Amazon Argues Users Don't Own Purchased Prime Video Content

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/amazon-argues-users-dont-actually-own-purchased-prime-video-content

by _Microft • 6 years ago

308 223 6 years ago

pochamago• 6 years ago

Amazon is, of course, right, unfortunately. Licenses is pretty much all anyone sells in media, and many of those are quite restrictive

ponker• 6 years ago

The courts will decide whether Amazon is right. One totally reasonable outcome might be that Amazon and other vendors will not be allowed to use the word "Purchase" for content that you do not own outright in perpetuity with rights similar to those of a book purchaser.

andybak• 6 years ago

I think this is the key point. They want to have their cake and eat it. Either sell me things or stop using everyday words that imply you are.

csunbird• 6 years ago

I really want an EU directive to define what is a "Sale" and what is a "License" or "Rent" and make it impossible to use the word "Purchase" when it is licensed to you, only to be used when you truly own the product.

mytailorisrich3• 6 years ago

Even a book purchaser only gets a "limited license" on the book's contents. The property rights only extend to the physical item, not what's printed in it.

That's the whole issue with online consumption. The physical medium has disappeared and so only the license remains. The legal framework has not caught up yet.

Amazon T&Cs' wording is wishy-washy ("on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time") and that wording may cause them problems especially where consumers protection is extensive. My limited knowledge on contract law is that this sort of unspecified duration may not be permitted because the parties (especially the consumer) cannot know what he is signing up to when entering into the contract.

crispyporkbites3• 6 years ago

They are correct, imagine if you had a subscription to prime and then copied / made all of that available on your own ad-supported service for free. So Amazon has to put a license on the content.

Whether the license is fair or not is up to the consumer to decide. The Buy vs Rent labelling is misleading - but as always, buyer beware.

mcintyre1994• 6 years ago

Surely that's a different issue though? I can't buy a bunch of blurays of movies and Game of Thrones from a store, rip them and put them on my own ad-supported free service without getting in trouble. But the store doesn't have to stop me taking the bluray home just in case I do that.

bambax• 6 years ago

When you torrent a movie you own it, physically, for as long as you want. It's ironic that the only way to own something is to steal it first.

mads• 6 years ago

What happens if I torrent a movie and buy a license on Prime? Is the torrent still illegal?

jp0d• 6 years ago

I've a rant unrelated to the story! Amazon is different in that way. I'm already paying for the subscription and some movies are available only to rent or purchase. Very different from Netflix. The user interface is pathetic. It pissed me off the most when I get advertisement even after paying for their subscription.

walterbell• 6 years ago

Prime's main course is a fast-ship shop subscription, which comes with a side order of digital media, unlike pure-play Netflix.

chadcmulligan• 6 years ago

Apple TV is similar - it has a mix of free and pay extra if you have their subscription, its even more mixed up imho.

Raed6672• 6 years ago

When I go on `primevideo.com` it tells me "Rent 3,99€" or "Buy 9,99€", which adds even more to the confusion.

They shouldn't be allowed to call it "buy" if it doesn't mean I own the content I "bought".

markx2• 6 years ago

Steam allows you to 'buy' a game. On your Profile page it even shows the number you 'own'.

Yet you 'own' none. All you 'buy' is a licence which can be revoked at any time should Steam, the Publisher or some other entity decide to do so.

I would imagine that if Amazon and Steam changed 'buy' to 'licence' their income would fall off a cliff.

Raed6672• 6 years ago

When I buy a film on disk, I have a reasonable expectation that I own the film and can play it as long as I wish. Why should it be different just because I bought it in a different format?

I hope consumer right groups and maybe the EU can crack down on this clear abuse of "wording".

whatch• 6 years ago

Is it different on GOG cosidering they "sell" DRM-free executables?

spondyl• 6 years ago

To be slightly fair, when EA pulled all of their games from Steam for a number of years and went strictly to Origin, those licenses were still valid. I don't recall any Steam games that straight up disappeared but that's not to suggest your core idea is incorrect of course

jeegsy• 6 years ago

At least in the case of steam, you can download all your games. Even better on GOG that has no DRM

BlackFly3• 6 years ago

This is still being litigated in Europe, but at the last decision I can find reference to (in France, Sept 2019) it was ruled that what steam does is sell a licensed copy. Therefore you can resell the copy you get from Steam and they cannot revoke the license either (excepting maybe some other violations of terms of service like cheating or harassing other players).

This hinges on the fact that the license is indefinite. So presumably, this would also hold over Amazon and is probably what most consumers assume is the case. The fact that Amazon also chooses to use the word buy probably makes the applicability even stronger.

