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> and all my purchased media is gone Stolen by Amazon. They have no incentive to get it back. Amazon hopes that you purchase it again. Call the consumer prote

> and all my purchased media is gone Stolen by Amazon. They have no incentive to get it back. Amazon hopes that you purchase it again. Call the consumer protection services. Big tech companies are not the law, they cannot steal things from you. Even if you committed fraud in one transaction, they cannot take away your property. (Amazon will call it 'service', but accessing your property is not a service)

Terry_Roll 5y ago
> Stolen by Amazon. They have no incentive to get it back. Amazon hopes that you purchase it again. They are not the only company doing this in some ways. ISP's who provide a set top box for watching TV and downloading/streaming service to tv, do the same thing when you change you ISP. Its a form of lock in because whilst you can still get access to the purchased films, you have to jump through more hoops. Its all legal but I question the morality of it, when considering online piracy via torrent streams and then the "hacking" that companies have used to trace and prosecute the worst. But I've learnt enough to know that everyone has their questionable practices to maximise profits/income, the lucky ones are the one's who would also be the expert witnesses in court or have been able to fly entirely the right side of the law.
- tzs 5y ago
  Which ISPs kill your purchased content when you leave? At Comcast/Xfinity when you cancel all services your account still remains, and you can stream your purchased content the web or through their mobile streaming app when signed in on your account.
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    UK, so you purchase with a set top box you buy from them to use their additional services and then when you leave, they force you to purchase another device to watch those films like a computer to watch it on. You can no longer use the set top box to watch the purchase films on.
- chasil 5y ago
  There have been so many stories of users and developers losing libraries and livelyhood because they have been spurned from these "walled gardens." The only real answer is to minimize our footprints in these closed places. My current phone runs Lineage without a hint of Google. I keep an old Samsung for gmail and other services, but the death of "don't be evil" has meant the death of Google on my phone. They will never be back. I have seen several people who sold on Amazon lose their accounts. I am not sure what provoked it, but the exchange is certainly not in favor of the smaller party. And we all know what Ebay did. I can't really say that any one abusive company's behavior is any worse. They are all tyrants with their "star chambers" and sundry courts of inquiry, and the less authority that you give them over you, the better your position will be. We left this legal thinking behind long ago, but Apple (among others) has brought it back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber
znpy 5y ago
If you pirate content it's gonna be yours forever no matter what. So if you buy stuff and it's going to get taken away from you for arbitrary reasons... you might as well pirate stuff.
- nix23 5y ago
  Well you are not wrong, but pirating is not the answer but cracking. For example i regularly backup my Audible library and remove the DRM, not to redistribute them, but in the case Amazon closes the Audible-brand, change the Apps i can access my library, delete some of them etc (we all know what can happen and did in the past). Same with games, if possible i buy them from HumbleBundle or GOG. And i never buy something that is bound to a platform that i really care for.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    You still support this unfair business with your money. If you want to fight DRM, check out https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/.
    - nix23 5y ago
      Look the audible drm is so easy to remove i am ok with it, if they change it and i cannot remove it anymore i will stop. And yes i hate drm too, but since stallman is a extremist that supports un-free licenses (unlike the BSD and MIT) i will not listen to his wannabe rants, and i will never forgive him to change the GCC license to GPL3 only. If i care for something i remove the drm, if i cant, i will stop buying it.
      - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
        Those "unfree licenses" are the reason you're not forced to use Windows on desktops/laptops/phones/servers/toasters/supercomputers (it does none of these things well even now, imagine the world we would have if it didn't have any competition at all). GPL puts the user's freedom first. Every developer is mostly a user anyway, unless you're writing absolutely everything from scratch like they do in SerenityOS. So I like that stance very much. If you don't, nobody is forcing you to interact with GPLed software in any way.
ricardobayes 5y ago
I'm sure they have some small print stating that it's not actually yours.
- forinti 5y ago
  Small print is not always legal.
- chris_wot 5y ago
  So might be a good idea if they refund him then.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  This is why I pirate all my kindle books and keep them locally in epubs/mobis. You either have it or you don't.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    I do this too. I don't want to have to resort to this, but I also don't want to risk Amazon taking away all of the books that I've paid for! All I want is to pay for DRM-free content.
  - abustamam 5y ago
    Kinda funny how they're driving us right back to piracy. Digital content is not forever. If I can't purchase it and download it to my local hard drive, I'm not purchasing it. Reminds me of those old anti piracy PSAs: "you wouldn't download a car." (note: yes, yes I would if I could). But if the new car-buying process was "pay $20k for this Honda Civic, but just know that we are just allowing you to drive it, we can take it away from you at any time" you can be sure that either no one will ever buy cars again, or they'd just "steal" them. If compliance is too hard or too inconvenient or just plain stupid or malicious, then people won't comply. Easy as that.
    - ricardobayes 5y ago
      Makes me wonder what would happen with my Steam games if the publisher pulls it from the store, or what if Steam decides it won't support my system anymore (and I don't want to update).
ksec 5y ago
Well I wish that is true. But It isn't actually your property. You are only purchasing a perpetual right to use that item under the terms and condition. It is the sad state of things Silicon Valley decided ownership is no longer a thing and everything should be "service", so they gain the control of all asset management right. There is some part of me that increasingly hate Silicon Valley.
- tomxor 5y ago
  > You are only purchasing a perpetual right to use that item under the terms and condition To clarify for others: parent is not talking about subscriptions. When you "buy" content on these platforms, they are not actually yours to take away for ever like a physical book. The software you consume them on e.g a Kindle or iTunes, is actually capable of remotely deleting "your" content at any time, and they are supposedly within their legal right to do so. They have essentially hijacked the word "buy", it does not implicitly mean what it used to mean, you cannot really buy a copy of a piece of music or a book or a film from any of these large platforms today without removing the DRM and making a local copy (which is technically illegal).
  - abustamam 5y ago
    My wife "purchased" a French movie on Amazon Prime Movies à few years ago (because it was pretty much the only way she could acquire it without piracy) Recently she tried to watch it and Amazon just had "you can't access this content." Maybe Amazon didn't renew the license with publisher, maybe not, but in any case, Amazon really proved to me that no, we do not own digital content. So, I pirated it for her. If doing things the "right/legal way" is going to screw us over because of fine print, then why bother?
    - boibombeiro 5y ago
      In some countries "piracy" of itens you own is a gray area, because in the past you could make copies of medias, such tapes, as backup.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
theplumber 5y ago
But you don't buy property anymore. You are licensed to use it under various T&C. The age of property is gone. I wouldn't be surrised to see our fav OS(ios, macos, win etc) stop working once the cloud account is suspended. For your own safety you may not use a different account either. People traded their freedom rights for apparent convenience so I guess we get what we deserve.

