11 ms·

Apple didn't delete that guy's movies – what really happened

129 points by evo_9 8y ago

gcb0 8y ago
what really happened: apple did delete the guy's movie, but then spent some PR money on cnet for Chewbacca defense.
- mattigames 8y ago
  Highly amusing when a cynical swearing cartoon show like South Park coins a phrase used to denote a legal strategy. For those in the unknown: "A Chewbacca defense is a legal strategy in which the aim of the argument is to deliberately confuse the jury rather than to factually refute the case of the other side. "
- pwinnski 8y ago
  Except they didn't delete the movie, the guy did. He assumed he'd be able to re-download it, and he can't after moving. That's messed up, but Apple did not delete the movie from any of his devices. This guy forgot that the cloud is "someone's else's computers."
  - Buge 8y ago
    It's "someone's else's computers" that he paid money to use, and now he's not able to use it.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    They removed it from his account. This defense based on slightly disagreeing over the correct semantics of "delete" is really grating. Apple promised him a purchase with indefinite storage, then took the access away.
    - pwinnski 8y ago
      > Apple promised him a purchase with indefinite storage I do think it's terrible that these movies seem to available in both regions, but are somehow not considered equivalent. So yes, I agree, it sucks that they removed it from his account. But I'm very curious about the part of your comment I quoted. I don't think any service provider has ever specified "indefinite storage" forever, especially across regions, but I would trust such a promise not at all. I'm really not trying to defend Apple here, because the whole thing sucks. But as hacker-types, surely we can try to understand how intellectual property and regional licensing and the edge cases of people moving internationally are more likely to result in screw-ups than not, right?
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > I don't think any service provider has ever specified "indefinite storage" forever, especially across regions, but I would trust such a promise not at all. Isn't it the business model of every online game store? I don't trust it completely, but I trust it enough to not really bother with backing up my Steam games. > I'm really not trying to defend Apple here, because the whole thing sucks. But as hacker-types, surely we can try to understand how intellectual property and regional licensing and the edge cases of people moving internationally are more likely to result in screw-ups than not, right? "Screw-up" implies that they would fix it and get him the movie back. Apple should be licensing it so that once you buy the movie in a specific region, you can access it anywhere forever. That they don't is their failing, and I think it's inappropriate to use the word "buy" for what you apparently get.
  - pritambaral 8y ago
    While I agree that "the cloud" really means "someone else's computers", I also believe that that's not something service providers tell their users. When the button says "Buy" and the service says all the content you "buy" will be available on their cloud, the service is promising them access to that content served from the service's own computers. When the service subsequently removes this access, even if not from the user's computer directly, but from their own computers, they break this promise. Of course the service is at fault for breaking such promises.
- lihaciudaniel 8y ago
  Isn't Apple just a distributor of music, movies etc. When they remove a music you don't actually own it.
Digital-Citizen 8y ago
This article contradicts itself in at least one significant way without providing a real explanation for the contradiction. Early on the article claims "Apple tells CNET that it won't delete your movies, either. At least, not ones you've downloaded.". But that's not a useful answer because it doesn't provide any real security about one's downloaded works. Later CNET says "We can't be sure what will will happen if Disney -- or any other content provider -- "recalls" a digital purchase, as a publisher did with an ebook of George Orwell's 1984 on Amazon back in 2009.". Keep in mind that Amazon made a similar pledge to what Apple reportedly told CNET. As Richard Stallman rightly points out in https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html "In response to criticism, Amazon promised it would never do this again unless ordered to by the state, which I find not very comforting.". In other words, Amazon tacitly acknowledges it retains the power to do this again. It's far more useful to examine the situation along the lines of which party retains what power over the user, or to look at how much freedom users have in the situation. Therefore the real hinge here (which goes completely unaddressed in the CNET article) is software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software). If one uses free software to locate and read/play the work, then one has a chance to make sure that the free program won't betray their interests -- continuing to read/play the work at any time, for any reason, and do so without spying on or reporting the activity to others without explicit consent from the user. But if one uses proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software to access a downloaded copy of the work, one's access to the work is in jeopardy. One can't be certain that copy will be readable/playable through that proprietary software. Perhaps the proprietary software will delete that copy of the work (putting aside what's legal or, more importantly, ethical for the moment, it is worth noting that proprietors retain the technical power to do exactly this in most people's common use of media). Perhaps the proprietary software will report on the user's attempt to read/play the work thus notifying someone what's being read/played and from where.