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You all remember just a few weeks ago when Sony ripped away a bunch of movies and TV shows people “owned”? This ad is on Amazon. You can’t “own” it on Prime. You can just access it until they lose the license. How can they get away with lying like this?
"I am altering the deal, pray I do not alter it further"
Are people really out here buying a media that can only be viewed through an app? If it's not a file that can be downloaded and viewed elsewhere then I'm definitely not going for it... Who am I kidding? The seas have always been the life for me landlubbers!!
Probably intentional so they can change the definition of "own"
So you refund me if you take it away?
The full context of the quote is, while yes, the prospect of the complete elimination of private property is terrifying for some people (even socialists), the idea is that in the future, you won't need to own anything and your life will be simpler and theoretically more fulfilling if we're not preoccupied with owning things and keeping up with the Joneses.
but you'll notice that it doesn't say "we'll own nothing and be happy". they're not willing to take the medicine they prescribe for you. they're part of the class that's destined to own everything.
It should be noted that Amazon was among the first to prove that buying isn't owning a few years ago when a book that many people had legally bought was automatically scrubbed feom devices. The title had been removed from the catalog, and any kindle which held it automatically removed it without the users concent, and they were given amazon store credit in return.
This would be illegal in most EU countries.
When they say "Own it now" they mean own it through Amazon Prime. I don't like it either but legally that is fine.
Imagine a book store in which you pay for a book, then the book stays on the shelf in their shop, but they have in database that you can rent it whenever you want from them. How is this ownership?
I am on the belief that once I buy something, let's say Spiderman No Way Home, on streaming services, I am entitled to download it offline from anywhere for my own Jellyfin.
No one, or even biggest corp, can change my view.
Downloading stuff like this for personal use is in fact perfectly legal in many countries
In some countries making a private copy isn't legal if copy protections are in place. Even if those copy protections are useless.
If only they allowed you to do it easily...
Well it is easy.
It's just they don't allow it.
One out of two ain't bad.
Even if you don't pay for it?
In Switzerland it technically is legal. Only hosting for others is illegal.
I used to buy movies on Amazon, assuming it worked like Steam does, where if Steam loses the license to sell it, you still have the ability to play it even if Steam isn't allowed to sell it.
Hell I still have access to the stuff I got back when Steam still sold movies (I honestly miss Steam movies...)
When people started telling me their copies of things they owned were no longer usable once Amazon stopped selling it, I stopped buying.
IF BUYING ISN'T OWNING PIRACY ISN'T STEALING!
I haven't ran into a situation where any of the digital copies of things I bought have been pulled. So I can't speak to what happened with your friends. But I will say that if you have any purchased digital copies of movies, you should at least setup Movies Anywhere and link all accounts you have. It isn't like how Steam will still allow you to download a pulled game. But it does give you copies of things on multiple sources once linked. So if you got something on Amazon, it would also be linked as "purchased" on other services like Vudu, YouTube/Play Movies, Apple, etc.. It won't apply to everything you have got but would likely cover most big name items.
It used to be marked with the old "Ultraviolet" branding, but when that was shutdown the basic underlying service was transferred to Movies Anywhere. Most of the time you can see which things would count because they have the MA logo. Not great for smaller releases and most shows won't be part of it (atm at least). Though some shows might also show up, as I have seen things from HBO and some other ones.
All that being said. You are very much correct about "buying isn't owning" these days. And even when there is something like MA, there are still thousands of movies and shows that will only ever get a digital "release" from torrents/P2P. Sad that some cool shit will never get a real HD re-master for Blu-ray (let alone streaming). I very much feel that studios should have at best a 10 year window to make whatever sales before the masters should be copied to public archives. If the studios won't do it, then there are more than plenty of people out there that would do the job for the love of keeping old media preserved and accessible. Also bullshit when I try to go the "legal" route and find a show on one service in HD but only in SD on others. It is pretty infuriating to see that in some cases I can only get like season 2 of something on say Vudu for example, but season 1 is seemingly exclusive to Amazon. And one is in HD and the other is only SD.
I looked at Movies Anywhere and
I did fail to mention it is US only (my bad in that). Though it could get expanded if it is popular enough and it can be pointed to as "reducing piracy." But international laws being complicated from nation to nation is also an issue, or at least something they might say. I haven't been out of the country since setting it up, so I am curious if I would need a VPN to access my licensed stuff. Maybe would work for folks that have made accounts in the past with VPN? Idk.
It does work with some very limited sets of shows. But like I said, they aren't really about that and the shows tend to be from studios like HBO. But not helpful for most anything other than movies.
It is a unified interface, but if I buy a MA labeled movie from say Vudu. It will also show-up in my iTunes, Microsoft, YouTube/Google Movies, Amazon, and of course MA. They have some additional connected services via Direct TV and Verizon, but I don't use those. But the point is that if I get it on one of the services I connected, they become available on all of them. Even when the UltraViolet service went down, I didn't lose the things I had bought. Though I think that Disney must have bought their connections and the UV stuff was migrated. Though I am not sure of those details. Either way it didn't lead to me losing anything.
It also does require that you periodically sign back into their site to re-connect each provider similar to how you have to sign back into other sites. But again, I at no point have lost access to what was in my account if I haven't signed in to re-verify. It isn't as cut and dry as having the physical discs or a torrented copy on a NAS. But it is still worth knowing about if you have "legit" copies. I really wish that there were a way to link my Plex account and be able to watch them in the same front-end as my local stuff though. But no way that is going to happen unless Plex completely stops supporting the Plex Server and works out deals to use APIs of stuff like Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, etc..
I just do the morally correct thing. Buy it, then pirate it so I really do own it forever. Inconvenient from a data storage perspective but the only simple solution I have on hand.
Sometimes I do what I call "time travelling" where I pirate first with the intention to buy later when it's cheaper.
Wouldn't call that piracy.
100%. That's a backup.
Or don't buy it, then pirate it.
Depends on what it is. I'll freeboot full priced games by well known companies that I don't want to support but smaller games from studios trying their heart out? I'm a sucker for chucking money at them.
You just can't see the microscopic "for" in "OWN IT ^for NOW"
this is why i still buy cds and dvds
I definitely do not value having lifetime access to 99.999% of the media I consume enough to have to deal with hoarding physical copies.
Yep. I still like owning Blu-ray’s for this reason. When I tell people I have a Blu-ray collection they make fun of me.
Because they control the FTC and any other regulatory agencies. It's called regulatory capture. The only other way they can be held accountable is through the pay to play court system which is biased towards them because they can drag it out until the other party gives up.
This is the answer.
All fed regulatory agencies are captured at this point.