Terry_Roll 5y ago

> Stolen by Amazon. They have no incentive to get it back. Amazon hopes that you purchase it again. They are not the only company doing this in some ways. ISP's who provide a set top box for watching TV and downloading/streaming service to tv, do the same thing when you change you ISP. Its a form of lock in because whilst you can still get access to the purchased films, you have to jump through more hoops. Its all legal but I question the morality of it, when considering online piracy via torrent streams and then the "hacking" that companies have used to trace and prosecute the worst. But I've learnt enough to know that everyone has their questionable practices to maximise profits/income, the lucky ones are the one's who would also be the expert witnesses in court or have been able to fly entirely the right side of the law.

tzs 5y ago
Which ISPs kill your purchased content when you leave? At Comcast/Xfinity when you cancel all services your account still remains, and you can stream your purchased content the web or through their mobile streaming app when signed in on your account.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  UK, so you purchase with a set top box you buy from them to use their additional services and then when you leave, they force you to purchase another device to watch those films like a computer to watch it on. You can no longer use the set top box to watch the purchase films on.
chasil 5y ago
There have been so many stories of users and developers losing libraries and livelyhood because they have been spurned from these "walled gardens." The only real answer is to minimize our footprints in these closed places. My current phone runs Lineage without a hint of Google. I keep an old Samsung for gmail and other services, but the death of "don't be evil" has meant the death of Google on my phone. They will never be back. I have seen several people who sold on Amazon lose their accounts. I am not sure what provoked it, but the exchange is certainly not in favor of the smaller party. And we all know what Ebay did. I can't really say that any one abusive company's behavior is any worse. They are all tyrants with their "star chambers" and sundry courts of inquiry, and the less authority that you give them over you, the better your position will be. We left this legal thinking behind long ago, but Apple (among others) has brought it back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

znpy 5y ago

If you pirate content it's gonna be yours forever no matter what. So if you buy stuff and it's going to get taken away from you for arbitrary reasons... you might as well pirate stuff.