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > In other words, Amazon tacitly acknowledges it retains the power to do this again. > But if one uses proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software to access a downloaded copy of the work, one's access to the work is in jeopardy. One can't be certain that copy will be readable/playable through that proprietary software. Perhaps the proprietary software will delete that copy of the work Amazon only has the power to do this if you connect your Kindle to the internet. You can be sure that Amazon won't reach out to your Kindle to remove your books when it's impossible for them to do so.
SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
> He moved to Canada, roughly nine months ago, after purchasing the films in Australia Of course he moved countries, that would do it. The movie is available in both countries, but in a different "version". The rows have different id, so the query does not match them. The legal details of online media purchases and country are crazy complex. Like batshit, no reason for it, it got that way over time and now we're stuck with it, "not fit for 21st century purpose but here we are". I worked in this area and it's easily the most complex part of it and as far as selling and streaming bits goes, pointless.
- csydas 8y ago
  Agreed -- it's entirely non-sensical in how it's enforced as well. I'm a US expat, and travel fairly regularly for work; when I first left the US, I retained my Amazon Prime subscription, naively thinking "A video is a video, who cares where I am?" Then I learned about distribution rights, and how absolutely terrible companies are at informing people about whether or not certain content is actually available in their region or not. Unless something has changed since the last time I checked (2 years back, so happy to be proven wrong), there is no official method provided to consumers to determine if you can actually utilize most streaming services from any given country/region, and this is extremely frustrating to me. Streaming should be perfect for me as it's preferable to keep what I carry as light as possible, and yet I know that I cannot rely on any streaming service to reliably provide me with the content that I signed up with the intention of viewing/listening to. Granted, I guess that's my fault for traveling, but it just seems very silly that one situation where streaming is the perfect solution, it fails completely due to distribution rights.
  - IronBacon 8y ago
    They were going to force a "single digital market" in EU but I haven't heard news about it recently.
    - zucan 8y ago
      The digital single market for online content services is effective since April: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cross-border-portability-online-content-services https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cross-border-p...
mirimir 8y ago
There's a simple solution. Don't use any content that can't be downloaded as an actual file, with no DRM or other bullshit. That sometimes means that I'm restricted to torrented stuff. But that's not my problem.
- millstone 8y ago
  The simple solution is to not download this stuff, period. The above sounds like rationalizing copyright infringement.
  - yebyen 8y ago
    You sound like a DRM apologist. There are real damages caused by DRM, for instance the fact that if everyone behaves according to the law, then nobody can ever make or receive archival copies of works that have gone out of copyright again. Even if everyone who produces media, holding the copyrights and distributing it with restrictive DRM is dead at some future date and the requisite 80 years have passed, if all content consumers behave legally then we STILL can't make legal copies of the now public domain works because DMCA says we are circumventing a copyright protection mechanism (on works that are out of copyright, the DMCA makes no exception for them.) Copyright was supposed to be a limited term but according to the law today, even if no further extension acts are signed, rights holders such as Sony are empowered to ensure their work may never legally enter into the public domain. Their mechanisms need not even be strong to have the force of law behind them. That's a travesty. I didn't down vote you, but I strongly disagree that this is any kind of "solution" you propose, just bury your head in the sand, "you don't need to be in touch with culture, or propagate it forward in time... forget about that media, it was meant for the sheeple."
  - mirimir 8y ago
    I'm happy to pay for stuff. But I'm not willing to pay for stuff that may disappear because some third party did or didn't do one thing or another.
  - Youden 8y ago
    Or, since they're taking the position that you're not buying the media but you're buying a "license", you can purchase it and then pirate a DRM-free copy. But really, when copyright is so blatantly one-sided against the people, why should the people be expected to wholly support it? I'm not advocating for ignoring it completely but some rules are just ridiculous. For example ripping. DMCA says that circumvention of technical protections is illegal. If I buy a Blu-Ray, why shouldn't I be able to rip it and add it to my Plex library? What harm does that inflict? Then there are more dubious questions like is it okay to pirate if there's no legal option? My opinion is yes, it's totally okay. If there's no legal means through which to give the copyright owner money, I'm not "taking" anything away by obtaining it without doing so.
