interesting)
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I decided to digitally purchase a Muppet's Christmas Carol, since we watch it once a year. Around Christmas 2016 or so, Amazon removed it from the store, made it unavailable to purchase, unavailable to view if already purchased, and added a "rental only" version. I was furious. I called Amazon and complained that my understanding of what it means to buy the items differed greatly from theirs. The rep claimed that it was a mistake. But I simply stated that I wasn't aware that I could lose access to content
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I decided to digitally purchase a Muppet's Christmas Carol, since we watch it once a year. Around Christmas 2016 or so, Amazon removed it from the store, made it unavailable to purchase, unavailable to view if already purchased, and added a "rental only" version. I was furious. [ ... ] They refunded EVERYTHING I had ever bought digitally and revoked access to those titles. I haven't bought anything since. I have a feeling getting them to do this today would be nearly impossible.
It is impossible now, but mostly because you can't call Amazon or even send email to them anymore when you have problems. All you can do is just do a return on the item via their automated system. I ordered a set of 2 oil filters for my car from them. The size I need is a bit unusual and Walmart usually doesn't carry it, so I just buy it from Amazon. My "set of 2" only had 1 oil filter in it. In the past, I would just send them email and explain "Hey, you guys only sent me 1 oil filter in a set of
Just put purchases in user's cloud storage! (Score:2)
Amazon should treat media purchases as being stored in the user's cloud storage, which they can access any time they want.
An example would be for me to buy music and store it in my iCloud Drive or Google Drive. I can play that music from those drives any time I want, regardless of what rights Apple has to provide that content to me.
With proper use of deduplication, ten thousand users can have the same movie stored in their cloud drive and it won't cost Amazon anything extra.
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An example would be for me to buy music and store it in my iCloud Drive or Google Drive. I can play that music from those drives any time I want, regardless of what rights Apple has to provide that content to me.
Amazon can't do that if they don't have the legal right to do so, and the media companies have no interest in selling those rights. It's not in Amazon's hands to do anything like that.
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Didn't some company try this and lost in the courts?
And? (Score:5, Informative)
This has been the argument made by media companies for years. I think we talked about it on Slashdot in the era of CDs. We are buying the rights to play the media via a particular delivery mechanism, or something like that. I think the counter-suggestion to that is that the media company should then be forced to exchange the media should it become unplayable, but as far as I know, that argument has never been never been put forth in a legal setting.
In any case, this isn't surprising and is the biggest reason why I refuse to buy or rent digital media that I cannot store for myself. As usual, piracy is unquestionably the better product and the saner choice.
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I think it was when online music stores first appeared and they all had DRM. Then they switched to MP3 because of Napster and someone tried to set up a site where you could sell your used audio files.
I stopped bothering with DRM years ago. I only buy if it's easy to rip or comes in FLAC/MP3. Otherwise I just pirate it. So no buying audiobooks or ebooks for the most part, and certainly no downloadable video.
Because of course. (Score:3)
But make sure you're a paying customer. Prime routinely retires movies after their viewing licence expires, and they even knock out some early -- an anime series I've viewed on Amazon before is gone. The landing page is there with comments and happy (looking at it now: IMDb 5.8 2012 ), but "This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location". Amazingly enough, it should probably be rated R if not PG. But it's a "kids show" so it' snot even there.
This occurred back 6-ish months with the anime-is-evil brouhaha so I'm sure the license has run out. Or at least it WILL someday, and that's good enough.
...which is why... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:...which is why... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The solution of course is to maintain your own backups of physical media.
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That's not the only reason to buy physical media. I got curious, so I went to the Prime Video app on my phone and searched for "Princess Bride". I can "buy" it for $13.99.
Then I went to the Amazon app and searched for "Princess Bride". I can "buy" the DVD for $10.89.
Why would anyone pay a higher price for unlimited streaming of a movie than they'd pay for a DVD??
Re: ...which is why... (Score:2)
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most people don't have an external DVD drive that works with their phone or other non-PC systems on which they wish to be able to view content.
But then, why not rip the DVD and copy the content to wherever you're planning to play it? You only need one DVD drive, on a computer somewhere. It doesn't even need to be particularly powerful, just something substantial enough to run Handbrake.
