Lawsuit Says Amazon Prime Video Misleads When You 'Buy' a Long-Term Streaming Rental (arstechnica.com) 77
"Typically when something is available to "buy," ownership of that good or access to that service is offered in exchange for money," writes Ars Technica.
"That's not really the case, though, when it comes to digital content." Often, streaming services like Amazon Prime Video offer customers the options to "rent" digital content for a few days or to "buy" it. Some might think that picking "buy" means that they can view the content indefinitely. But these purchases are really just long-term licenses to watch the content for as long as the streaming service has the right to distribute it — which could be for years, months, or days after the transaction. A lawsuit recently filed against Prime Video challenges this practice and accuses the streaming service of misleading customers by labeling long-term rentals as purchases. The conclusion of the case could have implications for how streaming services frame digital content...
[The plaintiff's] complaint stands a better chance due to a California law that took effect in January banning the selling of a "digital good to a purchaser with the terms 'buy,' 'purchase,' or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental." There are some instances where the law allows digital content providers to use words like "buy." One example is if, at the time of transaction, the seller receives acknowledgement from the customer that the customer is receiving a license to access the digital content; that they received a complete list of the license's conditions; and that they know that access to the digital content may be "unilaterally revoked...."
The case is likely to hinge on whether or not fine print and lengthy terms of use are appropriate and sufficient communication. [The plaintiff]'s complaint acknowledges that Prime Video shows relevant fine print below its "buy" buttons but says that the notice is "far below the 'buy movie' button, buried at the very bottom" of the page and is not visible until "the very last stage of the transaction," after a user has already clicked "buy."
Amazon is sure to argue that "If plaintiff didn't want to read her contract, including the small print, that's on her," says consumer attorney Danny Karon. But he tells Ars Technica "I like plaintiff's chances. A normal consumer, after whom the California statute at issue is fashioned, would consider 'buy' or 'purchase' to involve a permanent transaction, not a mere rental... If the facts are as plaintiff alleges, Amazon's behavior would likely constitute a breach of contract or statutory fraud."
"That's not really the case, though, when it comes to digital content." Often, streaming services like Amazon Prime Video offer customers the options to "rent" digital content for a few days or to "buy" it. Some might think that picking "buy" means that they can view the content indefinitely. But these purchases are really just long-term licenses to watch the content for as long as the streaming service has the right to distribute it — which could be for years, months, or days after the transaction. A lawsuit recently filed against Prime Video challenges this practice and accuses the streaming service of misleading customers by labeling long-term rentals as purchases. The conclusion of the case could have implications for how streaming services frame digital content...
[The plaintiff's] complaint stands a better chance due to a California law that took effect in January banning the selling of a "digital good to a purchaser with the terms 'buy,' 'purchase,' or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental." There are some instances where the law allows digital content providers to use words like "buy." One example is if, at the time of transaction, the seller receives acknowledgement from the customer that the customer is receiving a license to access the digital content; that they received a complete list of the license's conditions; and that they know that access to the digital content may be "unilaterally revoked...."
The case is likely to hinge on whether or not fine print and lengthy terms of use are appropriate and sufficient communication. [The plaintiff]'s complaint acknowledges that Prime Video shows relevant fine print below its "buy" buttons but says that the notice is "far below the 'buy movie' button, buried at the very bottom" of the page and is not visible until "the very last stage of the transaction," after a user has already clicked "buy."
Amazon is sure to argue that "If plaintiff didn't want to read her contract, including the small print, that's on her," says consumer attorney Danny Karon. But he tells Ars Technica "I like plaintiff's chances. A normal consumer, after whom the California statute at issue is fashioned, would consider 'buy' or 'purchase' to involve a permanent transaction, not a mere rental... If the facts are as plaintiff alleges, Amazon's behavior would likely constitute a breach of contract or statutory fraud."
"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Funny)
"... the contract where, in the fine print, we claim to redefine the word 'buy' to mean something no one in their right mind would interpret the word to mean - that's on her. Also, from now on, the plaintiff is a zebra and I am the Lord of the Dance."
Re:"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope Amazon loses this case. This opens the door to all sorts of abuse.
Buying is buying.
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I hope Amazon loses this case. This opens the door to all sorts of abuse.
Buying is buying.
Sadly unlikely as this is being fought in the US where you're allowed to lie, cheat and mislead customers to your hearts content... Doubly so if you're a wealthy company/person (although that's the same thing these days).
