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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-loc

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
  By that logic, if I buy a DVD at the checkout of Marks & Spencer on my summer holidays before returning to the states, I get to the US to find out it won't work in the DVD player here, should I be annoyed at Marks & Spencer for not posting a sign that explains media regions?
  - FabHK 8y ago
    Not only that, by GP's logic Marks & Spencers would somehow be obliged to get you a US region coded DVD of that movie (whether the actual rights holder ever released it or not!). To be clear: I absolutely hate the ridiculous licensing policies of the movie studios, but they're clearly not Marks & Spencer's fault, or Apple's, for that matter.
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      It is Marks & Spencers responsibility, even if there's nothing they could have done differently. You're their customer. In this scenario, when the DVD they sold you didn't work the way you wanted it to, they are the ones you should complain to, and they should give you a refund.
      - pas 8y ago
        Yes, it's their responsibility. And that's why they put a media region lock sticker on the box of the DVD. (And usually it's also printed on the labeled side of the disk.) Legally, Marks & Spencer must put this restriction into their contract with the customer. And of course these are sometimes implied contracts. Very much based on jurisdiction, case law, etc.
        sanderjd 8y ago
        I'm not talking about law, I'm talking about what customers should expect from merchants. Even if there's some fine print somewhere that says otherwise, I expect the thing I bought from a merchant to work for me, and if it doesn't, I expect my money back. If neither of these things happens, I'll no longer be a customer of that merchant.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    Yes. Region locks are a fabricated limitation, just another way for Hollywood to extract money from the consumer. You should be annoyed with Marks & Spencer’s for playing ball. Because while one drop might not turn the tide, eventually the dam breaks and some retailer somewhere will find a way and sell unlocked DVD players. Effecting change in society is an exercise in finding the right pressure point. Hollywood doesn’t care about our feelings on region locks. Sellers do. Put the incentive in the right spot and watch the stars align. A well leveraged arm cannot be overturned.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      One benefit of region locks is its crude ability to charge people based on their level of wealth, allowing more people to share in the experience. I've been to national parks in some countries that charge more if you have a passport from a richer country than if you have a passport from a poorer country, which I think is a noble effort to be a little more egalitarian with the distribution of resources. Obviously, not everyone from a poor country is poor and vice versa, but in the absence of a better method it sort of works. However, I'm not sold on region locks for media that has zero marginal cost to reproduce, nor am I sold on selling someone something and then revoking access to it based on their locale.
      - crtasm 8y ago
        You remind me of the last time I drove past Stonehenge in England. It's been paid entry for a long time but I found it surprising to discover tourists get a cheaper rate. It was a flat change though, not dependant on country.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. Eh? This never happens. It's always "Product is under manufacturer warranty. Go contact them".
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Sure it does. Get loud, ask what value the seller provides, all while suggesting to anyone nearby purchases made here are dubious at best. They will deal. Always do. Yes, doing that is not nice, but neither is inane profit seeking and finger pointing.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      To the obvious naysayers, I know that kind of thing is unpleasant. What do you do? Just take it? I will, if money is not really an issue. But when it is? No way. Serious query, I will read with interest :D
      - BeetleB 8y ago
        >What do you do? Just take it? Take what? You have a manufacturer warranty. Contact the manufacturer. Don't take it out on the store. It's really that simple. In all my years of buying stuff that was under manufacturer warranty, I have never had a problem with the manufacturer honoring their warranty. There's nothing to "take". The store has a return policy. If you are within that policy, they take the item back (or exchange, or whatever). Beyond that, just deal with the manufacturer.
        ddingus 8y ago
        Oh no. If the seller, represented it that way, sure. When they don"t, and at those times they are asking dollars for implied value, they need to either earn it, or quit making those representations. To their credit many have, I will no longer buy from them. The few that still do tend to get this right. I have had few incidents in the last decade. The 90's and lesser degree 00's were particularly bad.
- dperfect 8y ago