msie 8y ago
Reminds me of the time that I moved back from the US to Canada but I couldn't change the billing on my Xbox Live account because I couldn't specify a province in the billing address. I had to buy Xbox Live gift cards to renew my membership year after year So sad. Xbox Live is state of the art but the billing system is a dinosaur.
- maccard 8y ago
  I have to buy PSN credit off eBay or get my parents to buy it because I moved from Ireland to the UK. I stopped playing world of Warcraft when I moved because I couldn't find a way to pay battle.net after I moved. It's insanity.
heeen2 8y ago
Tech companies want to sell you their cloud and tell you it's better than local storage, to tie you to their platform and for a ongoing revenue stream but this is where you notice the leaky abstraction.
MatthewWilkes 8y ago
While it is interesting to read more of the root cause, the tone of this article is surprisingly pro-Apple to my ears. No, they didn't delete his movies, but they did introduce a technical limitation to prevent him from accessing content that they told him he was buying because of details of media licencing. This isn't something a reasonable member of the public would expect, and the UX and customer service paths he experienced did not help him understand or try to make him whole, they dismissed his concerns.
- BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
  It's not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect, but neither is it Apple's fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking (to protect possible per-region licensee differences, maybe?) If the fellow owns any movies on blu-ray or DVD and buys a new player, he'll be delighted to discover that those are also hosed.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    Apple has taken full responsibility for this by acting as the seller of a product. If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. No hiding behind “yeah but the producer wants to make more money off you so it’s not really my fault.” You take responsibility for what you sell in B2C. If you’re not happy, take it up with your suppliers. Or the law. Or Santa Claus for all I care. This is a vital part of our market rules. Otherwise people would never stop pointing fingers. (I want to add: it’s also true morally. Even if this is not strictly legally their responsibility, moral responsibility is assumed all the same. This is why we blame apple; they can’t have their cake and eat it too. There was this cartoon of a villain who copied the power of every hero he met. When he met Superman it all seemed lost; surely noone could defeat him now? In the world’s hour of truth, the Batman approaches with kryptonite, and he buckles. “He could not copy our strengths without copying our weaknesses.” So it is with Apple and Hollywood.)
    - neom 8y ago
isostatic 8y ago
You don't buy digital movies. You license them under a license that says you can use it for a limited amount of time at the discretion of the company you're licensing from. If you want to buy something, you need either a physical item like a DVD based on common open standards (as you have coded to remove the encryption), or you need a file that is playable in software you have the source code to. Even then hardware wise it becomes more and more expensive to play old purchases due to entropy, and time moving on. Try to play a c90 cassette now, or a 78rpm record. Think how easy that is compared to a 1/4" video tape or umatic.
- justtopost 8y ago
  I decided last year to archive my old cassette recordings I made when I was younger, and those of local bands I havent seen elsewhere. The tape deck, pretty easy. A few thrift stores and I had a nice hifi model with dolby b, c, decent heads. Most had badly misaligned heads, deteriorated rollers, and broken drive belts at best. Even my better unit needed a full disassembly, cleaning, lube, 3 electrolytic capacitors replaced, and custom rollers made, and a 10 dollar belt kit. That is not even mentioning more routine maint like head cleaning, path demagnatisation, and media prep. Old tapes before 1980s often need to be baked or lubed to play properly without disintegrating in the works. And then you have Bias, NR, and Tape speeds to worry about. I found my old tascam ran at nearly 2x speed, and had unique head spacing, and 4 track simutanious recording, making it nessassary to repair it as well at signifigant cost. Were CD's the last DRM unencumbered physical/digital format? Fyi: Most dj style Neumark record players will play 78s, and sound quite good depending on your stylus.
- TheCoelacanth 8y ago
  This is true, but most providers of digital content fraudulently market it as a purchase instead of as a license. Law enforcement needs to crack down on this type of marketing for any form of license that does not offer similar rights to a true purchase, i.e. perpetual, irrevocable and freely-transferable.
shmerl 8y ago
This just shows how important is to buy DRM-free. And who is selling DRM-free video exactly?
- spacehome 8y ago
  Torrents and Usenet. Prices are competitive, too.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Exactly the point. Film industry should sober up and start behaving properly, by enabling legal DRM-free options, instead of being stuck up in their backwards thinking DRM obsession.
- fghtr 8y ago
  https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide
  - shmerl 8y ago
    See also: https://fckdrm.com https://fckdrm.com Barely anything for major film releases. Sure, you can get some indie films DRM-free, but that's about it. Torrents is really the only accessible source.
cm2187 8y ago