Edit: where I say "You can resell" it should be understood "You ought to be able to resell" since it is still in appeal.

smileybarry2• 6 years ago

While they can revoke purchases, they've only done that for fraud (e.g.: stolen credit card, chargeback, etc.). I have plenty of games from publishers who went off Steam, unsupported titles taken off the store, games no longer sold due to expired music licenses, etc. -- and they're all in my Steam library to this day.

AFAIK most game platforms resort to just delisting and respecting purchases, with the notable exception of P.T. becoming unavailable for redownload even if you already claimed it[1]. (Except it was a free mini-game and not a purchase) The system isn't even meant to remove owned content to the point that P.T. is still in people's redownload lists, but the download itself results in HTTP 404.

And with Steam, there's always the "option" of downloading your entire library and archiving that. IIRC Steam's DRM is notoriously easy to crack (simple DLL replacement) and things like first-time-setup (additional registry keys, redistributables, etc.) are stored per-game in simple JSON-like files. That wouldn't cover game-specific DRM but it at least covers Steam itself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.T._(video_game)#Removal_and_...

taneq2• 6 years ago

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” - Heinlein

Corporations clearly are taking this lesson to heart. It's only fair that we do too. If you buy content, make sure you have an unencumbered digital copy of it.

burntoutfire4• 6 years ago

To be completely transparent, even in physical stores, when you buy a DVD, it should clearly state "buy the disc, licence some limited rights to the film on it - only for $x.xx".

Schiendelman2• 6 years ago

Isn’t the key difference here the company’s ability to revoke your ability to watch/listen/play? They can’t do that to a DVD.

Communitivity• 6 years ago

My naive view (I know next to nothing about legal matters) would be that "buy" meant a verbal contract that I exchange money to receive the movie as an asset. Obviously that's not how Amazon interprets it, but I wonder if the courts should interpret it that way: if you say buy, and pay a greater cost to buy it, they you should have it as an asset. Of course, what does having it as an asset mean now? I personally think movies from Amazon should be downloadable, but then how do they prevent piracy.

gnicholas• 6 years ago

“These Terms of Use expressly state that purchasers obtain only a limited license to view video content and that purchased content may become unavailable due to provider license restriction or other reasons.”

At least with iTunes, you can keep a copy in cold storage. Although Amazon lets you download content, I believe you can’t store it long term without constantly being connected to the internet.

judge20205• 6 years ago

iTunes has the same problem - even though the contracts they have with the rights holders might be valid for 1000 years (or indefinite), that contract breaking would mean the consumer would lose access to their "bought" movies in their iTunes library, at least legally.

BLKNSLVR2• 6 years ago

I foolishly purchased an album or two from Google Play Music, which will be defunct by year end. Maybe the 'ownership' license will transfer over to Youtube Music if I migrate my subscription, but what if I don't? It doesn't seem logical that I lose the ability to listen to music that I purchased just because the intermediary that I purchased it through has gone. Do not the rights holders keep track of who owns licenses to listen to what? Shouldn't they be tracking this information on the other side of their business than the one that sends questionable DMCA(-ish?) take-down notices to github for potential copyright infringement usage?

I won't be migrating my subscription to YT Music. I won't be purchasing any more music, movies, or TV shows that I can't store locally and backup via simple scripts with tools like rsync and robocopy.

Purchasing a license to stream a specific item via a specific service is, literally, buying nothing.

The Internet remembers everything. Except your digital copyright licenses. It's anti-consumer turtles all the way down.

gambiting7• 6 years ago

Does Google music not allow you to download the albums as a pack of MP3s?

spijdar2• 6 years ago

It does -- and if Youtube Music lets you upload music files like GPM did (not sure if they've added this feature yet or not, I know they claimed they would), that's one avenue.

However, I've noticed that the one album I've ever purchased through GPM is not available on YTM and even though I purchased it, it is still greyed out in my transferred playlists.

Lesson learned -- I'm just glad I only ever made that mistake once and didn't lose a library (or would have to painstakingly download each album manually and reupload)

EDIT:

To be clear, not only did the "ownership" of the music not transfer, but (presumably) because of a change in licensing agreements the music has become entirely unavailable in any form. At least, it will once GPM goes offline.

BLKNSLVR2• 6 years ago

O' lord, you're right, the option is right there in small text under Transfer to Youtube Music: Manage Your Data.

Thanks for pointing this out, that takes most of the sting out of my eternal September-style ranting.

criddell• 6 years ago

Allowing customers to download the content in a common format seems like a solution to lots of problems. Maybe that should be legislated as a requirement of selling digital goods?

burntoutfire4• 6 years ago

The problem with downloading locally is that, if the police comes (assuming privacy is illegal in your country), you'd still have to explain how you got a hold of them.

dvfjsdhgfv• 6 years ago

That's an interesting take. It would mean you need to keep purchase receipts of all digital stuff forever. Now, how does it compare to physical media, like CDs/DVDs/BRs? They could have been stolen too, you know. Shouldn't the onus be on the accusing party to prove you stole them?

bregma• 6 years ago

Glad I live in a country where (a) the state can not enforce private intellectual property disputes so police can not get involved, only lawyers who can write letters and rent court time and (2) it is explicitly legislated that possession and even copying of digital materials is not an offence, only the distribution of the same could be.