  Thank you for pointing this out. I wish more people understood this point. It happens to be the same reason that Amazon can't just say "sorry, we don't take any responsibility for the suppliers of solar eclipse glasses that we sell on our website." As a reseller, you have to take responsibility for the products you sell. Here's another example: Let's say supplier A produces a part used by manufacturer B, who produces a final product sold to consumers through retailer C. If A was negligent and produced a defective part that causes harm/malfunction in the final product, it would be complete chaos to drag all of those parties into court in a single case (it may not even be obvious to retailer C or the customer that the product's failure is related to A's part). To sort things out legally (assuming the problem makes it to the court system), the customer fights their case against C. C may or may not understand why the product they sell is defective, but if they believe it to be B's fault, they can file a separate case against B. And B can then file a case against A. In the end, the legal system can find the party who is ultimately responsible and hold them accountable, but it doesn't work for B or C to say "sorry, this isn't our fault because we're just selling something that includes A's defective part". Leadership is (or should be) similar: if an employee screws up, it's still the CEO's problem and responsibility. Internally, that CEO can hold a manager accountable, and that manager can hold the employee accountable, but that responsibility doesn't end just because it's assumed by a higher level.
  - pas 8y ago
    I don't know. Is Apple actually selling it? Or do they just provide the marketplace and the payment gateway (bankcard charging services)?
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  I don't think this is actually true. In many cases on packaging for items I've purchased they explicitly state "Do not return this to the store, return to the manufacturer." It's also not true for Car Dealerships (recalls) and Large Appliances that aren't from major Box Stores. So yes take it up with suppliers, but your claim that the middleman (Apple in this case) is de-facto responsible, isn't nearly universal.
  - Someone 8y ago
    Law trumps whatever sellers say. In the EU, B2C sellers have to comply with regulation that more or less say “once you’re the middle man, you stay the middle man” https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...: ”Guarantees and returns Under EU rules, a trader must repair, replace, reduce the price or give you a refund if goods you bought turn out to be faulty or do not look or work as advertised. If you bought a good or a service online or outside of a shop (by telephone, mail order, from a door-to-door salesperson), you also have the right to cancel and return your order within 14 days, for any reason and with no justification.” Having said that, sellers are allowed to outsource required support, so I don’t see how products saying the manufacturer will cover repairs and warranties is in conflict with those rules, as long as those manufacturers actually provide the services law requires. And of course, nothing guarantees consumers will get what they are entitled to, but having the law on their side won’t hurt and may help.
- pas 8y ago
  Service industry. More and more things become a lot more complex than just a once in the past transaction of money for a gadget. (It never was that simple, mind you, but at least the responsibility of fit for a purpose, some kind of warranty and so on was clear, that it was the seller's.) Now as people sell services that include access to 3rd party content (movies), the things become complicated. That said, I think it's good that the users demand simplicity with regards to responsibility assignment. When Apple sells an app on their store, and the app doesn't work, people understand that it's not Apple's fault. But that's because the communication is clear. Whereas with media content Apple provides iTunes or Apple Music or the appropriate program and service, and so it's reasonable for end users to demand that Apple make good on its implied promises.
Nullabillity 8y ago
> Apple's fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking Yes, it is their fault that they tolerate the behaviour on their storefront.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- TheTrotters 8y ago
  What else are they supposed to do?
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Refuse to play.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    Show a big fat dialog before changing your region: "After changing your payment method to a different country you will no longer be able to download the following movies: .... Would you like to download them before switching?"
    - jsjohnst 8y ago
      > Show a big fat dialog They do show a warning. Not exactly what you describe, but it’s there in essence.
      - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
        They provide a vague warning that something might happen. They should warn you specifically what will actually happen.
        jsjohnst 8y ago