But even if the movie has been downloaded, and unless there is no DRM, Apple still has the capacity to lock you out of that movie and all you have left is a rather large blob of random bytes on your hard drive.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
The article is being altogether too soft on Apple. Good customer service would have been Apple simply fixing it for the customer instead of parroting the letter of the rules.
seanalltogether 8y ago
I moved from the US to the UK a year ago, and I'm still worried to switch all my media accounts to UK territory. PS3, PS4, itunes, google, netflix, steam, blizzard are all tied to my US account and credit card still. Articles like this don't give me hope I should be switching
- jagermo 8y ago
  Don't do it. Create new ones, if you must. Try to sign into your US accounts from time to time using a VPN.
zorkw4rg 8y ago
The insanity of international copyright law has turned a lot of people into basically just ignoring the laws which is 100% justified, reasonable and morally sound in my opinion. It is not the consumer's fault that politicans are too inept in understanding the current century we live in, it is not the consumers fault that politicans are too corrupt to bring copyright law into this century. One of the creative ways of digital self defense is https://unogs.com/ https://unogs.com/ it lists all content on netflix and in which region it is available. This way you can use a VPN service and actually fully use Netflix as the service it was intended to be and you've been payed for properly. And for that matter it is not the corporations fault for exploiting all laws to the greatest extend possible either, don't anthropomorphize corporations, they are not moral agents, they are soulless thoughtless profit maximization machines it is the fault of politicians and the population who voted for them, to not regulating them properly.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Considering most hollywood movies are interchangeable (the scripts are all written from the same manual anyway), my solution is to not actually purchase anything. If it's on Netflix or HBO, it's fine, otherwise I don't bother. Same for music, if it's streamed somewhere, fine, otherwise no. I get blu rays for really good movies, but they are so rare it ends up very cheap. When they come up with a guarantee that I can access my digital purchases forever from any corner of the world or solar system, then I'll consider buying digitally from the movie/music industry.
  - zorkw4rg 8y ago
    > the scripts are all written from the same manual anyway I bet you mean "Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need", its such a cancerous guide.
  - nottorp 8y ago
    Looks like people are taking offense to me saying that all hollywood movies are the same. If you can watch the same superhero movie 30 times (with different skins and superhero names), power to you. I can't any more.
ryanlol 8y ago
Why is it difficult for this guy to switch his locale to australia? The screenshot of the form shows the “NONE” payment option.
icu 8y ago
Having moved countries, and lock-out regions, three times... this is precisely why I still buy physical copies of media (mainly video games and movies). I'm increasingly worried about video game console hard drives, and the digital purchases I've made, surviving any future issues with the console or download/streaming services.
jccalhoun 8y ago
Even if apple didn't delete his movies, the fact remains that he can't watch them. This is why I am very hesitant to buy online-only drm-ed goods if I can't remove the drm.
cmurf 8y ago
It's perverse that we've accepted as OK, taking the concept of movie regions, to books. It's perverse that we've accepted we're effectively licensing a book rather than owning it, losing the right to loan out, or gift, any ebook the same as any book. It is a corruption of good ideas into bad ideas. These things should be called rentals at the time of sale. Old complaint (2012) https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-amazon-is-within-its-rights-to-remove-access-to-your-kindle-books/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-amazon-is-within-its-right...
mark_l_watson 8y ago
Buying digital media with DRM is a mixed bag. For eBooks I sometimes buy directly from publishers to get no DRM versions, but for Google Play movies, Kindle and Audible books, iBooks, and Play books I most factor the risk of loss of access into the price/value purchase decision. Buying DRM media from multiple companies is also a good hedge-my-bets strategy. At the other side, renting access: I am a big fan of O’Reilly Safari. For a yearly fee I can read their library. Much of my job and career requires me to stay current with new tech and I generally prefer reading or skimming a recent book to reading miscellaneous stuff on the web.
techcode 8y ago
TL;DR: No conspiracy - it's (slightly) different movies. At least for Cars 2 - Australian version (right at the start of video) is literally different from other English versions (around 3:30) - https://youtu.be/SaYmI7xANCg https://youtu.be/SaYmI7xANCg Many other movies (and especially animated) have different versions with such tweaks so story/jokes still continue to make sense around the world. Considering it looks like I'm the first one to point this out - it probably never crossed mind of Apple systems engineers that such things might need to be handled. And even if it did - feature probably got bumped by other things that impact bigger % of customers...
- techcode 8y ago
  More "internationalization" examples of animated movies https://youtu.be/oB8Fr6Mm2zA https://youtu.be/oB8Fr6Mm2zA
mankash666 8y ago
This is why I don't trust CNet's reviews of Apple's products. They'll convince the customer that "you're holding it wrong" for bones from Apple!