P_I_Staker3• 6 years ago

assuming privacy is illegal in your country

Assuming this is a typo, it's a funny one. It's starting to seem like privacy is illegal, or will be soon.

TeMPOraL4• 6 years ago

It doesn't seem logical that I lose the ability to listen to music that I purchased just because the intermediary that I purchased it through has gone.

It is very logical, and this is the point that many of us, advocates of owning over renting, try to explain to people, unsuccessfully. You didn't purchase a license to content. You purchased a temporary license to listen to a piece of content on a particular service - a license that's valid only as long as the service wants it to, and definitely won't outlive the service itself. Basically: you're renting, not owning. It's all there in the terms you agreed to. Except, of course, services design the UX to make it seem like you're buying, and not borrowing.

(EDIT: this applies to most services people use for music, videos and other digital goods, even when they offer you to "purchase" copies instead of paying subscription fees - like Amazon here, or Steam games. That said, I see there is an option to download MP3s from Google Music, so perhaps the licensing terms there technically give you permanent license for the content itself. iTunes would be similar, IIRC.)

Do not the rights holders keep track of who owns licenses to listen to what? Shouldn't they be tracking this information on the other side of their business

They do not, because they don't want to. It's against their interests. With the way things are, they get to charge you multiple times for the same piece of content.

Let's be happy that books predate modern IP laws, because otherwise bookshelves and libraries wouldn't be a thing now.

Purchasing a license to stream a specific item via a specific service is, literally, buying nothing.

Exactly. That's the big "secret".

m-p-3• 6 years ago

That's another thing with lifetime licenses when dealing with DRMs.

It's not your lifetime, it's the lifetime of the service and company behind it.

thirdsun2• 6 years ago

It is very logical, and this is the point that many of us, advocates of owning over renting, try to explain to people, unsuccessfully. You didn't purchase a license to content. You purchased a temporary license to listen to a piece of content on a particular service - a license that's valid only as long as the service wants it to, and definitely won't outlive the service itself. Basically: you're renting, not owning. It's all there in the terms you agreed to. Except, of course, services design the UX to make it seem like you're buying, and not borrowing.

That is not true for music. DRM-free downloads of purchased music have been the industry standard for pretty much all digital music stores for over a decade now - from iTunes to Bandcamp.

In that regard music differs from video and gaming since the fact that it's sold DRM-free enables you to truly own your digital music collection. Obviously this doesn't apply to streaming options which are much closer to renting, but that's self-explanatory I think.

charwalker• 6 years ago

You can download owned music up to 3 times, maybe more now. When I stopped buying albums in GPM and subscribed I downloaded everything, including uploaded music, and saved off for Plex.

thirdsun2• 6 years ago

I foolishly purchased an album or two from Google Play Music, which will be defunct by year end.

I never used Google Play Music, but don't they sell DRM-free music like every other digital music outlet from iTunes to Bandcamp? If so, the files are yours to keep, aren't they?

Obviously Google (or iTunes, Bandcamp and others) aren't responsible for hosting and backing up your media indefinitely. That's the buyer's duty in my opinion.

fiftyacorn• 6 years ago

I hate this bit of modern life. CDs and DVDs were so simple, even the original ipods give you more control

taneq2• 6 years ago

Even DVDs had their attempt at region coding, which was a pain in the ass for a while (limited "region changes" for most players). The legalities behind it eventually got overturned but it was a pain for a while.

amelius• 6 years ago

Perhaps someone should write a tool called "Amazon-dl".

cyberfart• 6 years ago

too soon

keiferski2• 6 years ago

The consistent push toward the "sharing economy" and or the "gig economy" makes me very uneasy, especially when it comes to physical things like houses, cars, or food. The end result will be that regular people don't own anything and don't know how to do things, whether that's repair your vehicle or cook a meal at home. When push comes to shove, the corporation actually owning such things can cut you off with virtually no consequences.

pintxo• 6 years ago

Anyone wondering how this might look like may like reading "Radicalized" by Cory Doctorow

TeMPOraL4• 6 years ago

I feel bad about it too.

I'll just quote what I wrote the other day[0] on the topic of "throwing money at things" instead of doing or owning things yourself:

"Why would you own things and accept responsibility for maintaining them, if you could just throw money at the service provider and have the thing be present when it's needed? Of course the thing will be extremely limited in what you can do with it, subject to Terms&Conditions, but why would you want to do anything non-standard with stuff? There's always another service you can throw money at to solve the same problem.

