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The deception of “buying” digital movies

• _thisdot 4y ago
  I remember a Twitter client for Android being pulled from the Play Store. Anyone who had already purchased it could still go to Play Store and download it again. But nobody new would find it. One would expect the same to happen for every digital "purchase"
• ezfe 4y ago
  The iTunes Store continues to be the only reputable place to buy movies, mainly because they allow downloads (except 4K...but I digress). In the past, redownloading movies wasn't even permitted. You download it and save it somewhere yourself. You can still do that to avoid any issues in the future, but I suspect the few incidents that have affected the iTunes Store are unlikely to re-occur. Why? For exactly the reason I mentioned at the beginning, originally you couldn't even re-download movies so it stands to reason the initial transition might've had some licensing loopholes.
  • causi 4y ago
    It's interesting that even storefronts run by the same company don't always have the same reliability. Microsoft fucked over thousands of gamers when they pulled the plug on Games for Windows Live, yet I can still download episodes of Invader Zim I purchased on the Xbox Live Store in 2006.
  • jSherz 4y ago
    Do the downloaded movies have DRM attached that requires a network connection or limits their usage?
    • kalleboo 4y ago
      They have DRM attached and need to be played on a computer that has logged in to your iTunes account and been "blessed". But unless something has changed, as long as you keep that computer offline it will be able to play those videos in eternity. You can un-bless all your other computers (as you can only have 5 computers blessed at once) but I guess if the other computers are offline they can keep playing old downloads.
      • IYasha 4y ago
        > But unless something change :)
        • PontifexMinimus 4y ago
          4 words that explain why, if I ever wanted to collect movies, they would all be DRM-free torrents. When the "legal" way to do it is self-evidently a scam perpetuated by corporations and governments working together against our interests, then they only honourable ways are either to watch illegal downloads or not watch movies at all.
          • dfxm12 4y ago
            Why eschew ripping physical media? You'll likely have a more uniform collection in terms of quality. Also depending where you are in the world, it's either legal or just as legal as torrenting media. In the latter case, it's not really enforced. It's also probably more honourable, if that's something you really care about.
            • PontifexMinimus 4y ago
              > Why eschew ripping physical media? None of my computers has a DVD drive! Though if I was interested in movies, probably one would. > You'll likely have a more uniform collection in terms of quality. Also 4K is useless to me as I have a 1080p monitor. > It's also probably more honourable, if that's something you really care about. Helping systems of control that are actively hostile towards me is not honourable, IMO.
            • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
              You need a real computer to rip BDs. A netbook or a Raspberry Pi aren't going to cut it because of the CPU requirements. Said Pi will have no trouble running a torrent client though.
        • BiteCode_dev 4y ago
          Found the spartan.
  • JohnTHaller 4y ago
    Can you play those downloaded movies outside of Apple hardware/software?
    • CharlesW 4y ago
      Yes. A bunch of non-Apple devices have an Apple TV app now¹, and you can also play movies to any device that supports AirPlay 2¹. ¹ https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-app/devices/ https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-app/devices/
      • JohnTHaller 4y ago
        That's still Apple hardware/software. If you can't play it outside of the locked down Apple ecosystem which is checking your license, then you don't own it.
        • scarface74 4y ago
          If your movie is from any of the five participating studios you buy the movie once and it works across all of the major video platforms if you use Movies Anywhere https://help.moviesanywhere.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004576826-Studios-currently-participating-in-Movies-Anywhere https://help.moviesanywhere.com/hc/en-us/articles/1150045768... Blu ray players are also locked down and the embedded keys are subject to revocation
          • rthomas6 4y ago
            If you buy blu-rays from those five participating studios, they also give you the same Movies Anywhere digital copy.
            • FalconSensei 4y ago
              US only though, so if you move you are out of luck.
          • password4321 4y ago
  • rthomas6 4y ago
    >The iTunes Store continues to be the only reputable place to buy movies Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and Goodwill work pretty well for me.
    • ezfe 4y ago
      I obviously meant for digital movies, even if I forgot that detail
      • intrasight 4y ago
        I think all movies are digital now ;)
  • paxys 4y ago
    Those downloaded movies still have DRM, and can only be played on official Apple devices or apps. Apple can revoke the license whenever they want. No better than what Amazon and others do.
  • WorldMaker 4y ago
    Vudu while it was owned by Wal-Mart was quite reputable for purchasing digital movies and TV for some similar reasons to following iTunes' lead and was at times "the blue collar iTunes Movie Store". Vudu's current owner, Fandango Media, I have a lot less trust in because they have burnt a few bridges with previous digital movies sites (including one of their same brand; they briefly ran a Fandango branded digital movies app that closed without much notice or refunds, to be rebooted as FandangoNOW months later, in part because they bet on UltraViolet and didn't want to just convert UltraViolet purchases to Movies Anywhere like Vudu and iTunes did during that same time). So far Vudu has still seemed to be doing well under the new ownership, but that distrust in the new owner still sews seeds of doubt. Speaking of Movies Anywhere, that is still an assurance that I trust when making purchase decisions. Even after UltraViolet died, possibly especially because UltraViolet died (and the way at least iTunes and Vudu handled that transition). Movies Anywhere seems to have won out because it is technologically simpler. Plus the Disney backing seems to work in its favor as Disney has some reason to make sure Movies Anywhere does right by families and doesn't tarnish their brand by association. I'm a little less particular which store I buy from if it supports Movies Anywhere. For movies that still aren't yet Movies Anywhere I'm much more cautious. (This was why I avoided Steam's brief foray into movies, for example. They worked with non-Movies Anywhere studios and it didn't feel all that shocking when the experiment failed and Steam stopped selling movies.)
• akomtu 4y ago
  The biggest deception was convincing the public that knowledge is a thing, so it can be bought, sold and change "owners". Convenient access to movies can be indeed sold, but not the movies themselves.
  • deadbeeves 4y ago
    Are knowledge and information the same thing?
    • akomtu 4y ago
      I think these are synonyms.
  • cassianoleal 4y ago
    Perhaps not the movie itself, but the media and its content are things that can be sold. VHS, DVD, BluRay. If you have the media and a compatible player, you can watch them. You can lend or sell them. That's not very different to a physical book. Even video-games are a bit like that. It's true that you may lose access to updates the game received after the physical launch but as long as you have the media (BluRays, cartridges, whatever) you can still play them on a compatible console, lend or sell them. With digital "purchases", you can only do what the platform allows you, for as long as they allow it, for as long as they exist.
