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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

#211

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

ghaff wrote: post #194
ademup wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning music is made much more difficult now that the ability to use it has been greatly diminished. Many new cars don't even come with CD players. Sure, there are work arounds, but I think that moves us beyond a measure of "convenience".

>>the ability to use it has been greatly diminished Really? I have tons of music ripped from CDs on my iPhone and I can trivially play that in my car. I have CD players in my car (which I never use) and attached to my stereo (which I rarely use). It's not that the ability to play CDs (or rip them and play them) has been diminished but a lot of people prefer to just use a streaming service. I'll grant that many people…

Which you're now being tracked when you listen to that iPod. You've made yourself the product

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

#212

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

amelius wrote: post #197
lrvick wrote: post #57

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…

> We got scammed. This is what happens when a technology enters the mainstream. Average people don't care about the same things that tech-people care about. See eternal September as another example. Eventually the market always serves the "average" client best, and the more demanding people (which are usually the early adopters of a technology) aren't served so well.

Wrong tech is a tool. Those pushing this are at fault, this is not just what happens as a natural course of technology adoption

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

#213

Post by BoorishBears »

BruiseLee wrote: post #207
cblconfederate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a bank marketing itself as "No reasonable consumer would believe that their deposits will remain in the bank indefinitely" This is a really awe-inspiring, a complete rejection of the concept of ownership

Actually that is correct in many countries (including US). After a period of inactivity (typically 3-5 years) the bank is required to turn over the money from inactive accounts to the state. This process is called escheatment. I'm not joking.

Only on HN would you need to specify "active account" for such a clear cut analogy. Two replies and both are picking that nit.

Apple is admitting regardless of activity, studios can revoke their license to content, removing content from your active account

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

#214

Post by fsflover »

ghaff wrote: post #194
ademup wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning music is made much more difficult now that the ability to use it has been greatly diminished. Many new cars don't even come with CD players. Sure, there are work arounds, but I think that moves us beyond a measure of "convenience".

>>the ability to use it has been greatly diminished Really? I have tons of music ripped from CDs on my iPhone and I can trivially play that in my car. I have CD players in my car (which I never use) and attached to my stereo (which I rarely use). It's not that the ability to play CDs (or rip them and play them) has been diminished but a lot of people prefer to just use a streaming service. I'll grant that many people…

> I have tons of music ripped from CDs

Are you suggesting that it's a simple and convenient thing to do for the public?

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

#215

Post by rakoo »

lmilcin wrote: post #165
lrvick wrote: post #57

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…

> We got scammed. Well, depends on how you look at it and how comfortable you are forgetting about how it looked before you could buy online. I pay for convenience which is a service rather than tangible good. If I need a book for my research, I would prefer to have access to it immediately rather than wait two weeks to get it from overseas. My time is valuable and the pause on the project or inconvenience of not hav…

Yes but that's not the same thing. You're arguing in the "physical/digital" debate and I believe evryone will agree that digital is better in most cases. Physically owning something is nice for the memorabilia and for those who still have DVD/CD players but that's not the biggest use case.

The topic here is DRM vs non-DRM'd media. It's orthogonal to the topic of physicality: you can have DRM'd physical media (think Google Nest) and you can have non-DRM'd digital media.

Switching back to the convenience of using digital instead of physical is a disservice to the discussion because it switches the focus on something that is totally unrelated and makes people believe that those who prefer non-DRM'd media are somehow reluctant to adopting streaming platform. I definitely see the convenience of it: I barely have any music files on my computer, I stream it all from Youtube or Soundcloud or Bandcamp. And like you I have spent MUCH more money on artists now that I can stream them than when I bought CDs. But when I want to get the files for offline use I know I'm in good hands because those platforms allow me to do it and have files I can use forever without ever reconnecting to the mothership.

So, to come back the initial point: yes we got scammed, because we didn't read the fine print. We didn't understand that DRM'd media is never bought, it's always rented. We switched from buy-it-for-life to subscribe-until-the-platform-dies

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

#216

Post by josephcsible »

soneil wrote: post #63
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…

While I personally agree, ownership should be explicit - their defence isn't as silly as it looks. "reasonable belief" is an actual mechanism in english law (the system, not the nation), and the learned behaviours of "buy it on Kindle", "buy it on Steam", etc, do support it. It's essentially the "times have changed" argument; that the common nomenclature for "purchase a non-exclusive license with no fixed term" is "b…

When you rent something, you're supposed to be told very clearly up front when your last day when the thing is.

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

#217

Post by jurassic »

After discovering a favorite album of mine got dropped from the Spotify catalog, I feel a strong impulse to return to physical media. But first I have to decide on which audio components to get. Thinking back, I think I had a much stronger emotional response to albums I specifically chose and invested in than the ones the algorithm chose and automatically played for me. Lately with streaming I listen more and enjoy it less.

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

#218

Post by Cyph0n »

thought_alarm wrote: post #137
fxtentacle wrote: post #94

I fully agree with this lawsuit. I felt OK with "purchasing" movies from Apple at the Blu-Ray retail price, because I was under the impression that my files remain mine so that if I backup them correctly, I can watch the movie later. By now, I know that this isn't the case. If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have paid full price for a limited digital copy. Instead, I would have purchased the Blu-Ray which - if you tr…

If you purchase and download a movie you can copy it, back it up, and watch it whenever you want as many times as you want. The lawsuit is about repeated downloads and streaming after the copyright owner has removed the movie for sale.

But can you copy a movie out of iTunes onto, say, an external HD? I thought Apple used DRM for purchased media.

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

#219

Post by rootusrootus »

The terminology probably should be clarified so laypeople do not misunderstand. My own policy is I don't buy anything digitally, I only rent it or subscribe to the service for as long as I want it. That way I won't be sad when I lose access to 'purchased' content because I never had any expectation of indefinite access to it.

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

#220

Post by red_trumpet »

lrvick wrote: post #57

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…

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/488/
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