What's the end-game here? That we specialize into sub-species of humans, forever stuck in one role, with zero autonomy? No longer building wealth, we'll only be allocating the flow of money - from what Society gives us in reward for our work, straight to Services of said Society? Will we become specialized cells of the meta-multicellular organism Society becomes?

I can see how we're on the path towards that reality, and I absolutely hate it."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24787804

bserge2• 6 years ago

I see the same thing and it's disheartening. At least we're not immortal, now that would be hell in such a system.

And the main problem is (imho) that people just seem to hate responsibility. It all stems from that, at the core it's all just shifting responsibility onto something or someone who will take it.

Latty• 6 years ago

The rent-seeking economy, just create more renters to increase the amount you can skim off the top.

gpderetta2• 6 years ago

houses

have a look at leaseholds in UK.

martin-adams5• 6 years ago

and the unregulated estate charges now where they can seize your house if you fail to pay.

martin-adams5• 6 years ago

This does concern me. For example, if I buy kindle books instead of physical books, my kids can't enjoy those books when I'm gone. I have a car that can now do software unlocking of physical features (e.g. rear heated seats). Am I adding value to the car which I can sell to the next person, or am I licensing the right to that feature for the duration for my own use.

We're moving to a model where we spend the same, but their value is zero when considering the value of our assets.

wycy• 6 years ago

I have a car that can now do software unlocking of physical features (e.g. rear heated seats)

Was this a permanent unlock, or do you need a subscription to unlock the rear heated seats?

schwartzworld2• 6 years ago

the part about your kids really resonates with me. a lot of my taste was formed by going through my parents old books and records.

dhab• 6 years ago

thanks for pointing this out. For a while i had an uneasy feeling about this, and they way you have put it gives words to those: digital assets that we create and are licensed really can't be passed on generationally. Taking it to an extreme - imagine not having physical transcripts of historic documents - e.g. the constitution - and its effect on a country's trajectory (not that constitution would stay always relevant in it's original form - but still)

Mediterraneo102• 6 years ago

if I buy kindle books instead of physical books, my kids can't enjoy those books when I'm gone.

Do you think your kids will want to read their ancestors’ books? I have watched even ardent bibliophiles among my friends gradually lose interest in books, because they grow accustomed to consuming snackable content on the internet, and I have little confidence that books will be a mainstream pastime for following generations.

s17n• 6 years ago

https://medium.com/@samclearman/stop-paying-for-e-books-and-...

k__• 6 years ago

The sharing and gig economy aren't the problem. The companies are.

mmcconnell1618• 6 years ago

Try not paying your real estate taxes and you'll discover that you're only renting the land under your house. The local authorities have the ability to confiscate and sell your dwelling if you don't pay your taxes.

falcolas• 6 years ago

There's a slight difference between paying government taxes for the land you've purchased and renting a book from a private corporation.

The government taxes pay for services which can directly and indirectly benefit you. For example, they pay for providing a force which will help against unlawful intruders, pay for the manpower who will help you should your house catch on fire, pay for the maintenance of roads, and so forth.

Amazon's revenue... lines the pockets of Amazon's investors.

oaiey• 6 years ago

I want to add one thing here: Owning is sometimes also a burden. There is a whole sub culture focusing on downsizing (there are fans which are owning less than 100 items .. and that includes battery cable).

But I agree also with your statement.

Finnucane• 6 years ago

Yes, but normally you have some degree of choice. You can choose to rent or buy depending on your circumstances and needs. It's bad enough enough that the degree of 'choice' is very limited for a lot of people, but it is clear that the political direction of tax law, corporate law, is toward the direction of establishment of a permanent aristocracy that owns everything and everyone else is completely dependent on them.

bmitc• 6 years ago

I don't think it's just that. I think it's the corporations having engaged in decades long propaganda pushing towards unlimited capitalism. It's a new brand of authoritarianism. Corporations make all the rules and have all the power. If we as a consumer make a single mistake, we are to pay for it, yet consumers have essentially zero power towards a corporation. Corporations are given nearly endless rights on what they can do and own, and consumers are quickly having ownership rights yanked out from us. Corporations own our data, many of the products we "buy", and even what we can do with the things we "buy".

Denzel• 6 years ago

Not to be shallow, but this runs counter to Amazon's purported customer obsession - no? I say this as someone recently "tricked" into buying some movies through Prime. The layman in me thought, surely the distinction between "Rent" and "Buy" on this screen means I own the content. While the software engineer in me thought: what would happen if Prime or Amazon disappeared; how would I keep my purchase?

Guess I have the answer to my question now. I don't.

Will most likely purchase physical media for things that are important enough to me now.

P_I_Staker3• 6 years ago

Their consumer obsession is to convince more people to use their platform to buy more products. Letting people free themselves from the platform runs counter to that goal.

