Not everything you buy is actually yours to keep.-Amazon blocks videos already bought by customers.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Disney has decided to pull access to several purchased Christmas videos from Amazon during the holiday season, as the movie studio wants its TV-channel to have the content exclusively.
Affected customers have seen their videos disappear from their online libraries, showing once again that not everything you buy is actually yours to keep.

Disney’s decision to make certain Christmas videos unavailable on Amazon is because they want people to tune in to their TV channel instead. This ban is not limited to new customers and includes those who already purchased the videos.

One of the affected customers of Disney’s restrictive policy is Bill, who informed BoingBoing that the Christmas themed ‘Disney Prep & Landing’ he bought for his kids last year had been pulled from his library.

“Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and ‘at this time they’ve pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.’ In other words, Amazon sold me a Christmas special my kids can’t watch during the run up to Christmas,” Bill notes.
“It’ll be available in July though!” he adds.

http://torrentfreak.com/amazon-pulls-access-to-purchased-christmas-videos-during-christmas-131216/

Another reason the cloud concept is not good.

[Vashta Nerada]

1. I hope a lawsuit can come from this.

Whenever someone buys something, it should be their's, no matter what.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. As I keep explaining to people

it isn't "digital rights management", it is "consumer rights denial".

[Vashta Nerada]

14. If I spend $14.99 for a downloaded video, it better damn well be there tomorrow or 50 years from now

Consumers have no rights in this country.



I remember Amazon.com doing stuff like this to people who purchased "1984" and a few other books a few years ago. Absolutely sickening.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. I had read of a woman whose books were deleted from her cloud.

Amazon was pissed at her for some stupid reason, they banned her account AND "took back" her books, cause she left them in the cloud.

I dunno know if you can copy and then move movies you download from Amazon
but I do know you copy and file Nook and Kindle books.
So far, anyhow.

And I know " the cloud" is not in my control, therefore I avoid it.

[sendero]

36. Seriously..

... a DVD copy of a movies costs sometimes LESS than a cloud copy.

If I can watch something for $5 or less I don't care. But if it more than that and I have any prospect of wanting to see it again, I buy a copy on DVD or BluRay.

I'll never understand why anyone would trust the "cloud". If it is something like a book, perhaps you should copy it to your local drive. Space is cheap when you can buy a terabyte for less than $100

[arcane1]

54. But, but, but if your house burns down, you'll still have your movies!

That's been the mantra from all of my must-have-the-next-new-thing cloud enthusiast friends.

[Kelvin Mace]

38. Consumers only have rights when they exercise them

otherwise...

Disney pretty much owns copyright law in this country. Every time Mickey Mouse is about to go into the public domain, Disney gets the laws re-written to extend the copyright.

[Shampoobra]

41. Amazon deleted 8 minutes from the series finale of The Office after I purchased it

I bought the final season, watched the season finale - 52 minutes - then started the season again from the beginning. Weeks later, when I was caught up to the final episode, it was 44 minutes long.

The full story here:
A friendly warning: Don’t be too quick to get rid of all those DVDs and Blu-rays

[dixiegrrrrl]

46. I am shocked by your experience

but somehow not surprised.
When I saw the trend towards streaming,esp. when amazon was so happy to SELL you content that they retained in their cloud, it was obvious who had control.
did not occur to me they would actually rip you off like that, tho.
I hope you wrote a review on the movie web page.

Luckily for me, Linux and a slow dsl have kept me from being tempted to stream.

I am going back and kick your original post.

[Shampoobra]

47. I think the trick is to just use the digital content as a compliment to a physical collection

It's still a great addition to a long bus ride, to be able to watch a downloaded movie or episode on a tablet while wearing headphones. Amazon has dampened my enthusiasm for buying more of this content, but it's nice to own the collection I now have (assuming they'll continue to reimburse me in the future, whenever they vandalize the stuff I've already paid for).

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. You are one of the few people I have heard say that here.

Hope more folks start paying attention to the DRM scam and figure out it is a form of invasive media censorship.
Love all the attention that the NSA spying is getting, would like to see more attention on the DRM issues.

[Kelvin Mace]

39. Agreed

We need sensible copyright law:

25 years, with an option to renew for five years up to five times.

1st renewal costs 10% of all revenue generated from copyright in the previous 5 years.
2nd renewal costs 20% of all revenue generated from copyright in the previous 5 years.
3rd renewal costs 30% of all revenue generated from copyright in the previous 5 years.
4th renewal costs 40% of all revenue generated from copyright in the previous 5 years.
5th renewal costs 50% of all revenue generated from copyright in the previous 5 years.