        > They should warn you specifically what will actually happen. Should they do a better job? You betcha! But I don’t think it’s possible to tell you exactly what will happen in a good UX. One major reason is because distribution rights change all the time, today you might not lose streaming switching from country X to Y, but after switching today, you might lose streaming rights tomorrow.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
watwut 8y ago
It is apple (and any other store) fault that limitation is not clearly stated up front. They play along and keep calling it "buy". Stores keep using slightly misleading words, because people are more likely to buy then if they used slightly more accurate wording. Then we blame users for acting based on what they were told.
- JimDabell 8y ago
  > They play along and keep calling it "buy". This wasn't remotely deleted from his devices. What happened here was that he (reasonably) expected to be able to download another copy from Apple, and found out he couldn't. "Buy" doesn't mean "host it for me online forever". It was reasonable for him to expect to be able to do this, but it's not unreasonable for Apple to use the word "buy".
  - dustyleary 8y ago
    > "Buy" doesn't mean "host it for me online forever". Yes, it does! That is precisely the problem. My grandmother was born in 1939. Apple tells her that she can "buy" her copy of the Andrews Sisters Greatest Hits, and after she "buys" it she can play it on her iPhone whenever she wants. If Apple was truthful and said, "you can sort of rent a copy of this album, unless someone you never meet makes a decision you'll never hear about, and then it might disappear. Oh, and also, you're really rolling the dice if you travel to another country," then they wouldn't have gotten my grandmother's money. Apple is taking advantage of misleading language, telling my grandmother she can "buy" this music, when for the first 70 years of her life "buy" meant "it's yours forever unless you decide to get rid of it". When you "buy" your music from Apple, you don't choose where to download your single copy of it, make sure you have storage, and back it up to tape for safe-keeping. Apple explicitly tells you that you can "buy" your music and "it's stored in the cloud (ooohh aaaahh it's magic). Instantly available on all your devices." Yes, I understand that this abuse is industry-wide. That doesn't make it right. If they had tried this shit 40 years ago they'd have been on the losing end of several lawsuits. Trying to tell my 80 year old grandmother, "Ackshually, you didn't buy this music, you bought a license to this music, and we decided to revoke it because reasons. Would you like to buy the 2018 remastered edition and hope that we don't decide to do this again?" should make them liable for bait-and-switch and truth-in-advertising lawsuits. I didn't expect my argument to take this turn, but I think this is a good example for why 80 year olds vote for Trump. Our "greed is good" hyper-capitalist society has practically weaponized taking advantage of people. They don't really understand what's going on, but they do understand that they're getting screwed, and they're angry about it, so they follow the people on TV who seem to be as angry as they are.
Asooka 8y ago
It's a fault in their UI and UX design. They could say e.g. "The Australian version of movie X is not available to download in your current region (Canada) due to licensing limitations. You may still download your purchase from within the Australia region."
- user3359 8y ago
  I 90% agree with this. The other 10% realizes that if you had warnings and waivers for every fringe case, you'd have the worst UI in the world and had a worse UX for 99.9% of the people it didn't apply to. Do you want them to disclose it won't work in Taiwan? Timbuktu? That you'd have to agree to GDPR if you went to Europe? How about warnings that this format may not be viewable in 20 years due to technical or regulatory shifts? I sympathize with the original person's situation, but as a consumer of media that's frequently geo-locked (I'm from Canada), I blame copyright holders for the situation. And frankly, it's garbage like this that turns people to pirated media.
  - andrewaylett 8y ago
    It's definitely dealing in edge-cases, and I think there's a middle-ground where you make sure people are aware of the edge-case conditions they're approaching, without necessarily irritating people to whom they don't apply. So on the one hand, making it clear what the region you're buying into actually is would be really nice, and on the other hand (as suggested) making it clear when you've crossed into an edge case and there are things in you're account that you're about to lose access to, or that you might expect to see but can't, would make resolving this kind of issue much easier. And wouldn't bother the 99% of people who haven't switched their account region after "buying" something.
nescoiquid 8y ago
> It's not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect Nor is it something an informed person should tolerate.
paranoidrobot 8y ago
Apple hold some responsibility here. Remember back when almost no labels would sell Music digitally, and kept blaming piracy on kids? Apple had enough leverage then to force many labels into agreements. They definitely have enough leverage today to force global licensing of movies sold through their store.