129 points by evo_9 8y ago

gcb0 8y ago

what really happened: apple did delete the guy's movie, but then spent some PR money on cnet for Chewbacca defense.

mattigames 8y ago
Highly amusing when a cynical swearing cartoon show like South Park coins a phrase used to denote a legal strategy. For those in the unknown: "A Chewbacca defense is a legal strategy in which the aim of the argument is to deliberately confuse the jury rather than to factually refute the case of the other side. "
pwinnski 8y ago
Except they didn't delete the movie, the guy did. He assumed he'd be able to re-download it, and he can't after moving. That's messed up, but Apple did not delete the movie from any of his devices. This guy forgot that the cloud is "someone's else's computers."
- Buge 8y ago
  It's "someone's else's computers" that he paid money to use, and now he's not able to use it.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  They removed it from his account. This defense based on slightly disagreeing over the correct semantics of "delete" is really grating. Apple promised him a purchase with indefinite storage, then took the access away.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    > Apple promised him a purchase with indefinite storage I do think it's terrible that these movies seem to available in both regions, but are somehow not considered equivalent. So yes, I agree, it sucks that they removed it from his account. But I'm very curious about the part of your comment I quoted. I don't think any service provider has ever specified "indefinite storage" forever, especially across regions, but I would trust such a promise not at all. I'm really not trying to defend Apple here, because the whole thing sucks. But as hacker-types, surely we can try to understand how intellectual property and regional licensing and the edge cases of people moving internationally are more likely to result in screw-ups than not, right?
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > I don't think any service provider has ever specified "indefinite storage" forever, especially across regions, but I would trust such a promise not at all. Isn't it the business model of every online game store? I don't trust it completely, but I trust it enough to not really bother with backing up my Steam games. > I'm really not trying to defend Apple here, because the whole thing sucks. But as hacker-types, surely we can try to understand how intellectual property and regional licensing and the edge cases of people moving internationally are more likely to result in screw-ups than not, right? "Screw-up" implies that they would fix it and get him the movie back. Apple should be licensing it so that once you buy the movie in a specific region, you can access it anywhere forever. That they don't is their failing, and I think it's inappropriate to use the word "buy" for what you apparently get.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  While I agree that "the cloud" really means "someone else's computers", I also believe that that's not something service providers tell their users. When the button says "Buy" and the service says all the content you "buy" will be available on their cloud, the service is promising them access to that content served from the service's own computers. When the service subsequently removes this access, even if not from the user's computer directly, but from their own computers, they break this promise. Of course the service is at fault for breaking such promises.
lihaciudaniel 8y ago
Isn't Apple just a distributor of music, movies etc. When they remove a music you don't actually own it.

Digital-Citizen 8y ago

This article contradicts itself in at least one significant way without providing a real explanation for the contradiction. Early on the article claims "Apple tells CNET that it won't delete your movies, either. At least, not ones you've downloaded.". But that's not a useful answer because it doesn't provide any real security about one's downloaded works. Later CNET says "We can't be sure what will will happen if Disney -- or any other content provider -- "recalls" a digital purchase, as a publisher did with an ebook of George Orwell's 1984 on Amazon back in 2009.". Keep in mind that Amazon made a similar pledge to what Apple reportedly told CNET. As Richard Stallman rightly points out in https://stallman.org/amazon.html https://stallman.org/amazon.html "In response to criticism, Amazon promised it would never do this again unless ordered to by the state, which I find not very comforting.". In other words, Amazon tacitly acknowledges it retains the power to do this again. It's far more useful to examine the situation along the lines of which party retains what power over the user, or to look at how much freedom users have in the situation. Therefore the real hinge here (which goes completely unaddressed in the CNET article) is software freedom (the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software). If one uses free software to locate and read/play the work, then one has a chance to make sure that the free program won't betray their interests -- continuing to read/play the work at any time, for any reason, and do so without spying on or reporting the activity to others without explicit consent from the user. But if one uses proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software to access a downloaded copy of the work, one's access to the work is in jeopardy. One can't be certain that copy will be readable/playable through that proprietary software. Perhaps the proprietary software will delete that copy of the work (putting aside what's legal or, more importantly, ethical for the moment, it is worth noting that proprietors retain the technical power to do exactly this in most people's common use of media). Perhaps the proprietary software will report on the user's attempt to read/play the work thus notifying someone what's being read/played and from where.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> In other words, Amazon tacitly acknowledges it retains the power to do this again. > But if one uses proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software to access a downloaded copy of the work, one's access to the work is in jeopardy. One can't be certain that copy will be readable/playable through that proprietary software. Perhaps the proprietary software will delete that copy of the work Amazon only has the power to do this if you connect your Kindle to the internet. You can be sure that Amazon won't reach out to your Kindle to remove your books when it's impossible for them to do so.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago

