*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be able to access the films and TV shows they had bought. *
I’m just confused about why people are so mad about it. In other cases where you rent space to put physical things you own so you can still access them later this happens too. Let’s get into an example, and you guys tell me if I’m misunderstanding something:
If you have a car and have to change between summer and winter tires and you don’t have space at home to store the winter tires during the summer, you can go to a tire-hotel and they will 1. Sell you new tires, 2. switch your tires - a service you pay for - and 3. store the tires for you until next winter - a service you pay for too. Once the company goes out of business (or they focus on a different business) they tell you to get your tires or they will be discarded if you don’t. So you have to get them from them and you stop paying for the storage.
Isn’t it the same with the movies you buy and store at a place where you then rent storage to keep them there? As long as they allow you to download your purchases I see no difference. You can’t make someone else to keep working the same job until the heat death of the universe.
But in this case, as per op, you would never own the tires. Just rent them so then when the tire hotel closes you never can collect the tires that you thought you bought.
The streaming websites|apps don’t allow you to download the purchased movies or shows so no files to keep.
That’s where there’s no analogy for media purchased through streaming services. When streaming services withdraw content, the analogy would be the tire shop sending you an email saying “Just so you know, we’re burning your tires next week. No, you can’t come and get them.”
No, that’s not how it works.
With streaming, you’re licensing the use of the media, but only until said media is no longer licensed to the streaming service by the media copyright holders.
I’m guessing you haven’t seen shows fall off your streaming service? Hell, Netflix warns you of things dropping off. Doesn’t sound like ownership.
But Netflix never let me buy a movie or TV show. They just sell me access to their library for a limited time.
I bought some music from Apple, DRM free and I downloaded it and have it on my own hard drive, and share it between all my devices.
Apple also sells you access to their library for a limited time like Netflix, but then you’re not buying the songs, you’re buying access to them for a limited time.