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
By that logic, if I buy a DVD at the checkout of Marks & Spencer on my summer holidays before returning to the states, I get to the US to find out it won't work in the DVD player here, should I be annoyed at Marks & Spencer for not posting a sign that explains media regions?
- FabHK 8y ago
  Not only that, by GP's logic Marks & Spencers would somehow be obliged to get you a US region coded DVD of that movie (whether the actual rights holder ever released it or not!). To be clear: I absolutely hate the ridiculous licensing policies of the movie studios, but they're clearly not Marks & Spencer's fault, or Apple's, for that matter.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    It is Marks & Spencers responsibility, even if there's nothing they could have done differently. You're their customer. In this scenario, when the DVD they sold you didn't work the way you wanted it to, they are the ones you should complain to, and they should give you a refund.
    - pas 8y ago
      Yes, it's their responsibility. And that's why they put a media region lock sticker on the box of the DVD. (And usually it's also printed on the labeled side of the disk.) Legally, Marks & Spencer must put this restriction into their contract with the customer. And of course these are sometimes implied contracts. Very much based on jurisdiction, case law, etc.
      - sanderjd 8y ago
        I'm not talking about law, I'm talking about what customers should expect from merchants. Even if there's some fine print somewhere that says otherwise, I expect the thing I bought from a merchant to work for me, and if it doesn't, I expect my money back. If neither of these things happens, I'll no longer be a customer of that merchant.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Yes. Region locks are a fabricated limitation, just another way for Hollywood to extract money from the consumer. You should be annoyed with Marks & Spencer’s for playing ball. Because while one drop might not turn the tide, eventually the dam breaks and some retailer somewhere will find a way and sell unlocked DVD players. Effecting change in society is an exercise in finding the right pressure point. Hollywood doesn’t care about our feelings on region locks. Sellers do. Put the incentive in the right spot and watch the stars align. A well leveraged arm cannot be overturned.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    One benefit of region locks is its crude ability to charge people based on their level of wealth, allowing more people to share in the experience. I've been to national parks in some countries that charge more if you have a passport from a richer country than if you have a passport from a poorer country, which I think is a noble effort to be a little more egalitarian with the distribution of resources. Obviously, not everyone from a poor country is poor and vice versa, but in the absence of a better method it sort of works. However, I'm not sold on region locks for media that has zero marginal cost to reproduce, nor am I sold on selling someone something and then revoking access to it based on their locale.
    - crtasm 8y ago
      You remind me of the last time I drove past Stonehenge in England. It's been paid entry for a long time but I found it surprising to discover tourists get a cheaper rate. It was a flat change though, not dependant on country.
BeetleB 8y ago
>If I sell you a washing machine and it breaks for whatever reason under statutory warranty, I am responsible. Eh? This never happens. It's always "Product is under manufacturer warranty. Go contact them".
- ddingus 8y ago
  Sure it does. Get loud, ask what value the seller provides, all while suggesting to anyone nearby purchases made here are dubious at best. They will deal. Always do. Yes, doing that is not nice, but neither is inane profit seeking and finger pointing.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    To the obvious naysayers, I know that kind of thing is unpleasant. What do you do? Just take it? I will, if money is not really an issue. But when it is? No way. Serious query, I will read with interest :D
    - BeetleB 8y ago
      >What do you do? Just take it? Take what? You have a manufacturer warranty. Contact the manufacturer. Don't take it out on the store. It's really that simple. In all my years of buying stuff that was under manufacturer warranty, I have never had a problem with the manufacturer honoring their warranty. There's nothing to "take". The store has a return policy. If you are within that policy, they take the item back (or exchange, or whatever). Beyond that, just deal with the manufacturer.
