Disney Pulls a Reverse Santa, Takes Back Christmas Shows From Amazon Customers 418
Sockatume writes "Since 2011, Amazon Instant Video has sold a series of Christmas shorts from Disney called 'Prep and Landing'. Unfortunately this holiday season, Disney has had a change of heart and has decided to make the shorts exclusive to its own channels. The company went so far as to retroactively withdrawn the shows from Amazon, so that customers who have already paid for them no longer have access. Apparently this reverse-Santa ability is a feature Amazon provides all publishers, and customers have little recourse but to go cap-in-hand to a Disney outlet and pay for the shows again."
Plastic Discs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can someone explain (Score:1, Insightful)
You bought a license to play...
Re:Can someone explain (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Disney is a Corporation, and the one stolen from are just "little people". Corporations are people too, my friend! But only when it benefits them...
This is the problem with digital downloads (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not buying the goods, you're renting them. You're always at the whim of the copyright owner with regards to your continued access to the work you paid for.
Mark my words, when physical media is gone, they'll stop selling media to you indefinitely, but charge you for the same content on a recurring basis. Not like Netflix where you're paying for access to stream any number of works, but you'll pay per month (or per access) for a single work.
Plus, with everything so locked down and controlled by the copyright owners, much more media will be lost to time due to the inability to move it between systems freely. Almost 30 years later, you can still acquire and play the original Super Mario Bros on an authentic NES, without getting the okay from Nintendo to do so. When digital downloads are the only method to acquire media, then you can forget about buying used copies 30, 40, 50 years later. By the time copyright actually lapses and you can legally do something about it, it'll be too late as all the original hardware will likely be either destroyed or non-functional.
Accidental? RIIIIIGHT... (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says that Amazon called it "accidental," and that access has already been restored for those who already bought it.
Accidental my shiney hiney. It was only "accidental" until either the PR or legal department found out about it. In any case this is EXACTLY why I do not own a Kindle. This isn't the first time this happened and the fact that they even have the ability to do this makes me pretty uncomfortable.
Re:Did Fox News buy Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that it even happened should be a warning flag to stay the hell away from digital downloads as the primary means of acquiring entertainment.
It's not so bad when it's media that you can get physically in another form (like Nintendo's Virtual Console versus the original carts). However, when you start seeing media sold only as a digital download (which already happens sometimes), then you're at the mercy of the copyright holder. Do you really trust the copyright cartel, long-term, to let you have access to their stuff without paying and paying and paying?
Re:my library (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because in the end, the Grinch comes to learn the error of his ways and eventually saves Christmas. Somehow, I don't see Disney doing this...
Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, well, I'm sorry I voted this up from the firehose, and already got ready to abandon purchases from Amazon(and possibly sue). The differences between a technical issue and a dick move are really substantial.
Re:Can someone explain (Score:4, Insightful)
^^^ That. Corporations are not beholden to the same laws as we peasants.
Bottom line is that our system is designed such that, with enough money, you can buy pretty much any verdict you want, within reason, so legal recourse against an entity the likes of Disney is well beyond the vast majority of folks. And, since your rights are only valid as far as you can defend them, megacorps like this can do just about anything they want to the rabble without fear of consequences.
1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
anyone remembered the Amazon Kindle's 1984 affair?
Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Insightful)
The "temporary issue" was a lack of publicity.
Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon deleting copies of 1984 should've been enough to persuade you that you shouldn't do business with them. This is what happens when you deal with proprietary garbage or things that are out of your control.
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't blame Disney. This evil starts with Amazon, they're the ones that allow your purchased products to be stolen back again on a whim.
Re:Love it (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I have bought almost no videos online. The nature of the sale is that I do not own the product, but merely have a license to view it for an indeterminate period. Invariably at some time, when Amazon changes format, when Apple iTunes is no more, I will lose the ability to view the content. Better to buy a DVD and make a backup. Or, honestly, steam or rent.
As much as studios complain about streaming, through stunts like this they are pushing us all in that direction.
Re:Would you expect anything else? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plastic Discs (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you telling me that watching Spaceballs 10 times is enough?
Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Insightful)
It only became temporary when they got caught.
not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
> The company went so far as to retroactively withdrawn the shows from Amazon, so that customers who have already paid for them no longer have access.
So now how do you feel about keeping your content "in the cloud"?
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, blame Disney - they absolutely had a choice as to whether to act malevolently to their paying customers or not.
But, yes, also blame Amazon for idiotic terms.
And yes blame the legislators for allowing the widespread fraud of misleading people in to believing they purchased/bought a product when instead the seller only gave them a short term non-negotiable, unilaterally cancellable, license. These are absolutely not sales of products and when you acquire a license then you don't "buy" or "purchase" a movie/song you license it. Any attempt to "sell" when in fact the company mean "[temporarily] license" should be met with such huge fraud charges that the companies involved will barely be able to continue trading and certainly will be unable to continue if charged again. In Amazon's case for example "one-click ordering" the movie entails purchasing data or media that includes inalienable and continuous rights to consume that media in perpetuity, so they'd need to change it to "one-click license" to avoid being fraudulently deceptive about it.
Yes, I'm serious.
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:my library (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to take this as a wake-up call and go back to physical media or non-DRM downloads.
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you buy blu ray you're fucked as they can retroactively cancel any blue ray player hardware.
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore if you bothered to read the Militia Act of 1792, signed into law by George Washington, you'd know that the militia was to consist of everybody who could vote under the age of 45. Gun ownership was mandatory for this group, not owning a gun was, in fact, a crime.
Except for the women, of course. Oh, and the blacks, I imagine. And any other "non-people". I mean, while we're being slavishly faithful to the founder's intents and everything...
Re:Reverse Santa? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to remember, the democrats and liberals have to demonize and misrepresent libertarians because they thrive on a two party (acting as one) system and the republicans and conservatives have to demonize and misrepresent libertarians because they thrive on a two party (acting as one) system.