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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 Apple unless you are okay with being a slave to their dictatorial policies. Please support Linux.
This is why I buy the Blu-ray and rip it to my NAS; at least on shows I want to still have access to in 20 years. (Yes, I still have VHS tapes and a VCR)
OK. I'll pray they don't alter the deal further.
My kids have on occasion wanted to buy movies from Comcast and I have resisted specifically because I don't want to have to do business with a specific utility in order to maintain access to purchased content. Instead, I have allowed that content to be purchased from the equivalent of merchants like Apple and Amazon. This story sets a dangerous path that suggests physical media may still be the only way to go. It also gives a certain amount of moral license back to torrent downloads.
...movies are always free on The Pirate Bay.
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."
This is why we need stronger consumer protection. This isn't a weird, difficult, complex issue. In my mind, there's a very simple solution to this:
Make it illegal for digital media stores to remove access to anything that has been purchased. If, for some reason, they're unable to continue hosting it for streaming, they should be legally required to provide you with a DRM-free download.
Or else, they should be barred from using words like "buy" or "purchase". They can offer "long term rentals" with clear and explicit wording that access may be revoked at any time. Those disclaimers should not be buried in a EULA or terms of service. It should be legally required to be displayed obviously each time the long-term rental is offered.
You could debate some of the details, but the basic gist should be clear: Either provide people with what they "bought", or make it clear that they're not buying it.
Good reason to go back to bitTorrent. Buying should mean you own it.
In this case, however, she bought the movies and then deleted them from her system. She was relying on Apple's service to be able to re-download them again.
These are two seperate things.
If she had kept her local copies, Apple would not have removed these items from her computer; they were, however, unable to re-supply her with copies of the movies she'd bought via their service because thye'd lost the licensing rights to distribute said movies.
Imagine a store that you buy a DVD from that also allows you to stream a copy of the same DVD from their servers. If you lose the DVD, or destroy it, you can stream the movie until they lose licensing rights. If you don't lose or destroy the DVD, you don't have to rely on this third party.
The person in the story 'destroyed their DVD' and then their streaming provider lost their distribution rights.
She relied on a third party backup. She thought this was a guaranteed service. She was wrong.
None of this, however, has anything to do with buying vs leasing/licensing/renting and companies telling you you bought something when you merely licensed or rented it (although this remains an issue in digital consumer law in any number of countries). If she'd kept her downloaded copy, she'd still have it.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Spoken like someone that doesn't have kids. How many times I've heard that damn crab crone "kiss the girl.?" Thank god I drew the line at a teletubby disk collection.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
The words "purchase" and "contract" are not synonyms, though.
If you don't own the content, you did not purchase the content. If you did purchase it, then you do own it. And if somebody takes it away and says otherwise, perhaps they actually stole it? That can be true even if they claim to have authorized themselves.