      - ddingus 8y ago
        Oh no. If the seller, represented it that way, sure. When they don"t, and at those times they are asking dollars for implied value, they need to either earn it, or quit making those representations. To their credit many have, I will no longer buy from them. The few that still do tend to get this right. I have had few incidents in the last decade. The 90's and lesser degree 00's were particularly bad.
dperfect 8y ago
Thank you for pointing this out. I wish more people understood this point. It happens to be the same reason that Amazon can't just say "sorry, we don't take any responsibility for the suppliers of solar eclipse glasses that we sell on our website." As a reseller, you have to take responsibility for the products you sell. Here's another example: Let's say supplier A produces a part used by manufacturer B, who produces a final product sold to consumers through retailer C. If A was negligent and produced a defective part that causes harm/malfunction in the final product, it would be complete chaos to drag all of those parties into court in a single case (it may not even be obvious to retailer C or the customer that the product's failure is related to A's part). To sort things out legally (assuming the problem makes it to the court system), the customer fights their case against C. C may or may not understand why the product they sell is defective, but if they believe it to be B's fault, they can file a separate case against B. And B can then file a case against A. In the end, the legal system can find the party who is ultimately responsible and hold them accountable, but it doesn't work for B or C to say "sorry, this isn't our fault because we're just selling something that includes A's defective part". Leadership is (or should be) similar: if an employee screws up, it's still the CEO's problem and responsibility. Internally, that CEO can hold a manager accountable, and that manager can hold the employee accountable, but that responsibility doesn't end just because it's assumed by a higher level.
- pas 8y ago
  I don't know. Is Apple actually selling it? Or do they just provide the marketplace and the payment gateway (bankcard charging services)?
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
I don't think this is actually true. In many cases on packaging for items I've purchased they explicitly state "Do not return this to the store, return to the manufacturer." It's also not true for Car Dealerships (recalls) and Large Appliances that aren't from major Box Stores. So yes take it up with suppliers, but your claim that the middleman (Apple in this case) is de-facto responsible, isn't nearly universal.
- Someone 8y ago
  Law trumps whatever sellers say. In the EU, B2C sellers have to comply with regulation that more or less say “once you’re the middle man, you stay the middle man” https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guarantees-returns/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...: ”Guarantees and returns Under EU rules, a trader must repair, replace, reduce the price or give you a refund if goods you bought turn out to be faulty or do not look or work as advertised. If you bought a good or a service online or outside of a shop (by telephone, mail order, from a door-to-door salesperson), you also have the right to cancel and return your order within 14 days, for any reason and with no justification.” Having said that, sellers are allowed to outsource required support, so I don’t see how products saying the manufacturer will cover repairs and warranties is in conflict with those rules, as long as those manufacturers actually provide the services law requires. And of course, nothing guarantees consumers will get what they are entitled to, but having the law on their side won’t hurt and may help.
pas 8y ago
Service industry. More and more things become a lot more complex than just a once in the past transaction of money for a gadget. (It never was that simple, mind you, but at least the responsibility of fit for a purpose, some kind of warranty and so on was clear, that it was the seller's.) Now as people sell services that include access to 3rd party content (movies), the things become complicated. That said, I think it's good that the users demand simplicity with regards to responsibility assignment. When Apple sells an app on their store, and the app doesn't work, people understand that it's not Apple's fault. But that's because the communication is clear. Whereas with media content Apple provides iTunes or Apple Music or the appropriate program and service, and so it's reasonable for end users to demand that Apple make good on its implied promises.