> He moved to Canada, roughly nine months ago, after purchasing the films in Australia Of course he moved countries, that would do it. The movie is available in both countries, but in a different "version". The rows have different id, so the query does not match them. The legal details of online media purchases and country are crazy complex. Like batshit, no reason for it, it got that way over time and now we're stuck with it, "not fit for 21st century purpose but here we are". I worked in this area and it's easily the most complex part of it and as far as selling and streaming bits goes, pointless.

csydas 8y ago
Agreed -- it's entirely non-sensical in how it's enforced as well. I'm a US expat, and travel fairly regularly for work; when I first left the US, I retained my Amazon Prime subscription, naively thinking "A video is a video, who cares where I am?" Then I learned about distribution rights, and how absolutely terrible companies are at informing people about whether or not certain content is actually available in their region or not. Unless something has changed since the last time I checked (2 years back, so happy to be proven wrong), there is no official method provided to consumers to determine if you can actually utilize most streaming services from any given country/region, and this is extremely frustrating to me. Streaming should be perfect for me as it's preferable to keep what I carry as light as possible, and yet I know that I cannot rely on any streaming service to reliably provide me with the content that I signed up with the intention of viewing/listening to. Granted, I guess that's my fault for traveling, but it just seems very silly that one situation where streaming is the perfect solution, it fails completely due to distribution rights.
- IronBacon 8y ago
  They were going to force a "single digital market" in EU but I haven't heard news about it recently.
  - zucan 8y ago
    The digital single market for online content services is effective since April: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cross-border-portability-online-content-services https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/cross-border-p...

mirimir 8y ago

There's a simple solution. Don't use any content that can't be downloaded as an actual file, with no DRM or other bullshit. That sometimes means that I'm restricted to torrented stuff. But that's not my problem.

millstone 8y ago
The simple solution is to not download this stuff, period. The above sounds like rationalizing copyright infringement.
- yebyen 8y ago
  You sound like a DRM apologist. There are real damages caused by DRM, for instance the fact that if everyone behaves according to the law, then nobody can ever make or receive archival copies of works that have gone out of copyright again. Even if everyone who produces media, holding the copyrights and distributing it with restrictive DRM is dead at some future date and the requisite 80 years have passed, if all content consumers behave legally then we STILL can't make legal copies of the now public domain works because DMCA says we are circumventing a copyright protection mechanism (on works that are out of copyright, the DMCA makes no exception for them.) Copyright was supposed to be a limited term but according to the law today, even if no further extension acts are signed, rights holders such as Sony are empowered to ensure their work may never legally enter into the public domain. Their mechanisms need not even be strong to have the force of law behind them. That's a travesty. I didn't down vote you, but I strongly disagree that this is any kind of "solution" you propose, just bury your head in the sand, "you don't need to be in touch with culture, or propagate it forward in time... forget about that media, it was meant for the sheeple."
- mirimir 8y ago
  I'm happy to pay for stuff. But I'm not willing to pay for stuff that may disappear because some third party did or didn't do one thing or another.
- Youden 8y ago
  Or, since they're taking the position that you're not buying the media but you're buying a "license", you can purchase it and then pirate a DRM-free copy. But really, when copyright is so blatantly one-sided against the people, why should the people be expected to wholly support it? I'm not advocating for ignoring it completely but some rules are just ridiculous. For example ripping. DMCA says that circumvention of technical protections is illegal. If I buy a Blu-Ray, why shouldn't I be able to rip it and add it to my Plex library? What harm does that inflict? Then there are more dubious questions like is it okay to pirate if there's no legal option? My opinion is yes, it's totally okay. If there's no legal means through which to give the copyright owner money, I'm not "taking" anything away by obtaining it without doing so.

msie 8y ago

Reminds me of the time that I moved back from the US to Canada but I couldn't change the billing on my Xbox Live account because I couldn't specify a province in the billing address. I had to buy Xbox Live gift cards to renew my membership year after year So sad. Xbox Live is state of the art but the billing system is a dinosaur.

maccard 8y ago
I have to buy PSN credit off eBay or get my parents to buy it because I moved from Ireland to the UK. I stopped playing world of Warcraft when I moved because I couldn't find a way to pay battle.net after I moved. It's insanity.

heeen2 8y ago

Tech companies want to sell you their cloud and tell you it's better than local storage, to tie you to their platform and for a ongoing revenue stream but this is where you notice the leaky abstraction.