It's not even just that, they have licensing to worry about. Do any content providers even allow a cross platform license, if the Amazon/Google/ect even wanted to do this? The content creators have always wanted to charge by the view, they never wanted it to make it easy to "own" the content.

tweetle_beetle• 6 years ago

Fine. Change your CTAs from being labelled "Buy" to "Buy a limited license for on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time" if that's what it is. They currently use a discreet link on a single word "Terms", in a smaller font than anything else, which opens a 3000+ word document hosted on a different domain to avoid this. And there is also a dark pattern of mixing the words "buy", "order" and "purchase" in the same section of the page.

Is it time for a protected legal definition of "buy" which excludes this nonsense? Does the EU already do this?

melevittfl• 6 years ago

I 100% agree this would be a big step forward.

part1of2• 6 years ago

Wouldn’t the better option be to have regulation that prevent Both the rights seller (Hollywood) & the seller From revoking the sale/license, and guaranteeing it in the company’s perpetuity?

Essentially, require that Buy be Buy, and that the rights licensee can’t screw over the third party (consumers)

Not sure how to handle it I’d say VEVO declared bankruptcy tho

Wurdan2• 6 years ago

The license that Amazon has doesn't even need to change for there to be undesirable customer outcomes. I didn't realise the extent of the geo-locking of content bought through Prime Video, for example. So a film I bought while living in the UK is now unavailable to me in Sweden, despite both countries being served by Prime Video.

TeMPOraL4• 6 years ago

This is orthogonal, and protecting the meaning of the word Buy sounds easier to achieve than outright attacking the publisher's business model, so I'd start with the former.

Making people acutely aware they're not buying content, but only renting it temporarily, would already help change the conversation.

Mindwipe4• 6 years ago

Wouldn’t the better option be to have regulation that prevent Both the rights seller (Hollywood) & the seller From revoking the sale/license, and guaranteeing it in the company’s perpetuity?

So how would this law work? The reality is that compound works are always, always made up of third party bits of copyright. So are films required to clear any music in perpetuity, no matter what? Goodbye to musicals. What happens if rights are in dispute and a supplier loses the rights to the title, or parts of a title (this happens a lot)? What happens if an estate of a creator files to have the IP in a character revert to them after fifty years?

How are you going to have this regulation pass in every country in the world at the same time?

Or is this one of these things that's easy to glibly say but basically impossible to do?

waihtis• 6 years ago

"Buy a limited license for on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time"

Which is long form for ”rent” :-)

falcor84• 6 years ago

Renting contracts are almost always time constrained

Mindwipe4• 6 years ago

Is it time for a protected legal definition of "buy" which excludes this nonsense? Does the EU already do this?

No, no country in the world does this, because it's basically impossible to do if a work contains other licensed bits of copyright.

ceejayoz• 6 years ago

I can buy a physical book, or a car, even if there's IP on some of the items within. It's entirely possible.

donmcronald• 6 years ago

Even requiring “Buy License” would be a good step IMO.

dorfsmay• 6 years ago

over an indefinite period of time

I don't know with Amazon, but with Google streaming "purchases" are linked to one email. You lose that email, and you've lost access. Transfers are not possible.

MilaM• 6 years ago

I don't mind if they call it "buy", as long as customers are entitled to a refund in case a work becomes unavailable.

blendergeek• 6 years ago

entitled to a refund

Are customers solely responsible for only buying from monopolists so that the store they purchased from can provide refunds when the content later (inevitably) becomes unavailable?

dwheeler• 6 years ago

No, I think buy should have a very clear meaning.

No one is going to read all the legal gobbledygook.

When I buy something, I assumed it cannot be taken away. If it can be taken away, then I did not buy it. Ileased it or rented it, but I did not buy it.

The world is already too complicated for many people. If we are going to give people any hope of understanding what they are agreeing to, then we need to make sure that words mean something.

philsnow• 6 years ago

"Entitled to a refund" is not the same as "made whole". Consumers want the latter, companies usually want the former.

For starters there's inflation, so if I spend $10 today and 20 years from now they revoke the license or whatever and give me 10 2040-dollars, that's not going to be the same buying power as the $10 in 2020 dollars.

Second, the media landscape may have shifted by then. If the only company in 2040 that can give me another, comparable "indefinite rental license" or whatever is charging $100, I want Amazon to pay _that_.

013a3• 6 years ago

I do believe it would be a great thing for these buttons to read "Rent Indefinitely" rather than "Buy", and also force these companies to outline in clear and short language within a popup near the button the general conditions under which the rental will be revoked. Like, "Company X may revoke your access to this content in situations where your account breaches the terms of service outlined [here], or if the original rights holders of the content force us to." Not even full ToS, just something to inform people that its possible.