  • vehemenz 4y ago
    What it could possibly mean to suggest knowledge is or isn't a thing?
    • swayvil 4y ago
      I think it means that knowledge and material things are quite different. For example, a material thing cannot be duplicated a million times in a second. Or transmitted a million miles in an eyeblink. And knowledge has no mass. We could probably draw a bunch of other distinctions too.
• jijji 4y ago
  whatever happened to downloading a mp4 torrent of the movie and watching it instantly whenever you want?
  • fbanon 4y ago
    Still alive and kicking. You just need to know where to look.
    • alex_suzuki 4y ago
      TPB has added really annoying “on-click” BS lately, super shady. Any alternatives you might have heard of? Not for me, for a friend of course…
      • CuriouslyC 4y ago
        Tell your friend about 1337x.to
      • bheadmaster 4y ago
        YIFY provides movies of decent quality at reasonable file sizes. For movies that YIFY doesn't have, 1337x is a good site.
      • deadbeeves 4y ago
        I just use NoScript.
      • weberer 4y ago
        QBitTorrent has a search feature built in.
      • fein 4y ago
        qbittorrent + jackett. Click on however many pub trackers you want to search in jackett then set the search plugin on qbit to point to your jackett instance.
    • dublin 4y ago
      Yeah, but that's a real problem for those of us who don't watch a lot of movies. Many people aren't capable of figuring out "where to look" at all anyway. I am, to some degree, but it's just not worth spending that much of my time to hunt them down on the rare occasions I really want to watch something. Also, I'll just note that we never got the 21st century we were promised, which was this - any movie ever made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQ The fundamental problem is that the people who own movie IP rights are truly evil.
• stewx 4y ago
  One under-appreciated limitation on digital movies is geographic restrictions. You buy a bunch of iTunes movies in Canada, then move to the USA, and you no longer have the right to watch them anymore due to licensing. Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. You can sell your DVDs at a yard sale or on eBay but not your iTunes movies. IMO, our competition law should require vendors to allow re-sale of digital goods. Big benefit for consumers.
  • antoinec 4y ago
    > Another significant issue with digital movies and games is the inability to resell the content once you're done with it. I get your point but I don't see how this could actually work. As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? It's not like it would come with a box that would look used/damaged, or a DVD with scratches on it.
    • oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
      As a buyer: to get it cheaper. As a seller: to obtain money for something you no longer value at its purchase price.
    • chucksmash 4y ago
      > As a buyer, why would I buy an iTunes movie from someone else and not from iTunes? Because it is the same thing, but cheaper. > And as a seller, why would I sell it at a lower price than what it is on iTunes? Because otherwise people won't buy it from you, they'll buy it from ITunes. Even if the lower price doesn't make sense for digital media that aren't degraded through use, lower price (that lets you recoup, say, 90% of what you paid) would be needed to make people go through hassle of not just buying it "new."
      • Avicebron 4y ago
        True, and if the market economy was working as it should. Then if enough people were selling old digital music at lower prices, Itunes would have to lower their prices. Essentially what their doing is anti-competitive.
• josh_fyi 4y ago
  Has anyone tried a legal challenge to the word "buy"? It seems like a straightforward case of misrepresentation.
  • ticviking 4y ago
    I expect that such a case would be enormously expensive, and bankrupt one or both sides in the process.
  • PikachuEXE 4y ago
    It's faster to build alternatives... There will always at least 2 (N) groups of people who agree/prefer Nth direction
  • netsharc 4y ago
    There's probably wording in the agreement (linked next to the checkbox we automatically tick before clicking the button) that says you're buying a license to watch the movie as long as the movie is available on the platform. There are other definitions of buy a movie, e.g. buy the IP so you're allowed to make sequels.
    • ticviking 4y ago
      The point of such a lawsuit would be to establish that a reasonable person thought they were “buying” it in the same way as a DVD, and the idea that it was time limited or could be unilaterally revoked was deceptively hidden.
    • janzaib 4y ago
  • dfxm12 4y ago
    I don't know if this is exactly the same thing, but this ruling from the EU, coming from reselling oracle licenses, comes to mind: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/201...
  • 4y ago
• fortran77 4y ago
  Would it kill these platforms to, at the very minimum, give you credits for another movie in the case where the movie you "bought" becomes unavailable? That being said, I've never chosen the "buy" option on a digital streaming movie.
  • tantalor 4y ago
    That's a reasonable solution because it doesn't create a liability on the provider to refund your purchase in whole. I wonder how it works on the backend. When you "buy" a digital movie, does the publisher get a royalty? Then for the credit the provider could just eat that extra cost since it likely to be very rare. It still kind of sucks that the publisher can reap the royalty payments for all the "sales" and then turn around and pull the license.
  • Mindwipe 4y ago
    > Would it kill these platforms to, at the very minimum, give you credits for another movie in the case where the movie you "bought" becomes unavailable? In practice this usually happens, but I'm not surprised nobody commits to it in writing. I know in the two instances of video services I can think of shutting down in the UK, Sainsburys gave customers Ultraviolet/Google Play codes and refunds, and the BBC Store gave Amazon credit rounding up to the nearest £10, so I actually got more than I'd spent back.
• deadbeeves 4y ago
  I don't use any paid streaming services, so forgive me if I'm saying something stupid, but doesn't this: >Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service mean that you can download a copy of the content you bought? As far as I'm concerned, that's about as close to "owning" as it gets, when it comes to digital media. If you buy, say, a pair of pliers from a hardware store, and then instead of taking them home you leave them at the store and come back to use them every time you have something that needs plying, and then eventually the store needs to make room for other products and so throws your pliers away, you have no one to blame but yourself for not taking them home for safekeeping when you had the chance. This analogy could break down if the content has DRM. I don't know if it does, or if it does when it stops working, but that's a different discussion from "Amazon deleted my movie".
  • ryukafalz 4y ago
    Music is typically DRM-free so in that case you have a point. Movie “downloads” are typically DRM’d and only downloadable within the confines of an app, and you don’t get to take the files with you if e.g. you switch devices.
