Amazon takes away access to purchased Christmas movie during Christmas

http://boingboing.net/2013/12/15/amazon-takes-away-access-to-pu.html

by cdvonstinkpot • 13 years ago

126 62 13 years ago

Not that surprising to me personally, but a shitty situation.

The only reason it isn't surprising is that I briefly worked for a company that was creating a digital media service (Technicolor's MGO service, after they acquired the remaining chumby employees), and I remember hearing about how this sort of situation could occur as part of the technical planning and I was just flabbergasted that EULA/TOS or not these media companies would 'sell' a digital movie to a consumer and then ex-post-facto limit their ability to watch it based on various contracts. This example seems especially egregious considering the seasonal aspect of the movie.

While Amazon is certainly complicit here, I think the article is a bit too hard on them as basically the current system is you play by these rules (set by collusion of the media companies) or you get no access to content.

jessaustin• 13 years ago

Doctorow makes a big deal about contracts and so forth, so as to blame Amazon. But that's like blaming Oscar Meyer for the fact that bologna isn't made out of free-range heritage-breed pork: eventually the consumer will learn what's actually in the package. Of course contracts between companies play a role, but from the consumer perspective this is what you "own" when you purchase DRM'ed media. All DRM'ed media will be taken, eventually. Don't buy it unless you're comfortable with that fact.

mikegreco• 13 years ago

The exact verbiage on Amazon's website is "Buy movie in HD 1-Click® $$$.$$". Its easy to lecture to the hackernews crowd on the evils of DRM, but do you really think the average consumer understands what they are getting into? Even on the "learn more" pages there is no indication that your content can be stripped from you if a license expires. Using your analogy, I just brought home a pack of bologna and wanted to make a sandwich, but my box was empty on Saturday because the pork farmers said their product can only be consumed on weekdays. If that happens I am 100% going to blame Oscar Meyer AND the pork farmers!

drawkbox• 13 years ago

They'll need to fix this, the content industry.

The deals about the contracts are one thing but the reason they are removed creates demand by exclusives. What kind of demand are you creating for someone that already owns it? Other than a demand for their money back?

Amazon needs to work out a deal with the content industry on this, so owning a movie doesn't apply to streaming false demand creation. Purchasers get to keep streaming when streaming rights aren't owned for a time.

voltagex_• 13 years ago

Why do "they" need to fix it? They seem to be doing quite well (sellers of digitally restricted media) and there's been no mainstream outcry.

I try to buy DRM-free where possible, but most of my friends don't care or don't know any better.

peterkelly2• 13 years ago

Because their current practice can only be described as fraud.

Despite what the fine print says (which I'm sure explains they're allowed to do this), most people are under the impression that they are buying a product, much like you would in the store.

To someone who believes they have bought/purchased something, it's like discovering that one day Amazon or Disney snuck into your home to steal your DVDs so they can re-sell them to you again next christmas. But then you read the fine print in the contract and realise that clause 14.2 (a) stated that they're allowed to do this.

The fix is for them to state "you will have access to this video for a period of 12 months" or similar.

wittekm• 13 years ago

You would think they'd have learned after that 1984 fiasco a couple of years ago - taking content away does not a happy customer make.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

Eh, they get to solidly blame Disney, and they issued a "generous credit". Violating Disney's copyright on a commercial scale could possibly result in criminal actions. I doubt anyone at Amazon wants to risk a felony to keep some customers happy.

rwbhn• 13 years ago

But - Amazon shouldn't be offering to let you "buy" it if those are Disney's terms.

o2sd98• 13 years ago

In the modern fascist plutocracy, the only effect you will ever have on the behaviour of corporations is through where you spend your money. The beast can only be starved, not tamed.

MichaelGG2• 13 years ago

Disney, as usual, is the idiotic one in this case. Amazon admitted fault and gave a large credit. The OP should just torrent the movie if it really was interfering with his plans (although ignoring Disney is a better choice). While my kids (5 & 7) are content to use Netflix and Amazon most of the time[1], they know a full download is only a quick search away. To them there's no real difference except a slight inconvenience.