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Sadly unlikely as this is being fought in the US where you're allowed to lie, cheat and mislead customers to your hearts content...
Not "to your hearts content". You can make some lies, which may even mislead the buyer, but a contract is a contract and what it says in a contract is what goes.
Apple uses a different definition of "buying": You pay, you download it, and it is yours. Since it is yours, it's your responsibility to look after it (making backups etc. ). You lose it, its gone. Just like a CD or DVD. You bought it, but if you lose it its gone.
Now in addition and be nice to customers (and to avoid many complaints) Apple let
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I guess this is a good compromise that protects both parties.
Assuming that even if Apple discontinues Apple TV or whatever, you can still play your movie.
Re:"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be fine with "buying" it, if when they inevitably revoked my ability to view it I got a full refund.
Re:"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't be fine with that. Someone would probably "buy" something because they wanted to have it available indefinitely. If they later found that their "permanent" purchase was revoked, they might no longer have the option to buy it elsewhere because it was no longer available, even if they did have that option available when they first "bought" the product from the other vendor. It's still a scam in the lying vendor's favour.
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Another option would be that if your purchase stops working for any reason (server goes away, disc fails etc.) you are legally allowed to pirate it or crack the DRM.
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Re: "If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:2)
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Fuck all that. Pirating is a result of over-eager licensing companies. Nothing more.
This. And the post-hoc changes to streaming media in the name of political correctness, or just an obsessed director. We saw what Lucas did to Star Wars decades ago, I don't understand why more movie nerds don't go down the self-hosting route.
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Re:"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose you bought a load of bread at the grocery store. A couple days later, you come home for lunch and get ready to make a sandwich. You find that your loaf of bread is gone, and your bank account has been credited, all without anyone asking you. Would you be ok with that?
If you buy something, it's fine for the seller to make you an offer to buy it back from you, but it should be your choice whether or not to take that offer, not theirs.
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They stole $15 from thousands of people (probably, how popular was this book?), in just that one instance.
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+ inflation and use of money interest.
Re:"If plaintiff didn't read her contract ..." (Score:5, Informative)
give the consumers “a clear and conspicuous statement that states in plain language that ‘buying’ or ‘purchasing’ the digital good is a license
Amazon does have sentence on their screen that says "buying this is a license." So the entire argument is about whether it is a clear and conspicuous statement or not.
The lawsuit is understandable if you skip to page 4 under "FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS" [arstechnica.net].
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Or try, anyway. They have the right to try and fail.
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Actually, the burden is on the prosecution to prove Amazon is not following the law. Amazon is innocent until proven guilty. Also, since amazon is rich, they are just better then most of us, so that gives them a foot up. Don't like it? Vote. LOL as it that will work.
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US law: "The owner of a lawfully made copy" (Score:2)
Every time anyone "buys" a movie they are buying a licence. When you buy a DVD or a VHS, that is a licence.
Your spelling implies that you learned English in Britain or another Commonwealth country. I don't know how the law works in Britain, but in Slashdot's home country (the USA), some of the carveouts for individual use in the copyright statute apply to "the owner of a lawfully made copy." (The statute defines "copy" as a physical object in which a work is fixed.) See, for example, Title 17, United States Code, sections 109 (regarding resale of an individual copy) and 117 (regarding copying a computer program
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Yes, and when your CD from the 90s snaps in half or starts to lose data (bit rot is real), you are not getting a refund or even a replacement copy for free. You also are not legally allowed to backup that CD. So when you "bought" your CD in the 90s, you were just buying a license that lasted the life of the physical CD and along with that, a list of restrictions such as no copying.
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You also are not legally allowed to backup that CD.
Again, that depends on the country. Slashdot's home country (the USA) has the Audio Home Recording Act, which creates a carveout for private copying of sound recordings.
So when you "bought" your CD in the 90s, you were just buying a license that lasted the life of the physical CD
Still no remote revocation.
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Can you copy it a million times and sell copies? No. It's not yours.
Correct: AHRA's carveout extends only to noncommercial use. However, I still find it useful to distinguish a statutory "carveout" from a (theoretically negotiated) "license", even when there's something in between the two called a "compulsory license".
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When you buy a DVD or a VHS, that is a licence.
No - words matter; a DVD or VHS is an object you buy, which has an irrevocable license bundled with it.
Not "a rental with an unknown length" as someone so eloquently put it.