And to be clear, there's a massive swath of digital content that needs regulation like this. Amazon movies, Kindle books, Steam/Xbox/PSN digital games, iTunes music purchases (though in situations like this, I think the word "Buy" is valid given that you're allowed a DRM-free download, but I think the popup should still be required with the language changed to read "...may revoke your access to re-download this content...").

willyt• 6 years ago

Leasehold?

judge20205• 6 years ago

By ordering or viewing, you agree to our Terms.

goes here

https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...

pjfin123• 6 years ago

I wonder if a better solution would be allowing people to really own digital goods they buy the way you do physical copyrighted goods. Someone tried to let you "sell" your iTunes library by deleting it off your hard drive and then giving it to someone else but they lost in court:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi....

jellicle• 6 years ago

"Revocable Rental" should be the only permitted button text in most digital licensing situations.

Yizahi• 6 years ago

"Rent Temporarily" with a comment "Rent can be terminated by renter at any time, without ability to appeal". Because "rent indefinitely" is definitely incorrect since it is impossible.

Frost1x• 6 years ago

Is it time for a protected legal definition of "buy" which excludes this nonsense?

I'd go much further than that, "buy" is just one of the completely business washed words which now have no meaning: luxury, unlimited, complete, total, advanced, ... the list goes on.

If you have an army of lawyers and clever marketing team, you can pretty much use intentional ambiguity in English (I suspect any language) to get away with false advertising on a regular basis.

modzu• 6 years ago

not just that, the whole concept of tos is broken

rlpb• 6 years ago

Change your CTAs from being labelled "Buy" to "Buy a limited license for on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time" if that's what it is.

It should be the other way round. If it said "Buy", the buyer is deemed to have been sold it and owns it. If it turns out the buyer did now own it to sell it in the first place (eg. someone else held the rights, not the purported "seller"), then the seller now owes the buyer a refund.

The situation should be dealt with just like any other fraudulent misrepresentation/misleading labelling, whether driven by a corporate marketing department or not.

el_oni• 6 years ago

I use playon.tv which I purchased during my undergraduate and frequently forget about. It allows one to record content from services they are subscribed to in a DVR-like fashion. The interface is kinda jank but it works just fine. I recorded a bunch of shows i wanted to watch before i moved house and lost internet for a week.

On the implementation front, i believe they run a headless chrome instance and record the media as it streams in real time. So they aren't downloading the source files, just recording. This has the unfortunate side effect of baking in subtitles or if the chrome instance is asking for you to accept cookies it shows up over the top of the recording.

Apologies if this is a bit incoherant, whenever the owning of media comes up, it always reminds me i have the software installed

zaroth• 6 years ago

This should be an easy enforcement action for the FTC under existing authority. Either these stores explain you are buying a license for an indefinite period of use, or they ensure you actually own a copy.

Considering how unpopular tech companies are in politics right now, an advocacy group pushing for this could possibly be successful.

It would required petitions, landing pages with catchy phrases, etc...

GrinningFool• 6 years ago

I'm surprised they haven't already sidestepped this by making the button say "Add to Library" with a price.

swiley• 6 years ago

This is exactly why I've stopped buying movies. The argument is that if you want to watch it again then you'll have to rent it again, and after a couple times you would have saved money by buying it. That's not true if there's a decent chance buying it still wouldn't let you watch it again in a couple years.

I've just accepted that I'll only be able to watch things once and that's fine, I have much better things to do with my life than watch movies (like starting arguments on HN.)

thedanbob• 6 years ago

I only buy movies through iTunes because they let you download an actual (DRM'd) video file, which can then be de-DRM'd. Unfortunately, recent versions of iTunes have broken all DRM removal software. I have a virtual machine with an old copy of iTunes for any new movie purchases, but if that ever stops working I won't be buying any more movies either.

code4tee2• 6 years ago

Clickbait headline. This is how it works with nearly all content you “buy” (music, movies, software, ...) You’re not buying the thing, rather you buying a license to use something. That license has terms. This is nothing new and nothing specific to Amazon.

jmkd• 6 years ago

Imagine this for DVDs.

A lawyer representing the now-defunct Virgin Megastores is obliged by Warner Bros to contact you and insist you download a firmware update for your DVD player to disable playback of the Lord of the Rings disc you purchased 5 years ago.

zokier• 6 years ago

You don't own the content on DVDs either

thunkshift1• 6 years ago

Thats ridiculous. Says who? Do you have any sources that say you don’t own dvd content indefinitely?

code4tee2• 6 years ago

Go watch that text that flashed up on your old VHS tapes. You didn’t own it, you merely had a license to use it in a certain way. Invite too many people over to your house to watch a movie, you broke the license as now you’re staging a “public showing” and you don’t have a license for that. Schools used to get in trouble for this sort of thing when some kid brings in a home VHS tape and plays it at “school movie night.”

bb88• 6 years ago

When I bought a DVD from Walmart, Walmart didn't come to my house and claw the DVD back.

sailfast2• 6 years ago

The ability to broadly revoke these rights without any cause is different here, though. I don't think you can equate the two in the same way for this reason. You needed to take action against an individual before for a reason in order to prevent them from using the thing they purchased. In the streaming / heavy DRM case, no cause is required and no recourse is provided to the individual. You're just out of luck.

itsoktocry• 6 years ago

Clickbait headline. This is how it works with nearly all content you “buy”

Yeah...that's the entire point of the discussion being held.