Explaining why Netflix only shows certain shows depending on proxy status (quick colored icons in Chrome), and why sometimes they'll force a show in Spanish or Portuguese and not English, and why other times they force subtitles -- it comes off as insane.

1: My main gripe with Netflix is the lack of parental controls. I'd love to be able to stupid kids show. I'd prefer them watching 16+ rated movies with good plot than some of the junk that's churned out for "kids". That and the fact that rendering quality/control is sub-par.

PeterisP3• 13 years ago

There is only one fix - storage is cheap, so everything I've should get ripped to a DRM free format stored locally (and backed up), where nothing can ever 'take it back'. If it's not a rental, then nothing should prevent my access to that content. Definitely not the wishes of the content provider - their rights to control that copy ended at the first sale. Want to shut down some online service? Want to go bankrupt and cease operations? Not valid reasons for me to lose my content.

I've got music on vinyl from my grandfather. Even if copyright goes/stays de facto eternal, I see no reason why I shouldn't pass on all to my grandchildren all the music, books and movies that I ever bought, even if I got them as nonphysical files.

NoPiece• 13 years ago

Except with technologies like Cinavia watermarking now intruding, DRM free rips may not actually be DRM free. That may keep your grandchildren from viewing some of your content.

PeterisP3• 13 years ago

Watermarking is not DRM - any playing software that 'respects' watermarking (or, say, region locking) and lets it interfere with content playback is simply defective.

That's why it's cruicial to have proper libre software tools for media decoding. If someone wants to implement defective-by-design features that don't do what the user wishes, then we must have the ability to destroy such features on our computing devices.

stefan_kendall• 13 years ago

Well. I think it's time I stop checking legit outlets before going to piracy.

So much hassle. So much bullshit.

brudgers2• 13 years ago

If the author experienced this personally. he should probably have paid more attention to what Corey Doctorow has been saying in recent years.

jacalata• 13 years ago

You did notice the byline, right? I think this guy takes Doctorows work pretty seriously.

brudgers2• 13 years ago

Sorry, but only a craphound would expect a complaint made on "Boing Boing" to be taken seriously.

mhogomchungu• 13 years ago

Nobody rents a house and then go around using the word "own" and "buy" when describing their access to the house.

There is a difference btw "buying" and "renting" and most people know the difference.Renting is usually accompanied with reoccurring payments while buying usually entails a one time payment and i think the fundamental disconnect is here.

These kinds of confusion will go away when people start using proper terms to describe possession of entities they exchange money for,that PS4 you got by exchanging money for,you dont "own" it,you "rented" it from sony and as a renter,you are to use it only as they allow you to.

The fact that you rented it with a one time upfront payment does not mean you bought/purchased it.These tech journalists will do people a favor if they start explaining this distinction to people.

ps: not hating on sony or PS4,just used them as an example,it could be anything especially if its in digital form.

mjn• 13 years ago

It should be on the seller/landlord to describe the transaction properly, though, not only the buyer/renter. If someone offers to "sell" me a house but actually they are only renting it to me, that would be... misleading at best.

prawn• 13 years ago

Why not hate on Sony? If you aren't physically buying the console for whatever duration you wish to keep it, screw them.

rahimnathwani• 13 years ago

Not really relevant to the main discussion, but directly counter to your comment "Nobody rents a house and then go around using the word "own" and "buy" when describing their access to the house.":

In the UK, we have a situation which appears strange to most people when they first come across it: the vast majority of flats (apartments) are 'sold' on a leasehold basis. An individual or company may own the freehold (the building and the ground below), whilst the 'owners' of the individual flats have 99-year or 150-year leases.

The freeholder collects annual ground rent (maybe 200-300 GBP per year per flat) and is reimbursed for costs of managing the building (e.g. for building insurance, repainting common areas etc.).

I may 'own a flat' but in reality my right to occupy it has an expiry date. (I realise you referred to 'house' rather than 'flat'.)

steven777400• 13 years ago

A year or two ago I got a Vudu capable device and poked around in their video rental and "purchasing" options. Same thing. In the fine print they retain the right to suspend access to any "purchased" content for, essentially, any reason or any length of time.