Nullabillity 8y ago

> Apple's fault that corporate copyright holders insist on Byzantine region-locking Yes, it is their fault that they tolerate the behaviour on their storefront.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TheTrotters 8y ago
What else are they supposed to do?
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Refuse to play.
- jakobegger 8y ago
  Show a big fat dialog before changing your region: "After changing your payment method to a different country you will no longer be able to download the following movies: .... Would you like to download them before switching?"
  - jsjohnst 8y ago
    > Show a big fat dialog They do show a warning. Not exactly what you describe, but it’s there in essence.
    - TheCoelacanth 8y ago
      They provide a vague warning that something might happen. They should warn you specifically what will actually happen.
      - jsjohnst 8y ago
        > They should warn you specifically what will actually happen. Should they do a better job? You betcha! But I don’t think it’s possible to tell you exactly what will happen in a good UX. One major reason is because distribution rights change all the time, today you might not lose streaming switching from country X to Y, but after switching today, you might lose streaming rights tomorrow.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

watwut 8y ago

It is apple (and any other store) fault that limitation is not clearly stated up front. They play along and keep calling it "buy". Stores keep using slightly misleading words, because people are more likely to buy then if they used slightly more accurate wording. Then we blame users for acting based on what they were told.

JimDabell 8y ago
> They play along and keep calling it "buy". This wasn't remotely deleted from his devices. What happened here was that he (reasonably) expected to be able to download another copy from Apple, and found out he couldn't. "Buy" doesn't mean "host it for me online forever". It was reasonable for him to expect to be able to do this, but it's not unreasonable for Apple to use the word "buy".
- dustyleary 8y ago
  > "Buy" doesn't mean "host it for me online forever". Yes, it does! That is precisely the problem. My grandmother was born in 1939. Apple tells her that she can "buy" her copy of the Andrews Sisters Greatest Hits, and after she "buys" it she can play it on her iPhone whenever she wants. If Apple was truthful and said, "you can sort of rent a copy of this album, unless someone you never meet makes a decision you'll never hear about, and then it might disappear. Oh, and also, you're really rolling the dice if you travel to another country," then they wouldn't have gotten my grandmother's money. Apple is taking advantage of misleading language, telling my grandmother she can "buy" this music, when for the first 70 years of her life "buy" meant "it's yours forever unless you decide to get rid of it". When you "buy" your music from Apple, you don't choose where to download your single copy of it, make sure you have storage, and back it up to tape for safe-keeping. Apple explicitly tells you that you can "buy" your music and "it's stored in the cloud (ooohh aaaahh it's magic). Instantly available on all your devices." Yes, I understand that this abuse is industry-wide. That doesn't make it right. If they had tried this shit 40 years ago they'd have been on the losing end of several lawsuits. Trying to tell my 80 year old grandmother, "Ackshually, you didn't buy this music, you bought a license to this music, and we decided to revoke it because reasons. Would you like to buy the 2018 remastered edition and hope that we don't decide to do this again?" should make them liable for bait-and-switch and truth-in-advertising lawsuits. I didn't expect my argument to take this turn, but I think this is a good example for why 80 year olds vote for Trump. Our "greed is good" hyper-capitalist society has practically weaponized taking advantage of people. They don't really understand what's going on, but they do understand that they're getting screwed, and they're angry about it, so they follow the people on TV who seem to be as angry as they are.

Asooka 8y ago

It's a fault in their UI and UX design. They could say e.g. "The Australian version of movie X is not available to download in your current region (Canada) due to licensing limitations. You may still download your purchase from within the Australia region."

user3359 8y ago
I 90% agree with this. The other 10% realizes that if you had warnings and waivers for every fringe case, you'd have the worst UI in the world and had a worse UX for 99.9% of the people it didn't apply to. Do you want them to disclose it won't work in Taiwan? Timbuktu? That you'd have to agree to GDPR if you went to Europe? How about warnings that this format may not be viewable in 20 years due to technical or regulatory shifts? I sympathize with the original person's situation, but as a consumer of media that's frequently geo-locked (I'm from Canada), I blame copyright holders for the situation. And frankly, it's garbage like this that turns people to pirated media.
- andrewaylett 8y ago
  It's definitely dealing in edge-cases, and I think there's a middle-ground where you make sure people are aware of the edge-case conditions they're approaching, without necessarily irritating people to whom they don't apply. So on the one hand, making it clear what the region you're buying into actually is would be really nice, and on the other hand (as suggested) making it clear when you've crossed into an edge case and there are things in you're account that you're about to lose access to, or that you might expect to see but can't, would make resolving this kind of issue much easier. And wouldn't bother the 99% of people who haven't switched their account region after "buying" something.

nescoiquid 8y ago

> It's not something an uninformed person would reasonably expect Nor is it something an informed person should tolerate.

paranoidrobot 8y ago

Apple hold some responsibility here. Remember back when almost no labels would sell Music digitally, and kept blaming piracy on kids? Apple had enough leverage then to force many labels into agreements. They definitely have enough leverage today to force global licensing of movies sold through their store.