When did it become a thing to call everything "clickbait"? The headline is literally a description of their argument, which is the point being discussed. Do you know what "clickbait" is?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clickbait

How does this qualify?

gkanai• 6 years ago

It should be illegal to use "own" in an online service if that is not true- if you can't download the content and keep it.

crazygringo• 6 years ago

This isn't news, digital media has ALWAYS been like this...

...BUT it should be illegal for a digital content provider to revoke purchased licenses without compensation, regardless of ToS.

The same way credit cards aren't allowed to set their own terms arbitrarily [1], neither should vendors of digital media.

If a company decides to remove individual purchased titles, they should be forced by law to refund the purchase price to everyone involved. We need legislation for this. End of story.

(If a company goes bankrupt or decides to end a service entirely it's a bit more complicated... but perhaps part of bankruptcy proceedings should be to give priority to pay a competing service a reasonable "maintenance fee" to provide continued digital access to the same titles wherever possible.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009

ubermonkey2• 6 years ago

Has anyone really been confused by this?

Unless it's free of DRM and easily copied, backed up, moved, etc, you don't own it, regardless of whatever language the vendor wraps it in.

That doesn't stop me from occasionally "buying" movies or TV from Apple (for example) -- for reasons of convenience, say -- but I don't go into it blindly, and neither should anyone else.

gvhst• 6 years ago

Not for HN, but the less technology literate individuals certainly doesn't think about this.

txcwpalpha2• 6 years ago

Unless it's free of DRM and easily copied, backed up, moved, etc,

Even in most of these cases you don't legally own it, either. Even when you buy a DVD, you are just buying a license to use that DVD to consume the content on it. You don't own the content, and it's a violation of that license to copy a movie off of a DVD and onto your hard drive, for example, even if it doesn't have DRM. It's just that the legal content owner typically doesn't come after that type of violation.

ubermonkey2• 6 years ago

So there's two places ownership gets fuzzy.

There's the DRM case, where it's represented as a purchase but only persists as long as the seller allows it to (e.g., movies or TV digitally "purchased" from almost any vendor -- Apple, Amazon, etc).

Then there's the DVD case, where they insist it's a license, but the buyer has physical control of the media and access to tech that ensures they can continue to enjoy it in perpetuity, even if the seller tries to revoke the license.

0goel0• 6 years ago

Yes, I wrote about this not too long ago: https://goel.io/drm-ownership

The issue is that they are selling you something to "buy", when really you are renting. They are lying and deceiving.

No one's going to hold them accountable.

sailfast2• 6 years ago

Came here to say this. If it's subject to DRM, you don't really own it. It's a limited license.

That said, as someone that has purchased a number of many-view licenses (clicked "buy") I feel that this distinction has always been clear. I didn't expect the money I spent to view something streamed from a server to afford the same kind of usage as a book that I bought in hard-copy 20 years ago. You're either renting for a [period of time] or purchasing unlimited views. I guess my cynicism in this regard paid off.

Changing options language to "Rent" vs. "Buy Unlimited Views" might make that more clear.

judge20205• 6 years ago

If it's not subject to DRM, that doesn't mean you own it either. Even if Amazon just downloaded an unencrypted mp4, legally you would be guilty of felony copyright infringement under 18 U.S.C. § 2319(b) if you were to sell it to someone else.

eplanit• 6 years ago

I noticed in the past couple of weeks that the verbiage on my fire stick changed from "you own this video" to "you purchased this video". I knew that meant something like this... and sure enough.

dikaio• 6 years ago

I spend on average 20k+ a year on media from the Apple iTunes Store, that number is dwarfed when I’m gaming.

Guess I’ll just start scraping the media for free via tunnels and VPNs.

beervirus• 6 years ago

20k+ a year

How??

intotheabyss• 6 years ago

I'd like to see digital ownership in the form of non-fungible tokens on Ethereum. That way, you can easily re-sell your ownership on decentralized exchanges. That's true digital ownership.

whoknew1122• 6 years ago

I know this is red meat for the anti-Amazon crowd, but this isn't and shouldn't be a surprise.

This is what happens with pretty much any digital good you buy. It's what happens with Kindle books. I remember having this very same conversation and debate on the Magic: The Gathering forums 18 years ago when Magic: The Gathering Online came out.