Unlike some others, I do blame Amazon for this. Amazon knows what the average person thinks the word "buy" (instead of rent) means, and then acts distinctly counter to that understanding. It's a bad-faith action.

ithurtswhenIPv6• 13 years ago

You are buying a (revocable) licence to the media.

I think it's ridiculous but the 'rent' vs 'buy' discussion is pure semantics.

lambda• 13 years ago

I don't understand why you are dismissing it as "pure semantics." Semantics is the fundamental meaning of words. If you advertise "buy", but the license is is more akin to "rent", then that's lying. If you lie to someone, they won't be very amused if you say "well, 'truth' and 'falsehood' is just pure semantics."

You wouldn't say that you are "buying a revokable license to live in an apartment" when you sign a lease. You would say that you are renting. Why does it suddenly become buying if it's a digital good?

derleth• 13 years ago

the 'rent' vs 'buy' discussion is pure semantics.

All truth in advertising laws are about 'pure semantics' if that's how you choose to refer to those kinds of distinctions. That doesn't make truth in advertising any less important.

PeterisP3• 13 years ago

It's not pure semantics, since your advertising is part of the 'deal' offered. If you say 'buy it here now!', you can't claim that it's some revocable licence, that's illegal bait and switch.

If you say 'buy a sofa now, free shipping!' and later claim that I got a revocable, time-limited licence to use that sofa, then in consumer protection laws that is perfect legal grounds to either say 'screw you, I bought it and your fine print is null and void', or request all my money back. It should be the same for digital content - permanent and with ability to transfer/resale, just as for books.

dubcanada• 13 years ago

What would you much rather them say? Click here to pay for something that could vanish in unknown amount of time and isn't yours?

x0x02• 13 years ago

since that is the truth: yes

PhasmaFelis3• 13 years ago

Yeah, that'd work for me. If you have to lie to do business, then you shouldn't do business.

RexRollman• 13 years ago

That's why I personally feel that companies shouldn't be allowed to use the word "buy" for this kind of thing. It should say "license media" or something like that. I also feel there should be some kind of legal requirement for companies to provide continued access for at least 10 to 15 years (or barring that, require the company to provide a way the unlock the item permanently).

I hate DRM. My personal rule of thumb is: if you can't resell it, then you didn't really ever own it.

farginay• 13 years ago

When I was a kid Consumer Protection legislation actually existed. We can fix this and we should. I wonder whether any particular member of Congress is more amenable to this than others?

mortenjorck• 13 years ago

This is why I've bought almost all my music digitally for the past six years, yet have never "bought" a movie that wasn't on a disc or a book that wasn't made of dead trees.

For some reason, content providers became amenable last decade to letting people buy digital music without a leash attached to it, but still have yet to come to the same enlightenment on other media. I don't understand it.

codereflection• 13 years ago

Me too. Technically you don't buy a copy of a movie from Amazon in this way, you're buying a conditional license to watch the movie. What you said is true. If you cannot resell your copy, you don't actually own it.

Daiz• 13 years ago

Yep, this is the future that we are buying into by supporting companies that offer nothing but DRM'd streams. While they are dishonestly marketing that stuff as "buying" media, in reality you're just indefinitely renting it, and could lose it at any time. This is why I recommend to never exchange money for individual titles like this - if you're going to pay for DRM'd streams, at least pay for something like Netflix that rents out its whole catalog for one (monthly) price.

The saddest thing about this whole ordear is that, generally speaking, you can't even genuinely buy digital video - as-in, you can't buy DRM-free downloads. The only way to actually own something is to either buy a physical copy and strip it of DRM or to pirate it, and that's a sad state of being. Digital media could be so much more, yet it's completely stuck under physical media. And you pretty much can't even disrupt this in any realistic manner, because the gatekeepers will never let you.

null_ptr• 13 years ago

Didn't Amazon recently (in the past year or so) remove the ability to download a copy of the video you bought to any device, not only to Kindles?

dangrossman3• 13 years ago

They didn't remove it, but they made it darned hard to find. You have to install the Amazon Unbox app, which is truly terrible and outdated, update some licensing components in Windows Media Player through Internet Explorer, then it'll download a DRM-locked WMV of a movie you "purchased". You can do this a limited number of times per purchase.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

I purchase media often now with the advent of Steam - but people wonder why other people pirate? It's these bullshit lock in mechanisms. Why bother paying when you can just click a button and have it in HD on your hard drive to play whenever and wherever you like?