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There's still a bit of a learning curve to using MakeMKV and Handbrake, and even more so if you're trying to get the best quality results out of it. I actually compiled Handbrake from source to re-enable the Fraunhofer encoder, because the default audio encoder it comes with is garbage. If you're going to be transcoding Blu-Rays, which makes sense because most phones and tablets have had 1080p displays for awhile now, you still need a pretty beefy CPU (at least something equivalent to a Skylake i7 or bett
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It makes me glad the time I tried to click on their videos they didn't play easily on my platform. Buying physical media I'm always happy.
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BRDs are evil with their annoying DRM, online connections, etc.
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I used to think that, but it turns out the number of times I want to rewatch a movie is very, very infrequent.
Fair enough. But a funny thing happened when I had a kid -- she wanted to watch all my DVDs. (And no, I don't have any pr0n.)
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I need to start doing that. I've been going the Kindle route due to convenience and cheapness, but I'm worried about my "library" vanishing some day.
The lawsuit will be tossed (Score:3)
You have to show actual harm to prevail in a lawsuit, and the plaintiff has only shown hypothetical harm to herself.
Bait and Switch is harm (Score:2)
Saying property you've bought isn't really your property is harm. As others have noted, Amazon needs to change their Buy button to License. They can't have it both ways.
Re: Bait and Switch is harm (Score:2)
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How, specifically, has she been harmed? What monetary loss has she suffered so far?
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You have to show actual harm to prevail in a lawsuit
The harm has been done by the license agreement. She does not have the physical rights to do with her purchase as she pleases. A reduction in functionality is harm none the less.
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By "harm", you have to show actual financial loss. Until Amazon actually revokes her access to the material, I don't see how she can do that.
This is why I still buy disks. (Score:3)
Also, it's why I have my own Kodi server.
it's also what I do with music.
Remove BUY Button (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon needs to be told that if you're not buying the video, they can't use the word "buy" to describe the transaction. Change the "buy" button to a "license" button, and then they're being quite clear.
Does the big button say buy or rent? (Score:2)
Previously available content now unavailable? (Score:2)
From the article "all of the Prime Video content that Plaintiff has ever purchased remains available"
Does that include previously available content that is no longer available for purchase now?
The real test would be if something is removed from Amazon for purchase/rental but is still available to people who bought in the past.
Blu-ray and DVD (Score:2)
It's sounding better and better.
Buy physical media. (Score:2)
That's odd ... (Score:2)
All the on-screen and web menus say "Purchase" not "License".
File an FTC complaint that is unfair or deceptive (Score:2)
File an FTC complaint that is unfair or deceptive advertising.
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All the on-screen and web menus say "Purchase" not "License".
Ahh, I understand. You didn't read Article 12, section 34, paragraph 235, subparagraph 56483, item mmciv of the TOS, in which "to purchase" has been defined as "to receive limited and revocable permission to play the Content on devices and at times of our choosing". It's all there in plain #000000 and #010101.
Then they need to remove OWN from marketing (Score:2)
Then they need to remove OWN from marketing and sales pages pages Or they are doing unfair or deceptive advertising. And right of First-sale rules.
And about the EU laws?
And this is why I still buy blu-rays (Score:2)
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It is one thing to buy and rip since I bought this. I regard it as theft and fraud for what the studios do to us
But making it freely available to strangers is also not right.
I do share the ripped/blu-ray with friends, but anything else is theft in my mind.
Sure, i expected that. (Score:2)
But then they should consider changing the text on the button for "buying" the content.
Well of course they don't, that was the point! (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to 'own' a copy of some media or other? Buy a CD or DVD.
But also remember: even with physical media, they've tried making that 'pay per use'. Just nobody fell for that.
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You want to 'own' a copy of some media or other? Buy a CD or DVD.
That option is going to go away soon. Then what?
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Also they really think everyone is going to go for that? Not I.
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There has been a very strong push towards digital delivery and streaming for many years now.
Flanked by a movement towards cloudservices instead of software purchases.
It's not going to happen in a year or two, but there are already plenty of games that you can't buy a physical medium for, you can get them only on Steam, Epic, etc.
And in the movie sphere, well all those Netflix and Amazon productions aren't exactly going to show up in your local video rental shop...
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I've "purchased" a few hundred movies in iTunes (Score:2)
...over the years. So far it's worked out nicely and I've received free upgrades to 4K UHD when they became available for free. Someday that might turn out to be a bad thing for me, but I also gave away all of my CDs, DVDs, and BluRays when I went streaming. Now I don't even own a disk player save for the one built into the PS4.