If you're buying a digital good and don't get a copy that you can download onto your drive and interact offline, go ahead and assume you rented it. Should be that way? I would argue no. But it's the world we live in.

No one refunded me the $2,000 I spent on Marvel Heroes when Gazillion abruptly shut the game down. I 'bought' all those digital goods, so why can't I play the game offline? Because I really just purchased a limited license (i.e. rented) to in-game items.

KuhlMensch• 6 years ago

"But it's the world we live in" if we do nothing.

doggydogs942• 6 years ago

My grandfather died. Now I have to keep a dedicated device to read his Kindle books (and there are a lot of them). The books can’t be transferred.

phailhaus• 6 years ago

Probably the only reason why Amazon is able to charge the prices that it does is _because_ of the fact that you are not purchasing the product itself. Amazon needs to make this much clearer though, and provide an option for you to buy media content outright at a higher price. The "buy" verbiage is straight up misleading.

pmlnr• 6 years ago

Because so many people would want to buy a random forgotten movie from the 90s that the prices can't be lower, than £3.99. Nonsense. It's already outrageously high if it's not an owning-type buy.

jmull• 6 years ago

It's such a mistake to use unintuitive terms with customers when your business model depends on a long-term relationship with your customers.

You end up tricking them in the short term, but they learn to avoid relying on you in the future.

If they can't actually sell you a copy of something they should stop presenting a "buy" button and stick with "rent".

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

Wow. They say it right there on the screen "Rent $(x) or Buy $(y)". Now they say, they were just kidding? Give me a break.

waylandsmithers• 6 years ago

Is this the logical consequence of the web, that everything is reduced to just "content?" Whether it's a tweet or a movie that cost $100M to produce, it's just stuff that takes up space in a box on your screen.

CodeWriter23• 6 years ago

Don’t limit your ire to Amazon here. I purchased The Replacements “Pleased to Meet Me” from iTunes. Now the first track on the album is “not available in your region”. I’m an album listener, not a song listener, and now that record is useless to me. Bonus the Music App auto-deleted it for me.

racl101• 6 years ago

Pretty much people. This is why I never got down with the Apple Music bullshit. Nor Spotify. If I buy an album I want those damn audio files in my computer.

All these businesses will continue to raise their membership fees and you still will own bupkis.

AndrewUnmuted• 6 years ago

In fact, all of the Prime Video content that Plaintiff has ever purchased remains available.

It's interesting how much this admission from Amazon says about the particular user. A few members of my family - and several friends - have all purchased Prime Video content that later became censored, subject to PR-fueled cancellations, or simply later had access restricted due to changing avails.

We have laws against revealing medical information about individuals, but to me it seems just as likely that content viewing history is also a strongly private thing which ought to be protected, too. Is there anything protecting people against this kind of stuff being revealed when a lawsuit is being litigated?

donohoe• 6 years ago

Worth reminding that those ebooks you "bought" were likely "licenses" and not bought. Read the small print.

skee0083• 6 years ago

The final stage of capitalism is rent seeking. you don't own the stuff you buy. you must pay subscription fees to rent the stuff thus generating never ending profits for the capitalists.

d_theorist• 6 years ago

Has this not always been the case with pretty much all digital media purchases? Books, music, films, tv etc. It’s always a license you’re buying. Not saying this is good or bad, but at this point I think we’ve been over this many many times and it should not be a surprise to anybody who has been remotely paying attention.

ilyagr• 6 years ago

This case might address the question of how enforceable EULAs are. I wonder if someone more knowledgeable might chime in, but AFAIK this hasn't really been settled by courts. To quote the article:

--------------

Amazon argues it doesn't matter whether Caudel actually bothered to read the fine print.

"An individual does not need to read an agreement in order to be bound by it," writes Biderman. "A merchant term of service agreement in an online consumer transaction is valid and enforceable when the consumer had reasonable notice of the terms of service."

bookofjoe• 6 years ago

I once read that the test of whether or not you own something is, "can you sell it?" By this test, one does not own purchased Amazon Prime video content.

floatingatoll• 6 years ago

It's unfortunate that Amazon licenses rather than sells this digital property, because if they sold it, they could claim that it's exempt from the 30% in-app purchase fees that app stores charge.

jdofaz• 6 years ago

If I want to buy a movie I still buy it on disc (4k Blu-ray) if possible). Many newer movies come with a Movies Anywhere code so it also gets added to all my devices.

It's the best of both worlds, best possible picture and sound for the big tv and I can I watch it on my phone if I want.

doggydogs942• 6 years ago

Even if you buy a DVD, you are still licensing the content. All that you own is the physical DVD.

floppiplopp• 6 years ago

I argue "illegally" downloading a drm free copy of media I purchased isn't theft.

Amazon Argues Users Don't Own Purchased Prime Video Content

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