Note that I don't condone piracy, but I understand where these guys are coming from. I used to pirate when I was 14, but now I just buy things on Steam because it's soooooo much easier to just tap the Buy button and have it just work.

zan5hin• 13 years ago

Actually Disney removed access, Amazon is just the bearer of the unfortunate news.

interpol_p• 13 years ago

Amazon agreed to terms that allows Disney to behave in a manner upsetting to their customers.

Sure, Disney might not have signed on otherwise, but sometimes I wish Amazon, Netflix et al. would put up a tougher fight for pro-consumer rules on their platforms.

dangrossman3• 13 years ago

Amazon allowed Disney to remove access. You'll never see a company telling Amazon to recall physical goods it mailed out to people (without compensation no less).

res0nat0r• 13 years ago

Thats because Apple and other physical goods companies don't have a rider in their contracts with Amazon stating they can somehow force Amazon's customers to return their physical purchases. The contract they have with Disney allows Disney to do just that if they please.

peterkelly2• 13 years ago

The way things are going, I wouldn't be so sure.

crystaln• 13 years ago

Is this really for a "purchase"? Seems to me it's pretty fundamentally fraudulent to offer for purchase something without the authority to sell it.

This means that, at any time, any movie you "purchased" can be removed from your library indefinitely, without credit.

This completely changes how I feel about buying movies at Amazon, and makes me feel justified in switching to torrent. Until now I haven't had a problem paying for content, however if the rights of a purchase have been eroded this much, my mind is changed.

jmount• 13 years ago

Cory Doctorow always is posting about Disney. It is usually slavishly, fawningly positive and inconsistent with his public politics. But still no lesson seems to be learned here.

msabalau• 13 years ago

As Anita Sarkeesian observes, it is possible to enjoy something while also being critical of it’s problematic aspects.

paulgb• 13 years ago

More to the point, who wants to explain to their kids that they aren't allowed to watch Disney movies because of their dad's "public politics" (as right as those politics may be)

dangrossman3• 13 years ago

I wonder what's fundamentally different about music and movies that led to DRM-free albums but didn't lead there for online movie distribution. I still have a couple dozen songs on a backup drive somewhere that I outright purchased in the early 2000s that can no longer be played as the "Buy.com Music" servers no longer exist to authenticate their PlaysForSure DRM.

jfoster• 13 years ago

It could be that there was so many different ways to listen to music: PC, iPod, non-iPod MP3 player, car stereo, burnt to CD. The DRM on music felt crippling.

There is not as many ways that people watch movies, though.

Still, if this type of revocation becomes a lot more common (the movie studios wouldn't do this for just one movie ever) then the same might eventually happen with movies. Once people feel crippled enough by the DRM, there will be push-back.

x0x02• 13 years ago

a guess: studios realized leaving drm on for music meant perpetual apple lock-in for consumers. Eg my so has several thousand songs that before drm removal could only be listened to on an ipod.

kabdib2• 13 years ago

A couple weekends ago we tried to watch a movie on the Microsoft Zune service (hey, we have an Xbox). It didn't work. After half an hour of futzing around we watched a DVD instead.

I won't buy an e-book unless I know I can somehow get the content DRM-free. If Amazon ever makes it seriously hard to de-DRM its books, they've lost a customer (and I buy a lot of books).

joenathan• 13 years ago

The Zune video service has be retired, Xbox video has replaced it.

kabdib2• 13 years ago

I think that's what I meant. Still didn't work :-)

jaaron• 13 years ago

I've worked in online video. This isn't Amazon's fault, this is standard contractual language all the studios put in.