  • josephcsible 4y ago
    For your analogy to be correct, it's not that you chose not to take the pliers home, but that the hardware store won't let you.
  • dghlsakjg 4y ago
    In this analogy, it is the case that the store won't let you take the pliers home, or only lets you take the pliers home under the supervision of an employee, and also that if you want to take the pliers with you on a road trip to Mexico, that isn't allowed, even if the hardware store has a branch in Mexico. Oh, and if the hardware store goes out of business you can never access the pliers again because it turns out they were leased from the plier manufacturer. Frequently when streaming content providers say "download" it is more accurately described as downloading a pre-cached version of the stream that only works on proprietary software which is reliant on a semi-regular internet connection. For example, you can "download" netflix/amazon/youtube content, but it can only be viewed on the app, and the app must be periodically reconnected to the internet.
• drstewart 4y ago
  How big of a problem even is this? Serious question: who buys digital movies? I don't really know anyone who even buys movies at all anymore, but if they do it's likely they prefer a physical copy anyway. There's just so much content out there that the number of people that even care to rewatch a movie they've seen feels like it's really low.
  • TecoAndJix 4y ago
    I bought "Bullet Train" over the weekend on Amazon for an at-home date night with my wife (rental was not available yet). It costs $20 which we justified as being the cost of 2 movie tickets. Doubt I will watch it again so really I was just paying for access
    • drstewart 4y ago
      Good point. Early release access definitely seems like an almost separate use case bundled with the "Buy" feature, but like you mention most people aren't doing this to buy the movie but to watch it earlier.
  • mttjj 4y ago
    I buy digital movies all the time. Not often at full price because there are sales and deals on iTunes weekly (daily). To me, "buying" a movie for $4.99 or even $8.99 (which is only a dollar or two more than the rental price) is worth it on the off-chance that I may want to watch it again in the future. My digital iTunes movie library is nearing 900 movies at this point. All backed up and downloaded locally so I reduce the risk of what this article is talking about happening to me.
    • abruzzi 4y ago
      damn, you're way ahead of me, almost double my number. I haven't looked into local backups. I'll have to see how that is done (and buy a bigger harddrive.) I didn't really realize that Apple made this possible since I only use an AppleTV to purchase and view movies.
• vivegi 4y ago
  The closest analogy I can think of is this: Property developer leases a beachfront land for 99 years and builds a resort. You book a vacation at the resort. You enjoy the facilities -- pool, spa, restaurants etc., during your stay. At the end of your stay, you lose the privileges of staying at the resort/using the facilities. Even if you bought a timeshare in the resort, you still do not own it. Heck, the property developer also doesn't own it (remember, they just hold the 99 yr lease)! Electronic-sell-through/Download-to-own is pretty much that esp. if the player is controlled by the platform. You may download the artefact (or the player software may do it for you), but playability is dependent on the platform still holding rights. This is implementation dependent and you have to look through the Terms of Service to really be sure. All streamers who license third-party content do it for a limited period (from a few months to several months or a year). I wouldn't be surprised if many of the platforms have licensed the "Download to own/Electronic-sell-through" titles only for a finite period. Those titles will go away / become unplayable at some point in the future (unless you downloaded them from a DRM-free platform). When the eventual consumer backlash occurs, the platforms will point to their ToS. And to add to this complexity, copyright rules are quite different across jurisdictions.
  • matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Real property like resorts all exist in the real world. There is no copying a resort. You can't just instantly copy a building. You can't just create more physical space on this planet. The limits of physics renders such property inherently scarce. Data is different, it is infinite. You can copy it infinitely at nearly zero cost. You can transmit it to anyone anywhere in the world at nearly zero cost. Any attempt to own bits fails because of the inherently infinite nature of data. Any notion of property is imaginary, an illusion. Intellectual property degenerates into number ownership, it's that ridiculous. If you follow this logic to its conclusion: > the player is controlled by the platform Then intellectual property will lead to the end of free computing as we know it today. We cannot have computers that do what we want while simultaneously preventing us from copying data some rightsholder "owns". The copyright industry will lobby the government until free computing is illegal and all computers come pwned from the factory so that we can only execute "legal" code. This also goes hand in hand with government desire to control cryptography, paving the way for total surveillance and oppression.
• boros2me 4y ago
  One idea I keep thinking about (which I'm sure interferes with some sort of copyright law) is: 1. User buys a physical copy of a movie/music 2. Instead of sending the disc to their house, it's sent to a storage facility 3. In the storage facility a digital backup is made and uploaded to a cloud storage 4. User is given access to the backup which they can watch/listen to 5. User would be the owner of said physical copy and when they sell it, all digital backups would be erased. What's the legality that stops this from working?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • kgwgk 4y ago
    https://www.wired.com/2011/10/streaming-movie-service-zediva-pays-hollywood-1-8m-shuts-down https://www.wired.com/2011/10/streaming-movie-service-zediva...
    • boros2me 4y ago
      2011 wow... Thanks for sharing!
    • pontifier 4y ago
      A key problem with zediva was that they were only offering rentals, not ownership. Ownership of a particular copy gives you rights that you don't have when renting.
  • Mindwipe 4y ago
    > 3. In the storage facility a digital backup is made and uploaded to a cloud storage Generally speaking neither of these parts are legal in most territories without rightsholder permission.
  • maerF0x0 4y ago
    One thing to note is this would be very expensive from a bandwidth perspective, of course depending on streaming quality. A 2 hour 4k video is about 40GB of data transfer, I'm presuming if someone buys something over rent they're going to watch it at least 3x... A quick google suggests 120GB can cost $6 to move. happy to hear if my math is off and learn more about the pricing structures
• JadoJodo 4y ago
  The way it seems to work from what I understand: Movie Studio offers (what is effectively) a lease of Digital Media to Digital Retailer. Digital Retailer is then allowed to sublease copies of Digital Media to End Consumer. When Digital Retailer's lease ends, so does End Consumer's sublease. How it seems like it OUGHT to work: Movie Studio offers resale rights of Digital Media to Digital Retailer. Digital Retailer then sells copies of Digital Media to End Consumer. When Digital Retailer's right to resell ends, End Consumer is allowed to procure/store their copy of Digital Media.
• Hnrobert42 4y ago
  Is this a surprise to anyone? I’m not being cynical. I thought this was well known. Is it not?