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In the past 6 months to a year, words to the effect of "you are buying a license" have been sprinkled throughout the store visible in the Kindle app... in VERY TINY text. Coincidentally the system font size has also become a lot smaller than it used to be recently, to the point that it is impossible for me to read the titles of books in my library when in a low light environment, and end up resorting to using the magnifier on my iPhone.
The system font also ignores accessibility settings in the Kindle, so th
Not Even a Licence (Score:2)
To use the term "buy" to mean "license,"
They do not even mean that though - it is not a licence to view the content because that would still exist even after Amazon lost its own right to distribute the content. It is, as the article says, a rental with an unknown length. It could be long term or it could end tomorrow - it just depends on how long Amazon's own licence to distribute the content lasts.
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In any case, the lawsuit didn't bring up that point, so they won't be making that argument.
Great use case for LLM (Score:1)
Have an LLM parse these contracts written specifically to confound, obfuscate and defraud - in the tiniest legal font size - and have it surface the problematic clauses and statements.
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Really, Amazon should not lie.
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IF you could actually trust it to do the job. Already LLMs have a track record of messing up legal documents
Fair point. That and LLMs are utterly incapable of responding: "I don't know"
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Those prompt attacks wouldn't fool a human but would infuriate any grammar nazi^Wjustice soldier.
Now those contracts actually are prompt attacks against humans ! And they work very very well, imagine what they could do to an LLM
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Yes and no. You at least get a glimpse when it would otherwise have overwhelmed you, but ToS are written intentionally such that most people and thus also LLM which are trained on people's texts have a hard time to understand their details.
Dumbfounded (Score:5, Interesting)
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Why would anyone "buy" any content through these streaming media services?
Pretty much. It's why we should pivot and "purchase" content on the high seas using gold doubloons.
Re:Dumbfounded (Score:4, Insightful)
You really need to talk more to regular people if yhou think this is "clear".
For people visiting slashdot it's obvious. For the regular person, it says buy, and they buy things on the internet all the time, why would this be different?
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for one thing because it isnt 1996 anymore. "Regular people" largely have lived experience now with digital media, and streamed or download based distribution.
I am not defending Amazon, "buy" ought to mean some transfer of ownership of something, even if it is a 'license' but then the buyer becomes on the owner of the contract and there should be no-legal-way for seller to unilaterally alter the terms after the sale. Any license that allows such a thing really should not be considered legally valid. Even
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Regular people also voted for Donald Trump. There's no helping them.
Re:Dumbfounded (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference being that the DVD, by nature of the license being tied to the physical object, is perpetual and irrevokable. So when you buy the physical item, you buy both the item and the license and both are tied to each other. The expectation of the meaning of the word "buy" is very clear: you bought an item, you keep it forever.
When you "buy" a movie from amazon, you don't get to keep it forever. You keep it only for as long as the license holder considers. Which may be forever, or may be 2 weeks. In this case, the meaning of the word "buy" has been subverted to mean "lease for an indefinite amount of time".
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There is one exception.
I still buy MP3s from Amazon Music. Yes, you can still do that, and you can download the MP3, DRM-free, onto your hard drive. That kind of purchase is actually buying.
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I do this from Band Camp. I had no clue Amazon would sell you a non-drm mp3. Still, fuck Amazon. I'll keep using Band Camp.
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Why would anyone "buy" any content through these streaming media services?
Over time, a smaller fraction of newly released movies and TV series have been made available on DVD. Instead, many are exclusive to a streaming service.
Greed making excuses. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some instances where the law allows digital content providers to use words like "buy." One example is if, at the time of transaction, the seller receives acknowledgement from the customer that the customer is receiving a license to access the digital content; that they received a complete list of the license's conditions; and that they know that access to the digital content may be "unilaterally revoked...."
I’d love to know how the lawyer will react after defending this dogshit excuse only to go home to a nagging wife bitching about how she just ‘bought” that Real Housewives season last weekaaaand it’s gone. She’s bitching because she didn’t quite catch her husbands “acknowledgement” on page 274 of a fucking EULA no one reads.
The excuse-statement above, is a middle finger to this problem. We already have bullshit “conditions” written in legalese not even lawyers like to read. That ain’t helping, assholes.
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Then that "smart" lawyer should of got himself a "smart" wife that realizes that if you don't have a physical copy, just a digital, that you didn't buy shit. Been this way since digital sales started, some 30 years ago.