MatthewWilkes 8y ago

While it is interesting to read more of the root cause, the tone of this article is surprisingly pro-Apple to my ears. No, they didn't delete his movies, but they did introduce a technical limitation to prevent him from accessing content that they told him he was buying because of details of media licencing. This isn't something a reasonable member of the public would expect, and the UX and customer service paths he experienced did not help him understand or try to make him whole, they dismissed his concerns.

BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
It's not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect, but neither is it Apple's fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking (to protect possible per-region licensee differences, maybe?) If the fellow owns any movies on blu-ray or DVD and buys a new player, he'll be delighted to discover that those are also hosed.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Apple has taken full responsibility for this by acting as the seller of a product. If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. No hiding behind “yeah but the producer wants to make more money off you so it’s not really my fault.” You take responsibility for what you sell in B2C. If you’re not happy, take it up with your suppliers. Or the law. Or Santa Claus for all I care. This is a vital part of our market rules. Otherwise people would never stop pointing fingers. (I want to add: it’s also true morally. Even if this is not strictly legally their responsibility, moral responsibility is assumed all the same. This is why we blame apple; they can’t have their cake and eat it too. There was this cartoon of a villain who copied the power of every hero he met. When he met Superman it all seemed lost; surely noone could defeat him now? In the world’s hour of truth, the Batman approaches with kryptonite, and he buckles. “He could not copy our strengths without copying our weaknesses.” So it is with Apple and Hollywood.)
  - neom 8y ago

isostatic 8y ago

You don't buy digital movies. You license them under a license that says you can use it for a limited amount of time at the discretion of the company you're licensing from. If you want to buy something, you need either a physical item like a DVD based on common open standards (as you have coded to remove the encryption), or you need a file that is playable in software you have the source code to. Even then hardware wise it becomes more and more expensive to play old purchases due to entropy, and time moving on. Try to play a c90 cassette now, or a 78rpm record. Think how easy that is compared to a 1/4" video tape or umatic.

justtopost 8y ago
I decided last year to archive my old cassette recordings I made when I was younger, and those of local bands I havent seen elsewhere. The tape deck, pretty easy. A few thrift stores and I had a nice hifi model with dolby b, c, decent heads. Most had badly misaligned heads, deteriorated rollers, and broken drive belts at best. Even my better unit needed a full disassembly, cleaning, lube, 3 electrolytic capacitors replaced, and custom rollers made, and a 10 dollar belt kit. That is not even mentioning more routine maint like head cleaning, path demagnatisation, and media prep. Old tapes before 1980s often need to be baked or lubed to play properly without disintegrating in the works. And then you have Bias, NR, and Tape speeds to worry about. I found my old tascam ran at nearly 2x speed, and had unique head spacing, and 4 track simutanious recording, making it nessassary to repair it as well at signifigant cost. Were CD's the last DRM unencumbered physical/digital format? Fyi: Most dj style Neumark record players will play 78s, and sound quite good depending on your stylus.
TheCoelacanth 8y ago
This is true, but most providers of digital content fraudulently market it as a purchase instead of as a license. Law enforcement needs to crack down on this type of marketing for any form of license that does not offer similar rights to a true purchase, i.e. perpetual, irrevocable and freely-transferable.

shmerl 8y ago

This just shows how important is to buy DRM-free. And who is selling DRM-free video exactly?

spacehome 8y ago
Torrents and Usenet. Prices are competitive, too.
- shmerl 8y ago
  Exactly the point. Film industry should sober up and start behaving properly, by enabling legal DRM-free options, instead of being stuck up in their backwards thinking DRM obsession.
fghtr 8y ago
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide
- shmerl 8y ago
  See also: https://fckdrm.com https://fckdrm.com Barely anything for major film releases. Sure, you can get some indie films DRM-free, but that's about it. Torrents is really the only accessible source.

cm2187 8y ago

But even if the movie has been downloaded, and unless there is no DRM, Apple still has the capacity to lock you out of that movie and all you have left is a rather large blob of random bytes on your hard drive.

kwhitefoot 8y ago

The article is being altogether too soft on Apple. Good customer service would have been Apple simply fixing it for the customer instead of parroting the letter of the rules.