• IYasha 4y ago
  This is the "you will own nothing" part I was telling people about for years. They still love their Steamy pile of games. > than buying the movie it's "then". probably. :)
• rthomas6 4y ago
  I have started a modest Blu-Ray/4k Blu-Ray collection. For me, it is by far the best movie experience I've had with any format. It takes maybe 90 vs 20 seconds to get the movie playing, but in return I get noticeably better quality. 4k Blu-Rays' bitrates are around 128 Mb/s. For comparison, Netflix tops out around 17 Mb/s. It really does look and sound noticeably better if you have the TV and surround setup to take advantage of it. Sometimes WAY better. Also, for most physical movies, they had a "+ digital" code included that lets you redeem a digital copy of the movie too. So I can stream most of them on my laptop anyway if I'm away from home or something. Physical media for movies is super underrated, at least for the situation in my country. It's often cheaper than "buying" the digital version! I can even go to my local used bookstore/Goodwill and find tons of Blu-Rays for cut rate prices. And then I own it forever, and it's 100% legal.
  • lowbloodsugar 4y ago
    The biggest difference for me is the sound quality. Lossless 7.1 24/96 or even 24/192. Compared to, at best, DTS or DD+.
    • brokenmachine 4y ago
      Definitely, although most people don't even have a crappy soundbar, let alone a quality 7.1 discrete speaker setup.
    • rthomas6 4y ago
      I currently have a 5.1 setup, and I want your opinion. Do you think 7.1 or 5.1.2 with on-ceiling speakers would be better? I'm leaning toward 5.1.2.
      • lowbloodsugar 4y ago
        Really depends on the room, your personal taste, and the source material. Do you have room in the room for the side speakers? Do you watch a lot of movies with planes or other things flying over your head? I don't have gear that can decode Atmos, unfortunately, so I haven't tried ceiling speakers myself - only at movie theaters. Why not 7.1.2? =)
• wazoox 4y ago
  As Klaus Schaub said "you will own nothing and you will be happy"...
  • IYasha 4y ago
    Yeah, this is the first part, and I doubt the second part will be a natural reaction.
• indymike 4y ago
  There needs to be a very large lawsuit or two about this. Claiming you can buy something, and then renting it, even if the rental is 20 years is fraud.
  • senko 4y ago
    Yes. Good luck winning this with Amazon, Apple and Disney on the other side.
  • vel0city 4y ago
    I buy a concert ticket. Does this mean I can go see that artist everywhere they perform forever now? No. I bought a revokable, limited access right to see a particular performance. Should we not use the term "buy" here as well?
    • D13Fd 4y ago
      Agreed. Even when you "buy" a DVD or Blu-Ray, you are actually just buying a copy of the media with a limited license to use it for certain purposes. It's still copyright infringement if, for example, you buy a Blu-Ray disc and then open a movie theatre and start playing that disc publicly. The license you bought with the disc doesn't extend that far. Whether you "buy" a movie via a disc or a streaming service, you're really just buying a limited license to display the movie along with either physical or digital delivery.
    • danparsonson 4y ago
      That's a false equivalence though - it's well understood in this case that you bought the ticket not the performance, and that the ticket expires after one use. The same is not true of buying films, as it used to be possible to keep a physical copy (e.g. DVD) that no-one could take away from you, and that was recent enough that I think most people still (reasonably IMO) expect a perpetual license when 'buying' a movie. We had a word in the olden days for buying a limited license to watch a film - we called it "renting".
      • vel0city 4y ago
• remote_phone 4y ago
  I have bought around 100 movies on iTunes. I get the argument that I don’t “own” the movies but it’s too convenient. And the best thing about iTunes is that it upgrades the movies when new features come along. I didn’t have to pay extra for 4K or Dolby Atmos when the movie itself got upgraded. That itself is enough for me.
• xg15 4y ago
  > If you buy a DVD or a Blue-Ray at a retail store, you are able to play that disk for as long as that disk physically works (often over 20 years). There are very few if any countries that would allow a shop to send around bailiffs to seize DVDs already bought years past, because the distributor no-longer has the rights to distribute the content. If a retailer dared attempt such seizure of people’s Property, there would mass outrage. The media would shout about the retailer being thief’s, questions would be raised in parliament and the business would most likely face legal problems. On the other hand, if the distributor simply added the Blu-ray you bought to the blacklist of your DRM compliant Blu-ray player, I'm not so sure there would be the same level of outrage, even though the end result were the same. My suspicion is the level of public outrage is less about some deeply ingrained sense of natural rights and more about what kind of actions feel familiar and which feel unfamiliar. Which is a problem, really.
  • charles_f 4y ago
    > if the distributor simply added the Blu-ray you bought to the blacklist of your DRM compliant Blu-ray player, I'm not so sure there would be the same level of outrage I don't see what leads you to that conclusion. I've also never heard about that happening, and I don't suspect this would happen unless something actually illegal was happening (illegal copies and such). The justification for actually blocking you from watching that movie for which you own a digital copy would be pretty hard to find. And the work around is relatively easy - dont connect your blueray player to the internet. With streaming services, you're at the mercy of the service provider to just lose a contract with a studio and stop providing their content. > less about some deeply ingrained sense of natural rights At this stage fairness is proven to be deeply ingrained, even in animals. There is something deeply unfair with losing access to something you were supposed to own, just because they can, and some corporate bean counter decided to not renew some licensing contract on their catalog because the competition offered a percent more. > more about what kind of actions feel familiar and which feel unfamiliar 9/11 was a one-off, I didn't get familiar with this type of terrorist event. On the other hand, school shootings happen so often that I'm not surprised by them. Both still trigger outrage.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Zigurd 4y ago
  This is what not really owning content implies about that computer you think you own: If a content publisher can reach into your computer and turn off access to content, you not only do not own and control the content, you do not properly own and control that computer. If you did you could assert that removing access to data on that computer constitutes unauthorized access. It's a security breach.
• hatware 4y ago
  Last year, I bought a blu-ray player and two blu-rays to see if buying the media was worth it. At the very least, I'd have alternatives in case power goes out for an extended time. One of the blu-rays I bought was It's a Wonderful Life. At the penultimate scene, with the bell ringing on the tree when George is back home with his family, the blu-ray just stopped, glitched out, and I could not get it to play properly. Something to do with firmware and others were experiencing similar issues. I tried! It's incredible that even when you follow all the rules, you still get the shaft. Never again.