I'm cool if they make Amazon use the word "license" instead of buy, but any adult should know that you don't own if it isn't on your server. Digital copy on Company server is just a license.
Digital Property (Score:5, Insightful)
The law ought to mandate that this be clearly indicated within the first sentence of any license or contract.
Consequences (Score:2)
Consequences: The button gets another label.
But it would be interesting, if all previous bought videos now would be really bought. Maybe Amazon could ship them on DVD when their streaming service can't provide for that.
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And I want a unicorn and the Republicans to wake up and remove Donald Trump from office. Go ahead, wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which fills up first.
Well yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way that will ever change is if a power block like the EU forces laws on digital content that imbue it with similar rights as physical content - to sell, loan, donate, or destroy as you see fit regardless of where the content was purchased. That might need some kind of block chain to represent a token of ownership and mechanism to facilitate these other things but it is eminently achievable.
And the way to incentivize industry is to whack a 20% tax on licence purchases that the digital content token is exempt from so there is an immediate incentive to shift to the common format.
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That might need some kind of block chain
Don't go off the rails mate, we've lived through centuries without a blockchain to declare the rights of having purchased a thing, there's no need for some fancy solution in search of a problem to solve it.
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Re: Well yeah (Score:2)
Srsly? This isn't even a new concept dude. In the real world, we already have a way to keep a public record of document signing and endorsements. It's called a notary. Google that word. And this is proposing a digital equivalent of that. Which makes sense, because this is a digital transaction.
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If what you get in exchange of your money is a license to use a product for an indeterminate amount of time, then you're not "buying" but rather "leasing".
How about you first get your english right before going all "well obviously"?
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Except that you don't actually *own* the license. If you owned it, you could transfer it or loan it to someone else. If the company goes away, you have nothing.
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The license is yours forever, unless the license includes a time limit. You don't necessarily have the right to give or sell the license to someone else, and you most likely do not have the right to lend it to someone else. Maybe by some legal definition of "own" you're right, but by any common understanding of what it means to "own" something, you do not.
Buy vs rent (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon might have a leg to stand on in their clever redefinition of the word "buy" if they didn't also use the word "rent" in the same context. So much of their content that can be "bought" can be "rented" for much cheaper.
Amazon wants the court to believe that it's okay to redefine "buy" as "rented". Amazon knows exactly what it's doing, and I hope the court "buys" none of their excuses.
Buy, should be able to download it then.... (Score:2)
Well then (Score:2, Funny)
"Buy" is just Amazon's preferred pronoun for "rent".
Amazon's rentals "identify" as a purchase.
Problem solved!
(What, no? Are you some kind of bigot??)
Force Amazon to disclose THEIR license (Score:2)
It's simple. Force Amazon to disclose their license terms for that content in a consumer-friendly way:
"BUY (access until Sep 25)"
Not Much Different Than Always, and maybe better. (Score:1)
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When you "purchased" a VHS tape/DVD/Blu-Ray, it was for the lifetime of the media. Bit-rot and magnetic decay eventually make the media die. I can see Amazon Prime lasting as long if not longer than physical media.
There are examples in this thread of media "bought" through Amazon disappearing. There are also examples of media being censored or changed after the purchase. Some of these examples are trivial. Some may seem trivial but in the eyes of a cinema buff are absolutely vital ("Han shot first!")
Either way, no. Unless you're storing it on the dashboard of your car in Phoenix, AZ in summer, a DVD will outlast a "purchase" from Amazon Prime. And even if the DVD starts to rot, under "fair use" you were probably allo
purchasing it is to own it (Score:1)
Ages ago from iTunes Store (Score:1)
Gen Alpha wouldn't know what was possible was deliberately made impossible. Gen Beta will grow up believing buying and renting are synonyms. That's how the world evolves.
And they wonder why people choose the high seas. (Score:1)
I will "buy" video games, generally from GOG and Steam because both have long histories of making sure your purchases stay in your libraries. I will also "buy" from Bandcamp because I can get flac and know all my music can be backed up anywhere I want it.
I have not "bought" a movie in over a decade specifically because of crap like this. Same with ebooks. Both movies and ebook DRM is so egregious in forcing you to consume purchases in very specific ways, with specific apps that I have opted out completely.
They also lie about ad free (Score:2)
They also lie about paying extra for ad free as their in house advertising seems to still play..
Why were all comments wiped from this ???? (Score:2)
Wrong Target (Score:2)