Slashdot Mirror
Apple Can Delete Purchased Movies From Your Library Without Telling You (theoutline.com)
Casey Johnston, writing for The Outline: When you buy a movie on iTunes, it's yours forever, until such a time as when Apple maybe loses the rights to distribute it, and then it will disappear from your library without a trace. This is what happened to Anders G. da Silva, who goes by @drandersgs on Twitter, and who tweeted about losing three movies bought on the iTunes Store.
When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that "the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in the Canada iTunes Store at this time." For his trouble in notifying Apple that it had disappeared three of his ostensible belongings for incredibly dubious legal reasons, Apple offered da Silva not even a refund, but two credits for renting a movie on the iTunes Store "priced up to $5.99 USD." After he argued that he was not in the market for rentals and would just like the movies he purchased, please, Apple tried to appease him with two more rental credits.
When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that "the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in the Canada iTunes Store at this time." For his trouble in notifying Apple that it had disappeared three of his ostensible belongings for incredibly dubious legal reasons, Apple offered da Silva not even a refund, but two credits for renting a movie on the iTunes Store "priced up to $5.99 USD." After he argued that he was not in the market for rentals and would just like the movies he purchased, please, Apple tried to appease him with two more rental credits.
Never "buy" content from any of these online streaming services. It's all rented and always has been. And not just Apple.
This is the "victim's" fault for not understanding what he was doing, this was obvious from day one. But people argue how much better and easier it is than old fashioned discs. And they will continue to "buy" into these pay per view streaming services.
This is why we don't buy anything as a download. Physical media only. I'll take the time to rip it myself. If you want to own it, you have to have something physical to maintain control of it.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I don’t mind pay per view or all-you-can-eat services like Spotify, because you are getting exactly what you are paying for: one view (or multiple views in a very short timeframe) of a particular movie, or access to whatever is on offer with the streaming service. If you don’t like their collection anymore, cancel your subscription at the end of the month.
If however you aim to build a library, physical discs or download-to-own content unencumbered by DRM are the only way to go. Everything else is just paying full price for rentals.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This is the "victim's" fault for not understanding what he was doing, this was obvious from day one.
Not at all. This is unequivocally Apple's fault for describing it as a "purchase" instead of as a "rental". If Apple didn't secure a license to the content for effectively "forever" (such as a 99-year license) before "selling" the content to the user, then they made the sale in poor faith. Their activity was in fact fraud.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Their store calls it "buy" and the price is set at a level far above the rent price: everything suggests you can buy movies. Don't blame the victim for not reading the fine print on what seems like a very ordinary consumer purchase.
I expect that if you read the terms of service (you do read that, before you click "OK"buying anything, you are renting it, anybody who doesn't understand that needs a keeper.
Most people can't understand the ToS. They are deliberately written to be difficult to understand, and contain unnecessary verbiage to discourage people from digging into them to begin with. That's part of why we have laws governing contracts. Further, pretending that the meanings of words doesn't matter is bollocks. Apple deliberately confused customers, and the ToS doesn't change that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's why some countries have legislation against that sort of semi-hidden clauses. Germany for instance.
Besides, if the word "Sale" is displayed prominently and Apple's option to "retract" the content is only somewhere in the small print, the two directly contradict each other. So in court, the judge would have to decide which takes precedence. Common sense might say the "sale" that was written in big letters in the ad.
C - the footgun of programming languages