• poiuyytrewq 4y ago
  it was the same sh*t when the first kindles with digitals books came out ... you don't "own" the book... same goes with full-online games... you don't own the game, you just have the right to play on servers... when the server shuts down, you have nothing left buying physical stuff may be the "old" way, but it's reliable stuff
• thinkingkong 4y ago
  Buy pricing also acts as an anchor vs the other options. This happens a lot in pricing; something seems excessively costly just to make the option next to it seem reasonable. Ski resorts do this all the time. The daily lift rate at Whistler in Canada is around 200CAD but a seasons ticket is 1700. It makes the seasons pass seem, almost reasonable.
• daveslash 4y ago
  Reminds me of the "The Books Will Stop Working" incident from a few years back. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331
• titzer 4y ago
  I am hoarding DVDs and it's because a.) it's cheap, b.) it's reliable c.) it's future-proof and d.) I don't trust tomorrow's political/cultural landscape to not disappear things down the memory hole as well as subtly editing out offensive material or otherwise altering things in hard to detect ways. Case in point, not long ago a family member witnessed "Scrubs" being scrubbed of a particularly offensive joke that ran afoul of today's censors. With streaming, you have absolutely no control over what version of a movie you're seeing. What are you going to do? Store the bits and compare it to your neighbors'? That right there is a crime.
  • throwaway2203 4y ago
    DVDs have a limited lifespan as well
    • titzer 4y ago
      My oldest one is 25 years old and still works with no issues. Technically every physical object breaks down over time, but I expect that with proper storage and handling with care, a pressed DVD could last 50 years. And then you can also rip the bits and store them.
      • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
        I have a disc from 2004 that had been in its original shrink wrap until this year but it had read errors when I tried to rip it and was showing signs of rot. Some discs are from bad batches, and you don't really have any way of knowing if a disc is bad until it starts rotting.
    • selfhoster11 4y ago
      Luckily, the data on them does not. Storing a 5GB file locally is basically free, at $15 ish per terabyte for modern HDDs.
      • moffkalast 4y ago
        With MKV transcoding you can get them down to around 300MB, DVD quality is pretty shit.
• SubiculumCode 4y ago
  perhaps they can be sued for the use of the word buy?
• misterbishop 4y ago
  I hate this as much as anyone, but it's wild that nerds make their stand on the sacred right TO WATCH A MOVIE. We face incredible political oppression and extreme economic exploitation in the context of global capitalism melting down. There are more important things than whether your $10 Hercules purchase still works in 20 years. By all means be angry about this, but try to connect it with things that have actual stakes in people's lives. This isn't even in the top 20 worst things Amazon does.
  • maerF0x0 4y ago
    > There are more important things than whether your $10 Hercules purchase still works in 20 years. How you handle the small things is how you handle everything. I'm glad to see something breaking their trance. Let's hope they keep going!
    • misterbishop 4y ago
      nonsense. the political activity required to solve the big problems would sweep these little bullshit issues off the table.
      • maerF0x0 4y ago
        I think the point was lost. My point if the requisite care isn't there to deal with small issues, then you're not gonna have the care to deal with things that demand so much more (big things). maybe an analogy like if you cant be bothered to pick up one sock, odds are you wont pickup all your laundry?
• andyjohnson0 4y ago
  "Buy" is just "Rent" without a specific end-date. Is this not commonly understood?
  • danpalmer 4y ago
    Not among most people who aren't interested in these things. I think it's very reasonable for consumers to expect that "buy" means to keep in the way that it means for most other things. People should not have to be experts in how content licencing and distribution works to not get screwed over.
  • dalf 4y ago
    said differently "Buy ... the right to make it available at will at the place of purchase as long as the content provider licensing does not change, and as long your internet connection allows it"
• emaro 4y ago
  If they call it buying, but think renting, then I might as well call it borrowing, but think pirating.
• toastercat 4y ago
  If I can't buy a movie or album DRM-free, I won't buy them at all. This is an area where piracy ironically offers a better experience than the legitimate route.
• andy_ppp 4y ago
  I often wonder how much money the movie industry would make if they just charged $2 for HD movies and $3 for a 4k download, no DRM because it's pointless and clearly looking at pirate bay doesn't work. I think most people would just pay and probably quite a lot. I'd probably be spending $30 per month there and it would feel great to be doing things honestly but getting a file I could keep forever. The people intent on pirating would still pirate and the people who wanted to pay a reasonable cost would get as good if not better experience than the pirates. $10+ to "own" a movie on a streaming service with DRM and lock in is far too much.
• SergeAx 4y ago
  I firmly beleive that for every movie I "bought" digitally of physaically I am entitled to download a torrent.
  • josephcsible 4y ago
    Morally, you are, but unfortunately, what's moral isn't always legal.
  • paxys 4y ago
    And a lot of people firmly believe that they are entitled to download a torrent without a purchase. Ultimately your beliefs don't matter, the law does.
    • lmm 4y ago
      The legal system is the servant of the people. Thankfully common sense still holds a place in it, especially on juries.
• js2 4y ago
  So here's what I do when I buy a movie, either on Blu-ray or via iTunes. I download the remux from Usenet. If there isn't one (rarely), I wait for the Blu-ray to arrive and I rip it myself. There's a U.K. release of Wages of Fear that you cannot get in the U.S. any other way than purchasing the Blu-ray from BFI. (The U.S. Criterion Blu-ray release is missing 5 minutes of footage.) Even for movies I rent or stream, I often download the remux to watch it, then delete it after watching. It's the only way to avoid bullshit like streaming apps (all of them except Criterion, no matter your settings), not letting me watch to the end of the credits in peace. Or subtitles which are shown below the frame for movies which are wider than 1.78:1. Or, let's say you want to watch RRR in its original language with English subtitles. Netflix only has the rights to the Hindi dub. I want my money to go to the filmmakers and actors and production crew, but these fucking studios and streaming companies, man. Please, let me pay you to watch the movie in high quality and in peace. Why is it easier for me to pirate content? Like, it takes me 30 seconds to go to https://radarr.home.mydomain.org/ https://radarr.home.mydomain.org/, type in the name of the movie I want to watch, click search, click download, wait 5-10 minutes, and now it's there for me to watch. Contrast that with going to Just Watch, maybe the movie is on a service I pay for, maybe it isn't. Maybe it's on Blu-ray, maybe only on DVD. Want to watch Happiness (1998)? Too bad, not available anywhere except maybe you can find a used DVD on Amazon for $50. How about The Heartbreak Kid (1972)? (Oh, hey, how do you like that, someone put up a copy of it on YouTube last year.) But time and again, movies just aren't available. I really don't understand why they get locked away. What's the incremental cost of taking a movie which has already been digitized for DVD or Blu-ray and making it available on a streaming service or for digital rental or purchase? Come on Hollywood. Get your shit together.