After 50 years, the copyright expires and the work goes into the public domain.

[Orrex]

32. I don't care to slog through Amazon's terms of use, but...

Do they include some fine-print provision along the lines of "access to contact may be preempted or interrupted due to circumstances beyond the control of Amazon?" I imagine that they would almost have to include this or a similar disclaimer, and it seems that such a disclaimer would cover situations like this.

:shrug;

[msongs]

2. if you can watch it on your computer you can make a copy of it. end of story. nt

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Except that some courts have interpreted that to violate

the DMCA and you could be prosecuted, or sued in civil court.

[al bupp]

16. There is almost no way to enforce those provisions of the DMCA

A movie or song, once digitally copied, cannot be monitored for use. Just don't make the copies available to others.

[seattledo]

57. Exactly. No way I'm going to prison...

just to be able to rewatch a movie.

[Sanity Claws]

3. This is truly outrageous

Did Amazon tell customers told that the purchase was conditional on Disney not pulling the video without warning? If not, then we have the basis of a class action.

As for Disney, they got a royalty payment from the sale of the video. What the fuck is their problem?

Another example of corporations exerting too much power in our lives.

[mike_c]

6. if you buy something, then give someone else exclusive possession of it...

...isn't that just asking for trouble? I suppose it depends upon how trusting you are. In any event, if I wanted to insure access to a video I've bought, I'd insist on making a copy. Disney can't keep purchasers from dropping their DVD into the slot.

[sharp_stick]

7. I guess the pulling

from people who'd already bought the video was an accident and they only meant to pull it from new purchases. Apparently it is now available again for those who'd purchased it earlier.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/16/amazon-disney-christmas-tv-special-prep-and-landing

[Egnever]

23. of course it was

I am quite sure people will ignore this though and continue with the hair on fire cloud bad thing.

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. Note: what Amazon says in that article, and what customers say

seem to be 2 different things.

To wit:
"One customer told the blog Boing Boing that the company gave him a different reason: "Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and 'at this time they've pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.'"

Now that there have been several incidences of amazon stealing stuff from customers, it would be prudent to consider how to protect digital purchases.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

8. The cloud concept is just fine for many things. It is needing more control

And both consumer groups and companies need to arrive at workable solutions.

I could see this flap having been started by Apple or other competitors. However, this situation is untenable and needs to be dealt with legally so copyright holders cannot hold hostage your ability to access to things you've purchased for their own self interest.

[sharp_stick]

9. An Addendum To My Previous Reply

Of course nothing stops Amazon, or Vudu, or any other streaming service from changing the rules as this from Amazon Instant Video Terms of Service.

"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."

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

It looks like your only recourse is to actually download it if you really want to keep it.

[ZombieHorde]

10. Property/ownership isn't a real thing,

so it is whatever people with influence says it is.

[hunter]

18. Not "influence" but power.

[ZombieHorde]

26. What's the difference?

Can someone have lots of one without the other?

[hobbit709]

11. If there's a movie I want, I buy it outright on DVD.

[JCMach1]

12. What is this DVD you speak of?

Haven't bought a DVD, or CD in a decade...

srsly

[loudsue]

20. I won't buy stuff any other way.

But, then again, I'm old fashioned. And I also don't have the kinds of problems that disney/amazon might dump on me.

[hobbit709]

21. Same reason I buy books

If I have the actual item, they can't keep me from using what I paid for. If my hard drive crashes, I still have the physical media to recreate it from.

[JCMach1]

42. CD's and DVDs are volatile... not as bad as a cassette tape, but bad over time

Digital and Vinyl are all I do these days...

[hobbit709]

44. Everything is volatile. Something can screw up magnetic media of any type.

You can scratch the vinyl. I don't believe in keeping my data in the cloud where your access can be blocked in a number of ways.
I put all my videos on a hard drive and I have more than one backup of everything. Counting music and movies/TV shows/etc I have close to 2 Terabytes worth of data files.

[MadrasT]

15. +1

[el_bryanto]

13. From a website called Torrent Freak?

I'm guessing that is a website that advocates only acquiring media through legal channels and is anti Piracy?

Bryant

[progressoid]

29. Heh,

yeah, I noticed that too.

[SwankyXomb]

34. Despite the silly name

Torrent Freak is a decent source for news about file sharing and torrenting.

