Remember this sentence to change your mind for the next time you see some movie to buy online.
I understand I can lose access, I'm not paying for the content in the idea that I own it forever even if Apple goes under or I get terminated, but I have perpetual access to it given the circumstances don't change, and I pay for the convenience of this.
If I had expected to own it forever, I'd probably have bought DVD's, not digital.
This is the opposite of what it should be. DVDs degrade over time, and can last for as little as 10 years. Digital should be mean transportable and convertible indefinitely.
I would never buy digital thinking I'll have access indefinitely. At least with DVD's I can rip them and burn them on new DVD's if I wanted them to be "forever"
Or, more realistically and prosaically, they can and should debit the net present liability of keeping the server running in perpetuity from their corporate accounts at the time of purchase. Accountancy knows how to value such things and finance delights in monetizing them.
Maybe a self-hosted auth server of some kind is possible?
Adobe recently stopped letting you install CS3 even if you have the CDs because they took the auth server down. Do you think there was a reasonable expectation that when someone paid thousands of dollars for those discs, that they 'owned' them and had the right to install them repeatedly on their own computers?
>https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite.html
>You can no longer reinstall Creative Suite 2, 3 or 4 even if you have the original installation disks. The aging activation servers for those apps had to be retired.
Looks like they just added CS4 to the list...which is still usable software (and in fact offers features that are currently unavailable!)
When contracting with consumers these companies should be forced to be liable and accountable for their algorithmic decisions and arbitrary policy enforcement.
That wouldn't be unreasonable at all. "They clicked the accept EULA button" is not a valid excuse.
Pretending that consumers are able to negotiate a fair contract with Apple is denying reality.
(To be clear, I think that's BS, but that's how this happens).
I used to have an account on which I spent at least $400. After an attempt to change the email address associated to the account I got locked out. It seems the same email address was used to create a different account in the past and the move just destroyed my access and any possible recourse.
So I switched to Android and stayed on Android for the last 7 years. No more iPhones for me, just remembering how my content got stolen makes me turn away.
I used to be a big fan of iPhones when they came out, even had a first gen iPhone a couple of months after launch. But after losing access to my content it all turned into the feeling that I am being abused.
If you use iTunes, and "add to library," like I do, you'll see how often albums get removed or replaced or remixed. It's unnecessary and unnerving. The labels are constantly faffing about with albums. Every couple of months, I'll go to play an album, and find that it only has, say, 2 songs in it. Sometimes I can go back and re-add it to my library, sometimes, there's a new "remastered" copy, and sometimes those songs are just no longer available in iTunes. I pay for the subscription, and don't buy music. And I'm glad. I don't know why these changes wouldn't happen to me even if I had paid for it, but maybe that would be exempted? If someone can tell me that this doesn't happen if I buy the album, I would snatch up some of my favorites right away.
Is this iTunes or Apple Music ?
Because it happens all the time on Apple Music which is why I hate streaming services.
Thoughts?
I'm not convinced 'making digital goods disappear' is good. I know WHY it's done and totally understand the justification, but I continue to dislike and distrust the practice.
Should we normalize the idea that everything we own is fungible, at the discretion of a third party, for its exchange value? Under what conditions do they get to swap out our property for replacements or money?
I think the bigger problem now is that people don't buy enough movies for anyone to want to chase this down, and if you want to own a movie, 99% of the time I can get the Blu-Ray+digital version for the same price of the digital one, and then the license syncs to like five different video services. And if they all ban me, then I still have the Blu-Ray.
On the other hand, all digital video formats have always had the technical capability for DRM, starting with DVD.
MiniDiscs had "copy protection"[0] and this format was supported by major record labels[1]. They were first released in 1992.
> all digital video formats have always had the technical capability for DRM, starting with DVD.
By starting with DVD, you're skipping the DRM-free formats of Betamax, VHS, and LaserDisc then? Unless by "had the technical capability for" you mean "could be later extended to add", in which case there was Macrovision[2] for VHS, but also Extended Copy Protection[3] for CDs, also known as "the Sony rootkit".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc#Copy_protection
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MiniDisc_releases
From what I can tell, pre-recorded MiniDiscs were never popular. People bought blank ones and recorded their own pirated mp3s on there.