  • brokenmachine 4y ago
    Hollywood has got their shit together. They have optimized for user hostility and money. They've created a system where consumers have bought their products many times over yet still don't own them. As an aside, games and software is 100x worse. Often times there is just no way to get old software or games running at all. Why, when emulation of old computers is mostly a solved problem?
• thom_ 4y ago
  If you pay a twice the rental cost and watch the movie a dozen times, that’s your moneys worth. Nobody wants to hold onto a DVD for 20 years to rewatch an old movie again and again and again and pass it onto their grandkids. This is just ridiculous, streaming movies is absolutely the future. The days of 50tb drive arrays with every Hollywood movie are over not because of a new world order but because the time trade off and all that effort just isn't worth the $4 to sit and enjoy the movie in one of your finite days on Earth
• D13Fd 4y ago
  I've always understood this and it doesn't bother me, at least for iTunes/Apple movies. Yes, you get less than a DVD/Blu-Ray in that the media could potentially disappear. But you also get more. It works on your computer, your phone, your iPad, and instantly on every TV in your house that has a streaming device. It works when you travel. You can download every movie you "own" to every device you have, almost instantly, as many times as you want. You don't have to worry about storing, losing, or damaging the disc. You can start a movie on your laptop, pause, and automatically pick right up where you left off on your phone or iPad or TV. You don't have to go to a store, or order a disc online and wait. You don't have to pay for shipping. With Apple, and least, you don't even have to buy new media when new technologies appear - every video I've ever purchased has been upgraded to HD, and then to 4K and HDR when they became available, all for free. And with Apple at least, "Family Sharing" lets all of your family members stream or download the movie to their devices as well. Yes, it's possible that Apple or Amazon could take away movies that you own. But the public outcry would be massive. And I've been "owning" videos from Apple for 10+ years without issue, so I feel pretty comfortable with it at this point.
  • haunter 4y ago
    >Yes, it's possible that Apple or Amazon could take away movies that you own. But the public outcry would be massive It's already happening and nope there isn't a massive outcry https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33010912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33010912
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • alexfromapex 4y ago
    The public outcry being massive isn't going to stop companies from trying to exploit people. Companies that seemed consistent in the past have changed many times. Apple is actually a great example in that they were a privacy-focused company but have more recently forayed into scanning devices against customers' will and have now created their own ad business. That decision was made under the assumption that they own the devices they sell to customers for thousands of dollars not their customers. If the economy gets worse, you can bet they will look for additional ways to make money off their customers. Once you buy a decent amount of movies they will have lots of leverage over you. Look at Tim Cook's response to fixing the texting issue. They don't care about public outcry.
• mark_l_watson 4y ago
  I am not complaining too much, but I was disappointed when the movies I bought on Google Play stopped being available there, and now are in a special area on YouTube. I still have access to them, but have to go to a different place. Anyway, the article makes good points.
• itslennysfault 4y ago
  This hit me long long ago when the kindle first came out. At the time (haven't looked since), eBooks were the same price as paper back books, but with a paper back book you OWN it. You can GIVE it to a friend. You can SELL it. Heck, if it gets really cold you can even burn it. With an eBook you can read it, and thats about it.
  • FalconSensei 4y ago
    It's usually cheaper, and they often have sales were you get it for 10%~20% of the paperback price. Also, for fiction, it's an advantage too because many times there's only a hardback + ebook release. Since hardbacks are the more expensive and less convenient/easy version to read - heavier, get's damaged more easily - you can just get the ebook for maybe half the price of paperback
    • The-Bus 4y ago
      I understand the point you are trying to make but a hardcover book is definitely can take more damage than an ereader.
  • moffkalast 4y ago
    > With an eBook you can read it, rip it into an epub and give it to ALL your friends and everyone on the internet. FTFY Or more accurately, someone's already done it and you get to be one of those friends.
• senko 4y ago
  Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, broken, dismembered, and sown back together in a Frankensteinian abomination and now serves only to line up pockets of people in the publishing industry. And the US has, through its trade deals, exported this thing worldwide. Disney lobbies for life of author + 70 years copyright duration not out of goodwill towards authors (in fact, it's been trying to wriggle out of paying royalties to some of them!). Amazon uses copyright as an excuse to push DRM, locking out competition and limiting users' rights (Kindle, Audible DRM). DMCA is constantly abused to take down fair-use content. Meanwhile, book authors are struggling to find a reason to write books, since many barely recoup the costs. Musicians decry royalties paid out by Spotify (that aren't actually so small, but the majority of the cut is taken by the music industry). Photographers try in vain to stop people just copy/pasting their photos online (what are they going to do, sue everyone?), including in some cases big companies that didn't even bother to check the copyright. They aren't being protected. They are being milked.
  • Xeoncross 4y ago
    Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen? As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.
    • Retric 4y ago
      US automotive lemon law for example doesn’t specifically benefit the wealthy or large corporations. What muddles the picture is people do benefit from economies of scale. So, if you make the law actually hostile for large companies both the general public and corporations are worse off.
      • Adraghast 4y ago
• UltraViolence 4y ago
  There's always BitTorrent.
• imchillyb 4y ago
  Only the original copyright filer should be able to protect their work. The moment the rights are sold or transferred to another party, the rights should be dissolved and no protections afforded; whatsoever.
• intrasight 4y ago
  It's not a "deception" if you understand that you don't really "own" digital content. I will "buy" it if I think I'll watch it again - soon. But there are so many good movies and TV shows that I rarely re-watch anything.
  • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    > It's not a "deception" if you understand that you don't really "own" digital content. No, it's the wrong word regardless, and in any event I seriously doubt that the average consumer actually understands that they're being lied to.
