this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 204 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

If they're saying "own" on their advertisements then they should be required to refund you when they eventually have to take it away. I'm pretty sure "ownership" has a legal definition and it's probably not too ambiguous.
It should at least be considered false advertising if they can't guarantee access permanently.

[–] [email protected] 139 points 11 months ago (6 children)

That's the best part

They redefine "own" and "buy" in their TOS

And so do many many other online retailers that sell digital goods

[–] [email protected] 84 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I wonder if that would hold in court. They could simply use "rent" or "lease" in their ads, but they purposely are trying to mislead to imply permanence.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The people who can afford to fight this kind of court case have no interest in doing so.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Don't you have customer protection NGOs in the USA?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago

We have corporate protections in the USA.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

I can't believe you were able to ask that with a straight face

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

The consumer isn't the last rung on the ladder. We're on the fuckin ground. With footprints on our faces and medical bills to prove it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

to give an actual answer instead of jaded teenage bullshit:

yes, we have several

Don't expect any actual info from people around here. something tells me the comment section isn't up for a fair analysis at where these things have failed us. it'll be all soapbox, zero fact. I'm pretty baffled at how many people just told you No

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Of that list, BBB is apparently more of a business extortion scene. But consumer reports seems cool, I’ve used their site a few times.

The rest, I’ve never heard of

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don't even know what that stands for

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

NGO is non government organization

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Why would they endanger the ability to sell the same movie dozens of times over?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Who tf is going to buy Aquaman 2 dozens of times? What's wrong with them?😭

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We should start a gofundme then to get the funds needed to afford such a fight. Id throw in 100$. Might take a few thousands of me, and a lot of time, but it should start somewhere.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Or join the EFF which already does great work in this area. They don't always succeed, but I doubt a GoFundMe could do better.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

Anything holds in court when you have more money than several small nations combined.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Or "watch". That way they don't have to make it obvious that their customers won't own it but still don't straight up lie.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago

Then it's not binding and they're just waiting for the class action. Which will win, but they'll still be richer in the end.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

This is modern alchemy trying to turn lead into gold. Just change the meaning of the magic words et voilá you make gold while the other party is robbed blind and can't do anything about it after the fact.

And of course, it's totally legal and totally cool.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They actually never mention the idea of you owning content in their tos https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=content-only

It's "purchased digital content"

(iii) purchase Digital Content for on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time ("Purchased Digital Content")

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Which is exactly like physical media. You never owned it you bought a license to view it on that particular disk. But it also had limitations put on it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

If license ownership rights with digital custodians were as good as they are with discs, there would be no conversation happening right now. The difference now is that custodians will occasionally snap a finger and disappear your stuff, and you have no recourse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It's not "exactly like" physical media. The license portion is a similar concept. But the difference is that the variables that determine whether I can keep watching the content whenever I want, in perpetuity, lie solely with me as the person who physically possesses the media. The corporation from which I purchased the license can't unilaterally decide to revoke my access to the content.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

ok that makes me sick

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Refunding the sale price is still theft. If it was only worth that much to me (zero surplus), then I wouldn't have bothered with the trade in the first place. The only things worth buying are worth more to you than the sale price.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

Oh I had never thought of this or come across this concept! That's a really elegant concept. Of course, in a transaction you're putting in more effort than the money. The time it takes you to go through the purchase, the research, the cost of opportunity of that money... meaning those have to be covered in the cost of the transaction, and therefore the goods must be cheaper than the perceived value by those amounts.

You've sent me down a rabbit hole and I thank you for that. Now I'm off to read about economics 🤓

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Oh, whoops. I read it as them explicitly telling me to pirate it. Yeah of course they aren't going to let you actually own it. That doesn't come close to making sense.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

"rent a license for 15 years"