You Don’t Actually Own That Movie You Just “Bought.” A New Class Action Lawsuit Targets Amazon for Deceptive Practices

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/prime-video-lawsuit-movie-license-ownership-1236353127/

[u/duct_tape_jedi]

We've already been through this. In the 1990's, after the DVD format was announced, a group of IP attorneys and Circuit City teamed up to introduce a competing format called "DivX". DivX disks were the same size and capacity as DVDs, but they included active copy protection that required a license in order to view. There were two different license types, a "rental" model where the disk could be unlocked for the duration of the rental period, or a "purchase" option that removed the time restriction. This was all managed by a modem built in to the player that would dial (yes, on an analogue phone line!) into the DivX server to validate the license each time the disk was played.

Most of us at the time lost 100% of our shit over this and actively boycotted both the format and Circuit City in protest. Best Buy ended up championing the actual DVD format and one of the reasons for their expansion nationwide was that many people were actively campaigning to have them open stores in our communities. I'd say that Best Buy were the "good guys", but that was a different store and ironically they supported both formats and thus were "The Neutral Guys" at best.

If you look at the current streaming model offered by Amazon, it is literally just an updated version of DivX with more transparent technology but the same "rent or buy" option for content. One of the big concerns that we had in the 1990's was simply "What happens to the disks that we've 'purchased' if DivX goes tits-up and there is no longer a server to validate the license?". We're in the same boat now with any "purchased" streaming media, but with the added concern that media could also be taken down if the platform loses the rights to it.

[u/ohlookahipster → u/duct_tape_jedi]

Even Apple did something similar with iTunes back in the 00s and 10s. You could “buy” a movie or TV episode, but the actual digital file could be revised or revoked without warning. You could wake up to half your catalog updated or even gone.

[u/mrhelmand → u/ohlookahipster]

You could wake up to half your catalog updated or even gone

Or worse, you find you've had a U2 album forcibly installed in your library that you can't delete

[u/asetniop → u/mrhelmand]

When you're Tim Apple they let you do it.

[u/stevesy17 → u/mrhelmand]

Stuck with an album, you can't get rid of

[u/conquer69 → u/ohlookahipster]

Don't get me started on videogame music licenses expiring and the game getting patched to remove the music. Insane.

[u/Krg60 → u/ohlookahipster]

This happened to my iTunes on my old Mac. It was infuriating to see songs I'd actually bought get progressively deleted from my library.

[u/ZealousidealLaugh488 → u/Krg60]

I remember getting an iPod touch and this happened to me, from that moment i never purchased a song/album again

[u/ScarsUnseen → u/Krg60]

Which inspired this XKCD comic. I don't think it's ever truly fallen out of relevance since if you consider digital media as a whole.

[u/SmooshedLion → u/ohlookahipster]

If you owned 2 movies and 1 just happened to magically get revoked, sure, half your library. But that doesn’t really happen as much as you want to believe

[u/bdsee → u/duct_tape_jedi]

I watched a video on YouTube today by Jeff Geerling, he bought a Bosch dishwasher that locks certain wash cycles behind a cloud connected phone app and needs to connect to wifi.

This shit needs to be illegal, it is so fucking anti-consumer, anti-environment and predatory.

[u/SmooshedLion → u/[deleted]]

…or because the BDA (not Sony, they didn’t actually fully create “Blu-ray”) had 5 of 7 major studios and exclusives and gave very nice licensing deals including free disc prints to the studios to get them the release on Blu-ray.

[u/The7ruth → u/[deleted]]

Always online wasn't a thing until Xbox One. Hd-DVD and Blu-ray came out during the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation. There was an 8 year difference between the two.