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Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

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Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#51

Post by ArnoVW »

hyperman1 wrote: post #25
senko wrote: post #6

I've seen the phrase "Own it in {HD/BluRay/4K}" so many times and always cringe. You're just owning a limited license ( extremely limited, in the case of digital goods) to watch. The average HN user can spot the difference and say "of course you don't own it, and in case of streaming, you only have access for as long as the service is around", but that's not what the average consumer sees. "Buy" and "own" have very s…

This 'of course you dont own it' is false. Compare with a book, which you can own. The law makes sure you stil can't distribute limitless copies, even if you own it. But you can inherit a book, lend it out, be sure it stays around after the vendor would rather take it back, even swatting flies as a purposes it wasn't ment for. Licensing, and specifically the EULA, was popularized by Microsoft, to make sure you didn't…

Another way of looking at it is that you don't own the book neither. You have a licence, bound to a physical copy (that you own though, and that is transferable). The thing that changed in the last 20 years, is that we are now buying licences that are not even bound to physical copies, and that are expresly nominative.

I suspect that if books would have allowed this sort of mecanism (on a technical level) it would have been used. From the publisher point-of-view, it just makes sense.

The generation growing up now does not see media as an asset that they want to own for the rest of their lives, and they are perfectly happy paying 10€ / month for unlimited access to media. Hell we're having a hard enough time to get people to care about the planet in 20 years, so getting them to care about this is going to be a hard sell.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#52

Post by fighterpilot »

hyperman1 wrote: post #13

This seams the core of Apple's defence: Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely which is a flagrant difference between ownership of physical items and non-cloud items vs cloud items. This strikes at the root of our society's definition of ownership. Clarification should not depend on Apple, or even a court. This should be ens…

  > Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely
Pretty sure that many people would be led to believe that.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#54

Post by Brian_K_White »

senko wrote: post #17
onion2k wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen the phrase "Own it in {HD/BluRay/4K}" so many times and always cringe. You're just owning a limited license (extremely limited, in the case of digital goods) to watch. That's technically correct, but revoking the license for a specific DVD is effectively impossible. If you have the plastic disc you will be able to play it until the disc wears out. The same should be true for digital purchases, or the limita…

DVD regions limit where you can watch something. Performance rights limit to who you can show it. Copyright limits how you can distribute it. These kinds of things were happening before and are something we're accustomed to, but I agree DRM and the possibility to rescind access makes it much worse. That's why I'm a happy streaming subscriber. No lies there.

This is nothing at all like DVD region coding except in the intent of the perpetrators.

Region coding does not prevent me from buying and playing a disc from any region, in any region.

It's just a technical hurdle which works well enough for the publishers business model, in that the inconvenience has the desired effect on 99.9% of consumers.

But once I own the disc, I own the disc. Same for the player.

It's entirely and fundamentally different from anything delivered only as a service or worse as services masquerading as products, like software and devices that don't actually function without a service to allow it.

And the encryption is so pointless I forgot it even existed until just now.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#56

Post by rtsil »

simondotau wrote: post #5

you never really own them Controversial take, but does "buying" explicitly mean owning? You never really "own" a movie you buy on blu-ray either—you own the atoms , but not the content which is merely licensed to you as it is with a legal download. The difference between downloads and physical media is actually less characterised by ownership and more by perpetuity of access. The key benefit of blu-ray is that perpet…

The question here isn't ownership, it's possession.

> "Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely," writes [U.S. District Court Judge] Mendez. "But in common usage, the term 'buy' means to acquire possession over something. It seems plausible, at least at the motion to dismiss stage, that reasonable consumers would expect their access couldn’t be revoked."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/apple-must-face-la...

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#57

Post by lrvick »

Physical media lets you have privacy without logging when you watch media, what media you consume, how many times you consume it, or how long you consume it. You can enjoy it offline, and in 20 years long after the studio that licensed it is gone. You can give it to a friend or loan it out. Or sell it. It is yours.

Meanwhile DRM media we pay full price for, or if the content is only available via streaming we pay for it indefinitely. In neither case are we assured access a decade from now on different devices and we certainly don't get any privacy as studios track every second we consume. Worse, when big companies decide it is not profitable enough to keep "purchased" data around anymore, they just cut it loose.

Try opening a book from the Microsoft eBook store. It will fail because they closed down the DRM servers. The books stopped working. PlayStation 3 store? Wii store? Same story. You can no longer access your purchases.

Literally the only way to get the same freedoms with modern digital media we had with physical media, is piracy.

We got scammed.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#58

Post by lifeformed »

wiredfool wrote: post #26
hyperman1 wrote: post #13

This seams the core of Apple's defence: Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely which is a flagrant difference between ownership of physical items and non-cloud items vs cloud items. This strikes at the root of our society's definition of ownership. Clarification should not depend on Apple, or even a court. This should be ens…

So is the core of this issue that if I "buy" a movie on iTunes (say Kenneth Braunah's Henry V), and they lose the right to distribute it (as they did within the last year), I can no longer watch the movie?

And Apple is even calling you "unreasonable" for even believing that you could watch it in that situation.

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#59

Post by ctdonath »

gwd wrote: post #24
hyperman1 wrote: post #13

This seams the core of Apple's defence: Apple contends that '[n]o reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely which is a flagrant difference between ownership of physical items and non-cloud items vs cloud items. This strikes at the root of our society's definition of ownership. Clarification should not depend on Apple, or even a court. This should be ens…

My understanding WRT buying a movie on iTunes was: 1. If you download the movie, you will always have the ability to play the movie you downloaded . 2. As long as Apple has the rights to distribute the movie, you will be able to re-download it again 3. If Apple loses the rights, and you don't have your own backed up copy , it's lost. It's the same for Audible books; which is why I always d/l and backup any movie or b…

Good summary. Bought, you’re able to download and keep a copy. Only issue then is DRM and knowing where that file is (and being able to relocate it).

Re: Apple is sued for telling you that you're “buying” movies

#60

Post by ksec »

>When you buy a movie through iTunes, you don't actually own it. And that's a problem.

When you buy an iPhone through Apple, you don't actually own it. And that's a problem.

You can pretty much replace iPhone and Apple with any other modern tech with software though. Increasingly I am having an uneasy relationship with these modern tech. I want old tech that just shut up and work.

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