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I think people already understand this, they just don't care as long as their devices play the media they want to consume.
The only people I see that care about this issue strongly are people who fully understand how this works and prefer archival-friendly formats such as physical media or DRM-free downloads.
That Amazon refunded nearly 2x the purchase price for the inconvenience seems more than fair, imho. I looked it up, and it covers a purchase of a Blu-Ray of the same movie on Amazon, so you'd have a path to complete resolution here.
I hate plenty of Amazon's practices, but I really don't see any level of controversy here.
Isn't this a tacit acknowledgement that either the consumer may not have understood that their purchase was revocable, or that there is not a true 'complete resolution', since the path to complete resolution is a physical replacement (and not persistent access to a digital distribution)?
People who purchase content through a digital distributor are doing so under the common understanding of "purchase" as an exchange of money for personal ownership. The word for the arrangement described here then isn't purchase, it's lease.
If Amazon or any other digital distributor actually offered purchases of digital copies of content, people would obviously choose it over access to a title that can be revoked at any time. The legality of the practice isn't really what is in question here, it's the suggestion that this is an informed consumer choice that is. And even if the consumer was fully cognizant of the temporary nature of the arrangement, they still do not have a true alternative for digital copies.
Most Blu-ray's now come with digital files. You can upload these to a server like Plex (this requires you to setup a Plex server which I don't expect the average consumer to be capable of, but uploading it to a MacBook or whatever is basically enough) to digitise your collection. Now you still own the physical media, and have a digital version of it as well.
And this is completely legal.
You could also skip the buying the physical Blu-ray part. But that is less than legal (but you're unlikely to get caught.... just saying, yar har)
Not really true. Those 'digital copies' are usually heavily DRM'd and even only available to play through a specified service (typically a streaming service). It's the same arrangement, where you're actually being offered "access" to a digital copy, but you don't own it (as you would a physical copy).
I know that ripping a DVD or BlueRay for personal use is officially fair-use under DMCA precedent, but I don't know that is the case for digitally distributed media, since each provider has Terms of Service that limit the legal uses. I don't know that it's been tested in court, but it's certainly not obvious if doing so is legal (and thus not a reasonable option) to most consumers, and so it's still not a true replacement.
Again, the legality of the practice isn't really in question here, it's that there is no reasonable informed choice -- if you're going by the letter of the ToS, there is literally no legal alternative to the digital 'lease' arrangement.
*Edit - I might also point out that the only thing keeping open the possibility of ripping dvd's and blue rays into digital files is the continued use and standard of BlueRay players. Other DRM types used on media files are much, MUCH harder to bypass (nearly impossible in some cases). There are some BlueRays that come with a physical DVD containing digital media files (.wav or similar) that must be played on a PC, and those are both heavily protected AND at a far lower resolution. As soon as it's no longer common to use blue ray or dvd players, distributors will absolutely lock it down even further. We are at a really precarious place as consumers, because the market has failed so badly at regulating itself (it's a meme at this point) that we're only like 5 years away from there being no legitimate alternative to digital media streaming, even to the dedicated and tech-proficient consumers.
Do you have a source for that? My understanding was any breaking of Encryption was prohibited.
I'm still looking, but found this one that I think is the origin of the idea
Several hours later....
Spending a substantial part of my day reading the Library of Congress Copyright office's "Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies", I can confirm that I was wrong about the legality of circumventing copyright protections on DVD's and BlueRay discs for the purposes of space-shifting (to store and view media in a different format or location). Here's the relevant section of the decision:
Not that you asked, but my personal opinion on the matter is this should be considered an exemption. That the petition was denied because the petitioning party didn't show up to the hearing is quite frustrating, but doesn't change the fair-use nature of space-shifting media for personal viewing. If it were me, I would have pointed out that there are no digital alternatives to space-shifting legally obtained UHD 4K BlueRay discs, especially for offline viewing and for viewing at the same high quality.
Frankly, I think DMCA is a load of bullshit and should absolutely be abolished in entirety, but if nothing else, there needs to be a strong petitioner actually attending the meetings to allow for broader fair-use exceptions to be heard. On the bright side, i learned a lot about exceptions to DRM circumvention i didn't already know about, namely that it's legal to alter software on phones, tablets, pcs, and even cars and land-vehicles for purposes not otherwise prohibited, including smart home devices and CARS. Fuck yea. Imma break all kinds of shit on my google homes.
Wow I wasn’t expecting that much effort, good work. We share the same let’s call it moral view that ruling Blu-ray’s should be ok for personal use, I just know it’s not a legal argument.
The consumer not understanding something is different than the consumer not being provided truthful information. A consumer might also misunderstand the degree to which the own the physical media they purchase, in that they cannot redistribute or exhibit it without an additional license agreement.
People should understand their rights better, but people might also not care about these rights enough to care much, which is fine, we have to pick our battles.
Except the agreement is intentionally misleading. To this moment, the phrasing on Google TV is to either "rent" or "purchase" titles. In most other types of exchange, the "seller" of a "purchase" transaction can't terminate the exchange on a whim, with no recourse.
Can we really blame consumers for being mislead by the intentionally misleading language of TRILLION dollar companies?
Companies with this much control over the market shouldn't be allowed to run roughshod over digital media agreements. People want ownership over the media they pay for, just like people want ownership over the homes they pay a mortgage on. That isn't an option that's being provided, but instead they're being fed a misleading alternative that shares the same language.