seanalltogether 8y ago

I moved from the US to the UK a year ago, and I'm still worried to switch all my media accounts to UK territory. PS3, PS4, itunes, google, netflix, steam, blizzard are all tied to my US account and credit card still. Articles like this don't give me hope I should be switching

jagermo 8y ago
Don't do it. Create new ones, if you must. Try to sign into your US accounts from time to time using a VPN.

zorkw4rg 8y ago

The insanity of international copyright law has turned a lot of people into basically just ignoring the laws which is 100% justified, reasonable and morally sound in my opinion. It is not the consumer's fault that politicans are too inept in understanding the current century we live in, it is not the consumers fault that politicans are too corrupt to bring copyright law into this century. One of the creative ways of digital self defense is https://unogs.com/ https://unogs.com/ it lists all content on netflix and in which region it is available. This way you can use a VPN service and actually fully use Netflix as the service it was intended to be and you've been payed for properly. And for that matter it is not the corporations fault for exploiting all laws to the greatest extend possible either, don't anthropomorphize corporations, they are not moral agents, they are soulless thoughtless profit maximization machines it is the fault of politicians and the population who voted for them, to not regulating them properly.

nottorp 8y ago
Considering most hollywood movies are interchangeable (the scripts are all written from the same manual anyway), my solution is to not actually purchase anything. If it's on Netflix or HBO, it's fine, otherwise I don't bother. Same for music, if it's streamed somewhere, fine, otherwise no. I get blu rays for really good movies, but they are so rare it ends up very cheap. When they come up with a guarantee that I can access my digital purchases forever from any corner of the world or solar system, then I'll consider buying digitally from the movie/music industry.
- zorkw4rg 8y ago
  > the scripts are all written from the same manual anyway I bet you mean "Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need", its such a cancerous guide.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Looks like people are taking offense to me saying that all hollywood movies are the same. If you can watch the same superhero movie 30 times (with different skins and superhero names), power to you. I can't any more.

ryanlol 8y ago

Why is it difficult for this guy to switch his locale to australia? The screenshot of the form shows the “NONE” payment option.

icu 8y ago

Having moved countries, and lock-out regions, three times... this is precisely why I still buy physical copies of media (mainly video games and movies). I'm increasingly worried about video game console hard drives, and the digital purchases I've made, surviving any future issues with the console or download/streaming services.

jccalhoun 8y ago

Even if apple didn't delete his movies, the fact remains that he can't watch them. This is why I am very hesitant to buy online-only drm-ed goods if I can't remove the drm.

cmurf 8y ago

It's perverse that we've accepted as OK, taking the concept of movie regions, to books. It's perverse that we've accepted we're effectively licensing a book rather than owning it, losing the right to loan out, or gift, any ebook the same as any book. It is a corruption of good ideas into bad ideas. These things should be called rentals at the time of sale. Old complaint (2012) https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-amazon-is-within-its-rights-to-remove-access-to-your-kindle-books/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-amazon-is-within-its-right...

mark_l_watson 8y ago

Buying digital media with DRM is a mixed bag. For eBooks I sometimes buy directly from publishers to get no DRM versions, but for Google Play movies, Kindle and Audible books, iBooks, and Play books I most factor the risk of loss of access into the price/value purchase decision. Buying DRM media from multiple companies is also a good hedge-my-bets strategy. At the other side, renting access: I am a big fan of O’Reilly Safari. For a yearly fee I can read their library. Much of my job and career requires me to stay current with new tech and I generally prefer reading or skimming a recent book to reading miscellaneous stuff on the web.

techcode 8y ago

TL;DR: No conspiracy - it's (slightly) different movies. At least for Cars 2 - Australian version (right at the start of video) is literally different from other English versions (around 3:30) - https://youtu.be/SaYmI7xANCg https://youtu.be/SaYmI7xANCg Many other movies (and especially animated) have different versions with such tweaks so story/jokes still continue to make sense around the world. Considering it looks like I'm the first one to point this out - it probably never crossed mind of Apple systems engineers that such things might need to be handled. And even if it did - feature probably got bumped by other things that impact bigger % of customers...

techcode 8y ago
More "internationalization" examples of animated movies https://youtu.be/oB8Fr6Mm2zA https://youtu.be/oB8Fr6Mm2zA

mankash666 8y ago

This is why I don't trust CNet's reviews of Apple's products. They'll convince the customer that "you're holding it wrong" for bones from Apple!