But, yes, that makes me technically wrong with my first comment because it is a physical audio format that has the technical capability for DRM.
> By starting with DVD, you're skipping the DRM-free formats of Betamax, VHS, and LaserDisc then?
They're all analog and so you can't make an exact copy. At least not without obscenely expensive studio-grade equipment. Yes, that didn't stop people from making copies of VHS tapes, and yes, you could tell how many times it was copied by the picture quality.
Yes, there certainly were - basically all early digital audio media were encumbered with SCMS[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Copy_Management_System
I stopped seeing any value in purchasing/renting rights to movies and shows from the streaming giants. Want to watch The Office, sorry removed, no longer on Netflix. Oh, you are in a country that has a funny name, content not available in your region. Oh, you are trying to access your Hulu subscription from a Linux device? Max video res capped at 480p. It is such anti-consumer moves that makes me not feel bad for pirating.
IMO, the most maximum returns on home media consumption is gained by acquiring and archiving your own collection of media. I don't have to ask anyone for a license to watch my favorite movie from 1999 when I have the copy on my plex.
Personally I treat my Apple purchases as volatile and approach the budgeting for them similarly as I would budget for events such as movie tickets.
I guess I will soon start a site about the amount of crap and hypocrisy modern Apple are saying. I dont know exactly what happened but post Steve Jobs Apple are getting ridiculous with their defence.
>Remember this sentence to change your mind for the next time you see some movie to buy online.
I read this as "no reasonable consumer would trust us".
That worked in a defamation case, but the First Amendment defense probably won't work in a false advertising case.
[1] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7216968/9-24-20-M...
I wouldn't know about ToU violations, universities routinely get banned from arXiv for weeks because CS departments hand out assignments to write a webcrawler - no clue what kind of grovelling is requited there, but it must be well ritualized now.
Hopefully there will be platform independent store where you can buy once and available on all devices.
With digital you can have backups and in theory they could last forever as you convert the format into whatever is popular.
How do they price this? Do they not do CRCs and hashes and let your bits rot over time and have you buy a new one? How do you approach this commercially? Make music or video very, very faddish so even if it lasts forever no one will want to listen to or watch something out of style ten yeas hence?
I’m not defending Apple. I’m asking how do you price things reasonably if they potentially last forever?
Many of the oldest recordings still work, and can be played indefinitely with an optical needle. The time value of money means the possible purchase by a small fraction of buyers 20+ years out isn’t worth much at the time of sale. It’s only moving forward in time that makes anyone care about these sales.
Obviously not in the interest of consumers but I can see why sellers would go this route.
It’s only copying that’s protected not existing physical copies. It’s the same with a book you get the physical book and that’s it. If the copyright expired then you can do all kinds of stuff with the book that you don’t otherwise get to do, barring a few exceptions that apply universally.
You don't usually get the rights to play the music for large audiences or for commercial use - those cost extra.
If you didn't get those rights then you couldn't even play the CD in the privacy of your own home, as that constitutes a performance of the work.
(Of course I kind of think there's something fundamentally strange with the idea of having to get "performance rights" for a recording that you supposedly own, but that doesn't change the law right now.)
So this line of thought is completely incorrect, digital distribution did not invent the ability to have backups of media you purchased
This is not a valid line of objection, just because if someone destroyed their CD and did not have a backup would have to rebuy, same is true if someone did not backup their DRM free content.
This HAS NOTHING TO DO with the ability to backup, or the fact that physical media may degrade over time. That is a non sequitur and a red herring all in one
In reality this is not even about digital media copyright, but more about the rights of digital platforms to unperson you and seize your legally purchase products for any arbitrary reason (or in many cases no reason at all)
My initial question was tangential and more thinking out loud how they deal with lower sales velocities.
I would find that data to be very interesting, and based on what I know about the industry I would also say that neither one of those claims can be supported by any data I am aware of
They can potentially last forever, but humans don't. Since Apple's stuff is associated to a personal account, I don't see an issue here, vinyls can also last for a life.
On the other hand, consumers have lost the right to lend, give or sell the stuff they buy. That's not priced either, and we see every possible move be done to make these operations user-hostile, if not forbidden.
Of course there's an actual answer to this as well, the economic concept of a discount rate; things far in the future are worth less than they are in the present, by an amount depending on interest minus inflation.