Well. well well, I have heard about this before, but never experienced it. Today I went to watch series 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I had bought it a few months ago on Amazon. However, half the episodes were unavailable. The customer rep explained that Paramount had removed their permission for the show to be played on Amazon - or at least parts of it.
So tough, I was out of luck. Amazon would refund me the price of the show, but there was nothing they could do.
I was was wondering if anyone had experienced this on Apple itunes / TV?
I had a lot of Law & Order’s stored on my Cable TV’s recorder, but the broadcaster removed permissions for those episodes to be available, and they were unplayable even though recorded and stored locally.
This is why piracy will never go away. Meanwhile buy your media on physical disks (DVDs or CDs ) to prevent this. I’ve had this happen on music files, but that was decades ago.
If the item was licensed when you purchased it. Then it should be licensed for ever. You already paid for it. They should not sell future copies of those digital goods and not remove the licensing for the previous purchased copies.
I agree, and that is what I thought, but the Amazon rep, while apologetic, said that was not the case. I remember that quite a few years ago, I had an account with E Music in the days when it was an all-you-can-eat service. They sold the company, and many members lost access to music as the labels removed the tracks.
It was one series and I bought it on sale, but have some expensive series on Apple TV, I would hate to lose those.
Exactly. If I have a physical CD, then if the CD manufacturing rights are sold to another company, the original CD I purchased will not stop playing, just because the CD rights were sold to a new manufacturer.
The lack to not able to identify the previous purchases and honoring the licenses for previous purchases is not the end users problem. I think it should be a law suit for denying license to play a legally purchased copy.
Purchased media (ie: Music, Movies and TV Shows) that you download has a different set of rules than physical media. One can read the “fine print” and learn that you do not OWN that content, only that you are basically agreeing to a “longterm rental” that can be revoked at any time.
Don’t like those terms???
Purchase that content on Disc that comes with a Digital download or rip it yourself.
I own over 500+ Movies and TV shows from iTunes and other Services. A couple of movies were removed due to a merger or some other legal dispute. There is nothing I can do because the Terms stated this could happen. You didn’t read those Terms? Oh well…
Also, any content you have purchased (rented) cannot be passed on to someone else after you “shuffle off this mortal coil.” This was learned after a customer wanted access to his late Father’s sizable music collection after the family shut down his Apple ID. Apparently you cannot reopen an Apple ID either!
Basically they’re reserving the right to undo the purchase by issuing you a refund. So they refund you, undo the purchase, and you don’t have a license anymore.
It would be interesting trying to come up with the legal rationale for the lawsuit, given the refund.
i. 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 or for other reasons, and Amazon will not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming.
It’s why it’s called a licence - you are paying for the limited right to use something in particular and current circumstances. You are not buying anything.
Intrinsically, licenses are temporary. By the way, that applies to all the software you “own” as well as all the digital media and even some of the physical media, if you read the small print.
My point was (apart from my music example many years ago and that was a strange company) I have never been subject to losing the license for video before, and I was wondering if it was a common practice, particularly on Apple TV/Itunes where I do have a lot of digital content.
Anecdotally, I don’t hear about it all that often. This is probably because everybody was paid once for the purchase, and terminating that purchase generates bad will for everybody involved.
I would bet that most of the time, a company like Paramount would weigh a few potential dollars from their streaming service vs making all previous purchasers unhappy, and decide that it wasn’t worth it.
Nothing wrong with cutting ties with streaming. But this is a scenario where somebody paid them a one-off for content. They could have told Amazon that they weren’t allowed to sell it anymore, weren’t allowed to have it on Prime Video, but that existing users could still stream it.
Join the growing movement to lobby the requirement of “Buy License” type language on buttons with the expiration or revocation rights in larger, up front text.
Over the years I’ve lost access to numerous series on various streaming services, and recordings on Apple Music. It’s interesting the OP got a refund. That option was never offered to me.
I have no idea why it was handled this way. But AFAIK every time we play a purchased streaming video our license is verified by “someone”. I’m guessing that someone was Amazon and they no long have the right to do that.
Sure. I’m just saying that in the realm of negotiating the rights between Paramount and Amazon, it should have been possible for Paramount to work something out that (a) removed Amazon’s right to sell new copies and provide free streaming in Prime Video, and (b) preserved the ability of existing purchasers to play the content they paid for.
I absolutely realize that’s not what happened. But it should have been possible, if Paramount cared about the users that had already given them money in the past. I’m guessing Amazon just took the hit on the refund to keep OP happy.