    • intrasight 4y ago
      I agree that it's the wrong word. But "Buy" fits in a small button, whereas "Rent for a longer time" doesn't. Perhaps "Rent+" with that as a tooltip?
• redleggedfrog 4y ago
  Arr, matey! There's a solution to this problem.
• majortennis 4y ago
  I purchased a track on beatport and later wiped my usb and realised I lost it I returned to beatport to find out it was a one time only download of that track. Very dissapointing when you try to do things the "right" way and are punished.
• obblekk 4y ago
  We should require companies to use the word "license" rather than "buy," unless you receive a universe-wide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferrable at will, independently verifiable license (i.e., what it means to actually own a digital product). I suspect that would quickly create a much more robust market in services offering upgraded worldwide licenses, and so on, and the market would clear at some price for those upgrades.
• atoav 4y ago
  If your button says "buy" and you do indeed "rent", you will loose my respect immediately and Inwill go out of my way to avoid buying anything from you.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  There's been a lot of discussion about this, recently. I think that some form of persistent medium might be useful, but the comparisons between, say, CDs, and digital music files, isn't really a "fair" one. One of the biggest things about any physical media; whether it be vinyl record, CD, or even an SD card, is that the media has a finite lifetime. It may be a long lifetime, but the clock is ticking. When we buy a CD, we aren't buying the music. We're buying the physical media on which the music has been placed. Tick-tick-tick... Eventually, the CD will die. At that point, we can't expect the music store to give us another CD for free. We have to buy it again. I grew up in the age of vinyl. I brought the same album over, frequently, because the records wore out. I never even thought about it. I could record the album on tape, and have a somewhat longer-lasting copy of the music, but that, too, would eventually die. I would often record the album, as soon as I got it, then play the tape, thereafter. It prolonged the life of the album. If we buy digital art (music, photographs, movies, TV shows, etc.), we can do so in physical media (a locked DVD, for instance), or as direct digital, "virtual" media (streaming, downloading, etc.). The first (DVD) can be copied, like I used to copy records, but the second (downloading, as opposed to streaming), could, in theory, save a full-quality copy of the art, in perpetuity. If you got it in a thumb drive, or SD card, then the media would have a finite lifetime, but the difference between that media, and, say, a CD, is that the copy would be direct digital-to-digital (I think most CD copies, these days, are also "pure digital"). That A/D conversion introduces some "lossiness," that makes the copy ever so slightly (or, in the case of cassette tapes, a lot more than "slightly") lesser in quality than the original. It's not quite as black-and-white as people on either side like to make it. For the record, I am not a fan of the ability to "take away" art that may be on physical media in the possession of a customer (as opposed to blocking access to art on some kind of external media, under the control of the publisher). Things like Kindles and iPads are a sort of "grey area," where the device is the media, as opposed to a player for media that is introduced, externally. I have no solution, but I'm not a fan of the extremist, over-simplified rhetoric that either side uses.
• youdontsayitno 4y ago
  digital artifacts do not play well with capitalism as it is. something has to be done. I refuse to watch what could have been vanish...(e.g. napster, megaupload, what.cd and those kinds of complete medial-cultural archives). Heck, we're going the opposite direction, libraries are starting to get mud slung. There are too many incentives to shift that public perception, into libraries being bad; just a couple more generations. sure, people whose job is to make this expensive productions involving lots of people need to earn a living somehow... it's an open problem but we need to look beyond capitalism to find an answer acceptable to all people, both those who come up with the ideas (who when coming up with them are greatly benefited by open access to all culture) and those living off the rent of the produced cultural artifact.
• etothepii 4y ago
  An unusual form of pluralising thief. I know it is acceptable to use the grocers' apostrophe with foreign words but with thief the forms thiefs and thieves are both arguably correct (see pre Tolkien elfs) but auto-correct does not agree.
• least 4y ago
  When I had a 28.8k and eventually 56k modem and had to download individual songs off of Napster and then Kazaa, of course it made sense to have a local download because that was the only viable option. I could download music while using AIM or IRC, but that would eat heavily into the limited bandwidth that I had. I eventually convinced my parents to upgrade to a 1.5Mbps cable connection when I was a senior in high school. That was when Oink's Pink Palace was a thing. I downloaded tons and tons of music and basically filled up the what was at the time absolutely massive 500gb hard drive with music. If something had a lot of people leeching I'd download it just to get my seed:leech ratio up. If I liked a single song from an artist I'd go and download their entire discography. Unfortunately that all came crashing down when that hard drive failed and I had no backup (maybe smarter/richer kids had backup drives, but I did not). I realized then that the whole thing was silly. I hadn't listened to half the music I downloaded. It was more an addiction to collecting music rather than listening to it. Eventually Spotify came around and that basically killed my desire to hoard music. I currently use Apple Music for the majority of my music listening needs. If there is something that I cannot find on there I might still download it. I've even added some songs with Apple's service to host your files on the cloud so I can listen to it on all my devices. I feel much freer to explore music rather than spend my time figuring out how to download and store it which is wonderful. I know that movies are not the same as music and the services are frankly much worse. It doesn't take nearly as much bandwidth to stream high quality music than it does to stream movies, especially with all the various technologies like Dolby and what not. Still, I do think that it is unnecessary to maintain massive collections of them in formats that are degrading sitting on your shelf or as digital versions taking up a ton of space and care to ensure data integrity. I know there are people that download movies and shows onto their home servers just to have them or just in case someone who has access to their plex wants to watch it. DVDs, CDs and Blu-Rays have a limited shelf life. If you take care of them they may last long enough for you to pass them on to your children, but you're just placing a burden of leaving behind a ton of things that aren't really important to you or them. Having recently gone through trying to clear my grandparents' house full of junk, I would not want to place that burden on my future children. If they are really meaningful to you then by all means, keep them. But I don't think most of them are. Maintain a small collection of the genuinely important ones. Make sure to get copies that aren't beholden to the whims of licensors/distributors... but maybe don't stress too much about the rest.
• anjbe 4y ago
  The article mentions GOG’s movie selection (which is indeed extremely limited: https://www.gog.com/en/movies https://www.gog.com/en/movies). It’s worth pointing out that Vimeo also provides some DRM‐free digital downloads through its “On Demand” imprint (https://vimeo.com/ondemand/oxyana https://vimeo.com/ondemand/oxyana). Like GOG, though, it mostly contains works of a particular niche (in this case, documentaries and short films). I’ve been hard‐pressed to find any other way to purchase DRM‐free movies.
