
Amazon takes away access to purchased Christmas movie during Christmas - cdvonstinkpot
http://boingboing.net/2013/12/15/amazon-takes-away-access-to-pu.html
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RexRollman
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.

~~~
mortenjorck
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.

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PeterisP
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
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.

~~~
PeterisP
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.

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steven777400
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
You are buying a (revocable) licence to the media.

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

~~~
lambda
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?

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georgemcbay
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.

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MichaelGG
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.

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jessaustin
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
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!

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crystaln
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.

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perlpimp
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
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.

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drawkbox
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_
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.

~~~
peterkelly
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.

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mhogomchungu
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.

~~~
rahimnathwani
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'.)

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jaaron
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.

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

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danbmil99
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...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200026970)

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

~~~
paulgb
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)

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zan5hin
Actually Disney removed access, Amazon is just the bearer of the unfortunate
news.

~~~
dangrossman
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
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.

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dangrossman
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
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.

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

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

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

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wittekm
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.

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

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

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

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o2sd98
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.

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null_ptr
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?

~~~
dangrossman
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
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.

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

So much hassle. So much bullshit.