All content is windowed and when something goes out of window, the video service cannot distribute it, even to customers who previously purchased it. The way around this is to notify the customers when content is going out of window and encourage them to download the content ahead of time. The video service can still serve licenses to unlock the DRM for the content, but cannot distribute the content itself. So if the customer has a digital backup of the file, they can still watch it even if it's DRM'd.

It sucks. It really, really sucks. It's a hold-over of language written when everyone thought digital video meant files not streams and there's not much any online video service can do. Maybe Apple, Amazon or Walmart are big enough to reverse this trend, but any other smaller service will have trouble.

PhasmaFelis3• 13 years ago

As long as Amazon willingly allows the "buyer" to believe a falsehood, then yes, they share in the blame.

DerpDerpDerp• 13 years ago

I mean, I'm not going to bother doing that.

I'll just pirate it on demand if they're going to try to make me jump through hoops trying to give them money.

It's really up to the media companies if they want my money on reasonable terms or they don't.

chaz• 13 years ago

I don't think this comment deserves its downvotes. Rights holders get 70% of the revenue and they pretty much set all of the terms. Disney in particular has arguably the most valuable content portfolio in the world and has tremendous influence. If Amazon, Apple, and Google didn't want the terms, the licenses wouldn't have been struck, and we'd probably be shopping for these kinds of videos at atrocities like imedia.disney.com and sony-evideostation.com.

The only reason why this is happening is because online sales is still a very small portion of their total revenue. Check out slide #31 of this deck [x]. EST = electronic sell-through ("buying" a movie/show), and it's completely dwarfed by the other channels. (FYI: BD=Blu-Ray, VoD/PPV = cable rentals). So rights holders can screw over their tiny, small-revenue user base in exchange to keep the larger ones happy and profitable.

Also, the consumer reaction will be largely inelastic. No matter how bitter Corey Doctorow is bitter at Amazon and Disney, he's going to still going to buy/rent/pirate the content because his kids will want to watch it. This is why Disney is so powerful.

In the next decade or so, as consumers continue to shift their viewing habits, we'll start seeing the options be more consumer-friendly and probably cheaper. Remember it took the music industry 10-15 years from the rise of MP3s to today's DRM-free iTunes, VEVO, and Spotify options. Hulu didn't come around until 2008, so I think we're probably at about year 6.

[x] http://www.slideshare.net/mpalank101/2012-state-of-media-pre...

perlpimp• 13 years ago

Software As Service slowly eroding its credibility as something reliable and being there for you whatever happens. As it happend with twitter and developers who had access to Twitter API, just like with Gmail disabling access to facebook's 'find your friends feature'.

It seems that SAS companies treat their end user as a cannon fodder and enlist them as bystanders who have consigned to suffer through everyone of their whims. What is eroding is trust people in SAS, which can be bad in variety of ways.

But then when you have your data on someone else's server it is not yours to have anymore, nevermind legal rights - which are very expensive and difficult to defend.

my 2c

chinpokomon• 13 years ago

To be fair, using consumers as fodder happens in other situations that aren't SaS. Consider the content fights of DirecTV. The problem comes down to how intellectual property has become defined as a license instead of outright ownership. Digital rights have been significantly eroded over the past decade.

danbmil99• 13 years ago

Here are two relevant passages from their EULA/TOS. The TL;DR: download your content to avoid getting fucked.

e. Availability of Purchased Digital Content . Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may become unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions and for other reasons, and Amazon will not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming. You may download and store your own copy of Purchased Digital Content on a Compatible Device authorized for such download so that you can view that Purchased Digital Content if it becomes unavailable for further download or streaming from the Service.

f. Downloading and Risk of Loss. If you plan to download Digital Content that you purchase or rent, we encourage you to do so promptly after your purchase or rental. If you are unable to complete a download after having reviewed our online help resources, please contact Amazon customer service. Once you purchase or rent Digital Content and we make the Digital Content available to you, you are responsible for completing the download, if you choose to download, and for all risk of loss of the Digital Content after download.

source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

Amazon takes away access to purchased Christmas movie during Christmas

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