[el_bryanto]

35. It's not a matter of a silly name - torrents are regularly used to steal copy written work nt

[Humanist_Activist]

50. So is HTTP, FTP, Newsgroups, etc.

Torrents are also used by many people and companies to legitimately share and download many different items.

[FreeJoe]

17. Great example of needed regulation

We need to apply the "first sale doctrine" to consumer software, e-book sales, mp3 sales, etc. I understand that we are not "buying" these things when we get them online; we are "licensing" them. Well that's bullshit. The button says "Buy it now", not "license it now". No one thinks of it as a license.

Here's my proposal. Any time a consumer "buys" (regardless of whether you call it a licence) digital content, they OWN one copy of that content. They can sell it or transfer it. You can offer to buy it back from them, but you can't just take it away. Figure out a way to make that work in your DRM schemes.

[Egnever]

25. totally agree

Legislation is sorely lacking on many fronts when it comes to our new digital world. My big concern with that is most of the legislators are digital idiots. The legislation attempts they have made so far have been incredibly hamfisted and often totally counterproductive.

[FreeJoe]

28. This is why...

...several people I know use software to make a backup copy of the books that they buy on their Kindle.

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. That is why the big push to streaming

The content source nevers leaves the company.
Netflix, Amazon, etc.

soon downloading books will be impossible, they will force people to log on and read only from a cloud source.
Only reason they have not done it by now is that selling hard copies of movies and books is still lucrative.

[WinkyDink]

31. There's a reason it's called a "cloud." Ephemeral; impossible to grasp.

[Egalitarian Thug]

53. "Regulation" is how this came to be. This is simply the corporate kleptocracy doing some

of the things all the whiners gave them the power to do in a previous paroxysm of stupid that swept through the barren wasteland that is the authoritarian mind.

[MADem]

27. That sucks. Give me a disk. Or a thumb drive. Or anything solid that doesn't require

connecting to the net.

A "back up" in a cloud is fine, but people oughta be able to make their own copies.

And when you're dealing with greedy pigs like Disney, that should be the first thing anyone does!

[AtheistCrusader]

33. Idiots. Just fucking count the online views as ratings for the Disney channel. Done.

Oooooh, advertisements, right.

[quinnox]

37. Amazon has an "Unbox" player for the PC, where you can download videos you have bought

I don't think they would try and mess with that anyway. So that is one way to stop this nonsense, just download your videos.

[Glassunion]

40. Well technically, you don't own movies or music after you buy it.

You buy a license. You can buy, sell, or lend it, but you don't own the music or movie. You are licensed to do certain things with it. Hence all of those FBI warnings and whatnot about copying or distributing, even without profit.

You know how The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews, Phish, Metallica, etc... allow recordings at their live concerts? You are free to record, and distribute that music, as long as it is not for profit. These bands all have a license contract where they had to sign away their rights to the performance that they were about to have. Kind of idiotic, but this was to protect the concert goer from being sued by the record label, who own the original physical recording, so that the person at the show could freely distribute that particular recording.

[El_Johns]

43. This is an issue with all digital media -- including e-books, kindle, etc. You don't really "own"

anything. The corporation can take it back, revise it, etc. at nearly any time. Plus you don't have any of the rights of traditional ownership -- loaning the item to someone, selling it, etc.

[mmonk]

45. My family was wondering why the old Monk series we purchased is now "expiring".

[Egalitarian Thug]

48. But, but, but, stealing from the artists!

America, wake up and quit being the biggest suckers on earth, please.

Signed,
The Rest of Us

[jsr]

49. +1.

[Humanist_Activist]

51. I don't buy anything that I can't download onto my local computer and use, DRM-free, the...

model used at GOG would be a great idea for movies and music.

[arcane1]

52. The Cloud can BITE ME!

Fuck this scam where I purchase something, then have to pay a monthly fee to watch it or listen to it.

[bobclark86]

55. Protest the digital revolution! Buy Physical!

Oh, nooo! The DVD takes up too much space!!!

That's why I only buy actual CDs, DVDs and records.

[Politicalboi]

56. I tried Amazon free for a month

I only paid to see The Walking Dead a few times, but everything else I watched was free. If I had not canceled my membership, they would have charged me $79.00 for I don't know what. I guess maybe it was a year long thing and I could watch all those shitty free movies for the whole year. I have Netflix and Hulu, I have plenty of other free shitty movies I can watch without paying $79.00. I never downloaded movies, so this doesn't effect me. I use Steam to download games, and never had a problem.