nix23 5y ago
Well you are not wrong, but pirating is not the answer but cracking. For example i regularly backup my Audible library and remove the DRM, not to redistribute them, but in the case Amazon closes the Audible-brand, change the Apps i can access my library, delete some of them etc (we all know what can happen and did in the past). Same with games, if possible i buy them from HumbleBundle or GOG. And i never buy something that is bound to a platform that i really care for.
- fsflover 5y ago
  You still support this unfair business with your money. If you want to fight DRM, check out https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Look the audible drm is so easy to remove i am ok with it, if they change it and i cannot remove it anymore i will stop. And yes i hate drm too, but since stallman is a extremist that supports un-free licenses (unlike the BSD and MIT) i will not listen to his wannabe rants, and i will never forgive him to change the GCC license to GPL3 only. If i care for something i remove the drm, if i cant, i will stop buying it.
    - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
      Those "unfree licenses" are the reason you're not forced to use Windows on desktops/laptops/phones/servers/toasters/supercomputers (it does none of these things well even now, imagine the world we would have if it didn't have any competition at all). GPL puts the user's freedom first. Every developer is mostly a user anyway, unless you're writing absolutely everything from scratch like they do in SerenityOS. So I like that stance very much. If you don't, nobody is forcing you to interact with GPLed software in any way.

ricardobayes 5y ago

I'm sure they have some small print stating that it's not actually yours.

forinti 5y ago
Small print is not always legal.
chris_wot 5y ago
So might be a good idea if they refund him then.
moffkalast 5y ago
This is why I pirate all my kindle books and keep them locally in epubs/mobis. You either have it or you don't.
- GordonS 5y ago
  I do this too. I don't want to have to resort to this, but I also don't want to risk Amazon taking away all of the books that I've paid for! All I want is to pay for DRM-free content.
- abustamam 5y ago
  Kinda funny how they're driving us right back to piracy. Digital content is not forever. If I can't purchase it and download it to my local hard drive, I'm not purchasing it. Reminds me of those old anti piracy PSAs: "you wouldn't download a car." (note: yes, yes I would if I could). But if the new car-buying process was "pay $20k for this Honda Civic, but just know that we are just allowing you to drive it, we can take it away from you at any time" you can be sure that either no one will ever buy cars again, or they'd just "steal" them. If compliance is too hard or too inconvenient or just plain stupid or malicious, then people won't comply. Easy as that.
  - ricardobayes 5y ago
    Makes me wonder what would happen with my Steam games if the publisher pulls it from the store, or what if Steam decides it won't support my system anymore (and I don't want to update).

ksec 5y ago

Well I wish that is true. But It isn't actually your property. You are only purchasing a perpetual right to use that item under the terms and condition. It is the sad state of things Silicon Valley decided ownership is no longer a thing and everything should be "service", so they gain the control of all asset management right. There is some part of me that increasingly hate Silicon Valley.

tomxor 5y ago
> You are only purchasing a perpetual right to use that item under the terms and condition To clarify for others: parent is not talking about subscriptions. When you "buy" content on these platforms, they are not actually yours to take away for ever like a physical book. The software you consume them on e.g a Kindle or iTunes, is actually capable of remotely deleting "your" content at any time, and they are supposedly within their legal right to do so. They have essentially hijacked the word "buy", it does not implicitly mean what it used to mean, you cannot really buy a copy of a piece of music or a book or a film from any of these large platforms today without removing the DRM and making a local copy (which is technically illegal).
- abustamam 5y ago
  My wife "purchased" a French movie on Amazon Prime Movies à few years ago (because it was pretty much the only way she could acquire it without piracy) Recently she tried to watch it and Amazon just had "you can't access this content." Maybe Amazon didn't renew the license with publisher, maybe not, but in any case, Amazon really proved to me that no, we do not own digital content. So, I pirated it for her. If doing things the "right/legal way" is going to screw us over because of fine print, then why bother?
  - boibombeiro 5y ago
    In some countries "piracy" of itens you own is a gray area, because in the past you could make copies of medias, such tapes, as backup.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago

theplumber 5y ago

But you don't buy property anymore. You are licensed to use it under various T&C. The age of property is gone. I wouldn't be surrised to see our fav OS(ios, macos, win etc) stop working once the cloud account is suspended. For your own safety you may not use a different account either. People traded their freedom rights for apparent convenience so I guess we get what we deserve.