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iTunes Snafu Made 'Thor: Ragnarok' Available Almost a Month Early (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the oops dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: When you check out the 'Thor: Ragnarok' page on iTunes, it says pre-orders of digital copies are expected to arrive on February 20th. But as TorrentFreak reports, some people got their hands on the Marvel film about a month early due to some sort of snafu with iTunes and Movies Anywhere. According to TorrentFreak, a Reddit user said in a now-deleted post that their legal purchase of the film on Vudu landed them an iTunes copy of it the next day. "I pre-ordered Thor Ragnarok on Vudu yesterday and it links it to my iTunes also. But curiously it showed up in my iTunes library this morning (pre-orders shouldn't). And now I can watch the full movie in HD," they wrote. "I obviously downloaded it right away. I know its supposed to come out February 20th." Others then responded that going that same purchase route made the movie available to them in iTunes as well.

24 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Typical by dos1 · · Score: 1

    iTunes is somewhat known for releasing stuff early due to mishap. Their management panel must have some poor UX, as it happens quite often with episodes of less known series.

    1. Re:Typical by tgetzoya · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's designed as planned. We're just using it wrong.

    2. Re:Typical by mccalli · · Score: 2
      What annoys me is the way they handle extras. For example, I'm currently on an iTunes Pass for The Librarians season 4. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, that means I get a new episode after it has been broadcast, so one a week.

      I've just watched episode 5. According to iTunes though, it was episode 11. That because it gives all the extras and vlog stuff its own episode number, and puts them mid-series too. Means episode 1 shows up as episode 1 the actually programme, then episode 2 is the directors stuff for episode 1. When the real episode 2 turns up, it now gets called episode 3 and the director commentary for it becomes episode 4. And so on, and so on.

      Sane might be having episode 1, then directors commentary for that on episode 101, then episode 2 and director stuff on episode 102. Best would be some non episode number way of grouping them - e.g. Episode 1 then 1.1, 1.2 etc. for each extra associated with it. Make it possible to hide those too because to be honestI rarely watch them. It's just annoying to have the real episode numbers screwed up by these things being stuck in the middle.

    3. Re:Typical by omnichad · · Score: 2

      iTunes is somewhat known for releasing stuff early due to mishap.

      Hence the correct use of the term SNAFU.

    4. Re:Typical by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As usual the pirate version is better quality, correctly numbered.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Damage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the studio will measure the damages in the billions. And somehow blame this for their terrible year.

    1. Re:Damage? by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 1

      This film brought in $850M in worldwide box office, and beat the other Thor films by 50% domestically. At worst they lost a little home video income. It is not like the pirate audience wouldn't have downloaded it next month anyway. It just came earlier than expected.

      Normally the pirate version comes out as soon as the physical Blu-Ray disks are being distributed to stores. It only takes one person to borrow it long enough to make a copy, and it gets out. Typically this happens a week or two before the on-sale date. If digital downloads come out before that, it gets pirated even earlier.

  3. Wording... by WolfgangVL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know it's only a summary, but....

    You place blame on consumer with "Illegal purchase"

    Consumer did nothing wrong. They pre-ordered the media for viewing after release and got a pleasant surprise.

    You aught to place blame on merchant with "Illegal offering" or "illegal sale" as Amazon messed up and made the media available early after collecting the $$.

    Is that really illegal to begin with? Or is it just against some TOS somewhere? We are talking about an official distribution channel right?

    --
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    1. Re:Wording... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Back in the dead tree days, a bookstore selling a new release book before the release date was rather common. I'm not surprised that happens in online retail too.

    2. Re:Wording... by omnichad · · Score: 1

      If anything, it's merely a breach of contract. I don't even think this could count as a copyright distribution violation by Apple because they were licensed to distribute.

    3. Re:Wording... by WolfgangVL · · Score: 1

      You're right. Apparently my brain replaces the word legal with illegal. All this time I thought I was a criminal. Turns out I'm just illiterate.

      Not sure which is better.

      --
      You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
    4. Re:Wording... by MatthiasF · · Score: 1

      Why are you blaming Amazon for this? Apple runs iTunes, not Amazon.

    5. Re:Wording... by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      Please oh please let the MAFIAA start fighting with Apple. I'd like to see those two 500lb gorillas fight...

    6. Re:Wording... by sheramil · · Score: 1

      You're right. Apparently my brain replaces the word legal with illegal.

      Please tell me you aren't a policeman or a judge in real life.

  4. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Artificial release restrictions shoudn't exist. Release early release often.

  5. Re:Before it was itunes... by omnichad · · Score: 1

    I can't remember the name but Apple bought it and created itunes.

    iTunes was created by direct agreement between publishers and Apple. Some features of iTunes (like Cover Flow) were created by other people and purchased by Apple, but both the core software and the store were built by Apple.

  6. They paid for it, no damage done by iamhassi · · Score: 1

    They paid for these so who cares? It's not like they got the movie free, they just got it a month early.

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  7. Re:Yay, another superhero movie by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    Thor: U2 Edition?

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  8. Re: who cares by Hentai007 · · Score: 2

    And yet you clicked on the article...

    And posted in the comment section

  9. Re:Before it was itunes... by tepples · · Score: 1

    both the core software and the store were built by Apple.

    The Store yes. But early versions of iTunes (pre-Store) were clearly a fork of SoundJam MP, whose developers Apple hired.

  10. Re:Before it was itunes... by omnichad · · Score: 1

    Sure - the relevant part is the store here. But still, looking at the screenshot on Wikipedia it really looks like most of what makes iTunes 1.0 what it was was created after the developers were hired on by Apple. Also, I'll fight you on the use of the term fork if it's the same developers refining the same software and merely discontinuing the original name.

    I only wish someone at Apple would fork iTunes 1.0 and add some modern features to it sans-bloat. It really was a great music player/library app. They should merge the app store with their music store on the desktop and make the music player just a music player again.

  11. Excellent by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

    I'm sure they will want to fix this bug, but I'm definitely going to watch this tomorrow.

  12. Re:Before it was itunes... by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    Is there any evidence that iTunes was actually designed?

    --
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  13. Re:Before it was itunes... by tepples · · Score: 1

    It exists and was created by human beings.

    (That is, unless by "designed" you mean "designed well by a true Scotsman.")