OBVIOUSLY (Score:2)
If you want to actually own content, be it games, movies, music or books then start lobbying for a digital property rights that imbue digital content with rights akin to physical property - the right to destroy, loan, sell, or donate the work. i.e. you own the content, you have some kind of token that
Business 101 (Score:2)
Some people need to take a business 101 course. There are several ways a business can make money. One of them is selling an option to do something. It doesn't entitle you to much of anything. You but a ticket to an airplane ride, but it's oversold so you get bumped. You're not buying a seat, you're buying the option to board if there is space. You buy a movie ticket; you don't have a right to be in the theatre at that time and place, just as the theatre doesn't have a right to enforce your presence the
You don't own their content (Score:2)
But they own your money.
Re:this is why (Score:5, Insightful)
I've started buying devices and disabling their wireless networking right out of the box.
More damage is done by product "updates" on an online box than by malware to a box that isn't connected to a network, in my experience.
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So you intentionally don't use features you paid money for and declare that as some kind of raging success? Why not instead focus on holding shit companies accountable?
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Flawed logic. If you buy a book and it gets destroyed by flood or fire, you aren't entitled to a new copy "for free or for a minimal price for materials." Same goes for pretty much anything you can purchase. What's so special about digital media that makes you think you should be entitled to that sort of benefit?
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They want to sell lifetime, they're scum if they hide it in the fine print that they have no intention of honoring it.
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If you're going to respond to a reply to someone else's comment, at least make the effort to read and understand the comment being replied to. noyler said, "If you did own the content, and if your disk was later damaged, you'd be able to get another copy of it for free or for a minimal price for materials." His comment, and my reply, had nothing to do with Amazon's policy regarding the "purchase" of streaming media.
But to your point: Amazon has no recourse when a content provider (e.g., a movie studio) pull
Re:You never really own the content anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
When you buy a physical disk, you don't own that content either
This argument comes up when this question comes up. That may be true in a legal context (and yes, I'll get to that), but the fact is that physical media allowed a certain amount of recourse. I exchange money for a DVD, and even if Disney wants to put the movie back in "the Disney Vault", they can do so without affecting my copy.
This is not the case with streaming services, where content that is there today can be gone tomorrow. Subscribers are okay with this by definition, but that's a reality that a VHS/DVD/BD collection simply doesn't have to face.
Now, the 'license to use' vs. 'own' argument has at least some reasonable merit from the studio's perspective - buying movies on BD and then rolling my own Netflix knockoff for $5 a month to view those movies is going to get me into a really bad legal quagmire, for the very reason you specify - I don't 'own' it...and I'm fine with that arrangement.
The question really becomes where the line is drawn. I'm sure most people would be on the side of the consumer if that consumer paid $10 for an "indefinite stream" and had access revoked a week later, even if that duration fits the EULA. Similarly, I'm sure that there would be a different number if that $10 "indefinite stream" gave access for 20 years and then was taken down - possibly still on the side of the consumer, but at the very least leaning toward "20 years of access isn't exactly screwing over the customer".
At present, this issue has a de facto solution: physical media releases for content which an individual wishes to ensure permanent access, and streaming services for more general "whatever's on" viewing. However, as physical media continues to wane in popularity, the question of the responsibility of content studios and streaming services to provide desired content, and for what duration that responsibility lasts, may well find itself being answered in court.
From a philosophical perspective though, I do feel like a "license to watch forever but doesn't allow you to start your own Netflix clone out of your DVD collection" is a fair mutual expectation for copyrighted content (Copyright duration being brought back to some fraction of average life expectancy, of course). I also feel that there is room for some sort of "whatever's on; idc" disposable option for people who aren't as dedicated to one particular piece of content or another is a way to tap another market. Treating the market for the former as if it doesn't exist because the latter does, however, is where we end up with a problem.
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When you buy a physical disk, you don't own that content either.
I'm pretty sure I do. I don't own the copyright.
If you did own the content, and if your disk was later damaged, you'd be able to get another copy of it for free or for a minimal price for materials. Or if you were to upgrade equipment--say DVD to BlueRay-- and if you owned the content, you would get the next encoding of that data for free.
I don't see the connection with ownership; that doesn't happen with cars or books.
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