  • RunSet 4y ago
    > Vimeo also provides some DRM‐free digital downloads Awesome. Digital downloads are my favorite kind of download.
• talkingtab 4y ago
  All over the world people take a stand against tyranny. This is just internet tyranny. The button on Amazon says "buy" but the fine print says "borrow". A class action legal solution with a lawyer would mean that even if we won, each user would be award one free movie while the legal team got millions. At the very least every single person in the US who ever clicked "buy" can take Amazon to small claims court. Maybe you lose, but Amazon will get the message. In New Hampshire a small business took Instagram to small claims court for terminating their account without reason. Instagram sent lawyers, but the case was appealed to the NH Supreme Court for review. (They sent it back!) Imagine if every person who had an account terminated for no reason or lost access to a movie they "bought" then took the case to small claims court. The problem is that Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook can buy laws. I'm not saying these are the only ones, just big internet ones. And the courts enforce these laws. Sounds anti-democratic to me.
• Wazako 4y ago
  The problem with all these stores like Steam, Playstore, Apple store, Nintendo Store, ... where you buy a license and not a file.
• ordiel 4y ago
  Worth to mention, at least in google services you are allowed to (at least up to last time I checked) download such file and from there o werds is yours as in the traditional sense, you are allowed to write it to a DVD or back it up on whichever way you prefer, and as loong as you preserve proof of purchase you are more than fine
• ge96 4y ago
  What's annoying is you buy a UHD movie and you can't stream UHD unless it's on a specific device eg. Phone or TV. Otherwise capped to 480p in case of YT.
  • brokenmachine 4y ago
    Are you serious? 480p for a UHD movie? That's a bad joke.
• TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
  There's another layer to this that I haven't seen in any of the comments thus far, and that is the fact that the movie studios are putting the GOOD movies behind the "second paywall." Many popular titles are not available for streaming, and require a "purchase" or "rental," outside of the titles you're getting with your particular services. I have Netflix, Hulu, Prime, HBO, and Disney, and it seems like, about half the time I get a hankering to watch something in particular (instead of just "grazing"), I see that it's not available on any of my services, and it's a rent/buy title. So, yes, I have bought some movies (less than a dozen), and I always buy them from Apple, if I'm having to buy. I've been tempted several times to "buy" the complete set of the Office on Apple TV for $99, but I fear exactly what the OP is talking about: a rug-pull that causes me to lose access to the library.
• shmerl 4y ago
  DRM-free video should be a thing. Buy and save the file - that's it. If you don't have the file you can back up, it's a scam and not buying. GOG tried to introduce that, but legacy film industry is too obsessed with DRM for all its usual wrong reasons so that didn't work out. https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree_movies/post499 https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree...
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  I work in R&D where tens to hundreds of millions are spent on talent/materials/engineering to design new high tech materials for the world. It’s strange that this much effort practically gets about 10-15 years of protection(or less depending on prosecution time with the patent office), while a drawing of a mouse or “moving-pictures” is protected for a century.
  • The-Bus 4y ago
    Not using cost measured in dollars to equate the benefit of different things, but most studio films are at minimum tens of millions of dollars, with nine figures not being uncommon.
    • mensetmanusman 4y ago
      Of course, I’m just noting it’s interesting that a similar endeavor measured in dollars is protected for about the half the life of the inventors in R&D, and almost 10x that in the latter case.
• efitz 4y ago
  The anecdote in TFA is wrong, about "coming to your house and seizing your DVDs". They won't come to your house; they will revoke the decryption keys and push the revocation to your Blu-Ray player, which will then fail to decrypt your BDs. They don't need to come to visit; they thought of that already. And it's not just movies, it's also books and music. Many people "bought" MP3s or "buy" Kindle eBooks. Amazon has already shown that it is willing to delete Kindle content remotely [1]. And come on, this is Amazon. They are happy to censor on their own [2] and in collaboration with other companies [3]. Copyright is not just a "scam" anymore. It's a tool that is being used to shape what information is available to us. It's an enforcement mechanism for the "Overton Window". [1] 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... [2] https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-harry-became-sally https://www.foxnews.com/media/amazon-harry-became-sally [3] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8523526/amazon-stop-selling-tommy-robinson-book-islam-day-youtube-broadcast/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8523526/amazon-stop-selling-to...
• jayeshsalvi 4y ago
  Is there a legal definition to "buying" in consumer law? Can't Amazon be sued for this?
• cobertos 4y ago
  Bandcamp is surprisingly the same way. I knew an artist who deleted all their stuff and I can't stream any of the albums I bought by them anymore.
  • dewert 4y ago
    Difference being that you could have downloaded lossless DRM-free copies of these albums. I see the streaming-your-purchases part as more of a convenience than a core service, though I can definitely understand if others see it differently.
• imglorp 4y ago
  The button should say "multi-watch" instead of "buy". The would say: "until our contract with the rights owner expires, you can watch as many times as you want. The content can go away anytime after today." At least that would be honest.
• lmm 4y ago
  For a very concrete example of this kind of issue, r18.com is shutting down without offering refunds or anything; videos people "bought" can be streamed (or "downloaded", but with DRM that will make them unwatchable when the service goes down) until 6 months after the announcement, then you're SOL.
• jeffwilcox 4y ago
  Sigh. I have "bought" so many of my favorite movies so many times over the years. (Just piling on at this point, sorry).
• reiichiroh 4y ago
  Canada had a couple of failed movie “locker” services due in the last decade.
• bas3pi 4y ago
  This is why I keep buying Blurays (and then rip them for easy consumption). The sucky thing is that most TV shows don't get released on Bluray anymore.
• musicale 4y ago
  I made the mistake of not immediately downloading and backing up a book I "purchased" from Apple's Book Store. When I went to download it some months later I found it had been removed from the store and could no longer be downloaded. No refund was offered. I had expected it to work like Apple's App Store, where as far as I can tell you can generally still download apps you've purchased (although older apps often do not work with newer devices and/or iOS versions.) Since then I've moved to PDFs or Kindle. If Amazon pulls the same trick I may have to rethink my strategy.