Today I “bought” the original Grinch TV show for my kids to watch, on Amazon Instant Viewing (or whatever it’s called…)
Suppose Amazon goes under some day. Will I no longer have the right to watch the Grinch show online in any form? Or is it likely that somehow an obligation to stream the movie to me in some way will be packaged in to some deal some company will make to purchase part of Amazon as it gets picked apart by competitors?
Or something else?
Or is this too speculative to say for sure?
I think it depends on if they just close up shop or if they sell off their assets to other companies. If they sold off their assets it would entirely depend on how that company handled it and if they honored the original contract you had with Amazon (which I doubt they would legally have to, but probably would).
But I could, of course, be wrong. It could very will be written in to some contract somewhere that details what happens in any situation in which Amazon ceases to exist. I’d imagine this contract would most likely be between Amazon on the individual studios or copyright holders.
Your problem isn’t much different from someone who bought the complete Brahms Symphony Collection on 230 78RPM records. Can those still be played without a hassle? Technology changes.
If you still have the equipment it’s not a problem.
I think it’s more akin to paying Brahms fee for a lifetime of getting to hear him play his music live but then one day he decides he no longer wants to play…what happens then? What happens when the source is gone?
I wonder if Amazon has insurance that would payout Amazon members like the OP some sort of fee depending on how long ago they purchased the movie if they should ever go out of business.
Perhaps you’d prefer an analogy to old movies, where the original is unobtainable, then someone finds a copy somewhere, and they restore it…
My point is that there will likely be some preservation of the data, and it may be obtainable somehow. The chances of it being lost forever are not great, but the chances of it being readily and reliably accessible are not either.
This is just an opinion, based on past experiences. No one knows for sure. If there is any way you can download the data and preserve it privately, that would be extra insurance.
It’s somewhat like what happens when you purchase content that uses digital rights management, and the company offering the content decides to stop supporting that format. In this case, you have the content already, but some uses of it require contacting the company’s servers.
Amazon and many other companies have discontinued certain types of DRM support over the last few years. Usually the result is that the content already on your hardware keeps working, but if that hardware ever breaks, your content is gone for good, as it can’t be moved to new hardware ever again. But the Wikipedia link above mentions some other cases where it seems purchased content became inaccessible immediately, or following an automatic software update.
None of this requires Amazon.com to disappear. It just requires Amazon to decide that they don’t want to bother streaming your purchased content any more, and deal with the contractual and publicity issues that result.
There always is, and there always will be. It’s what makes DRM seem silly. There is no way to make it where I can’t get a non-DRMed copy of your stuff. And then I can share it just as easily as I could before.
It doesn’t even take any hacking. If I can hear and/or see it, I can record it on another device.
shrug
How many VCR tapes do you have that broke/were damaged/stopped working for any other reason? Same with DVDs, vinyl records, cassette tapes, etc. There is no implicit “you will have this forever” with any media.
I also bought the Grinch this year. For the $7.99 I spent, I’ll be happy if I can watch it for a few years. If Amazon continues to be successful, I see no reason why I won’t watch it for many, many more years, and I’m OK betting that Amazon will last longer than the VCR tapes that are sitting in a box in my basement.
If I’m wrong and Amazon somehow disappears, big deal. It was $7.99 and I got to watch it a few times.
Yeah I think the bottom line here is being reasonable. As long as steam gives it’s customers a couple years of service to validate their copies of video games and play the games they’ve purchased they will be ok in any ones eyes. If they shut down 2 months after they came out with a new game I think we all know customers will be pissed but I don’t think the government or they can really be expected to do anything to fix it. I as a customer think that there should be some kind of solution that if that does happen there is some kind of backdoor to the software (yeah it would probly be hacked which isn’t good). that is released that way the validation from them isn’t needed and since they won’t be able to profit from it anymore or lose profit they can release it and anyone can validate their music locally.
I’m aware of that option, but there may be something lost in the translation. Kinescopes, for example. The quality recorded might not be the quality possible with a direct, digital copy from the source.
Kinescopes were only low quality because the devices themselves were low quality and the recording medium wasn’t that good. With modern technology and digital storage, this is much less of a problem. The degradation of a properly rerecorded file is at the same level as if you’d digitally converted between formats.
And, yes, I do that to all of my digital content ever since I’ve lost old content (and had to reaquire it by less than legal means.) The company going out of business is less a risk than a hard drive crashing and you not being able to reregister your computer. Or, as stated, the company to themselves decide to no longer support content, like Amazon already has done multiple times.
I’m pretty sure that, if I were older, I’d have had all my VHS content similarly backed up. As is, I was too young to realize they wouldn’t survive out in the garage. But at least that loss of content is my fault, and not someone else taking away what I previously owned. That’s what I have a problem with. That’s what’s fundamentally different about this versus past obsolescence.
I have the same concerns over the books I’m buying on a Kindle.
I can’t prove it, but my hunch is there’s some kind of rights check on Amazon anytime a book is opened. It may be physically on your Kindle, but worthless if Amazon doesn’t say its legit.
If Amazon disappears, then everyone with a book collection is royally screwed.
There was an ugly incident a year or so ago when some author objected to his book being on Kindle. In one stroke Amazon deleted copies off everyones Kindle. A feature they had carefully kept hidden until then.
The situation with streaming services is probably similar to that with DRM downloads a few years back. That is to say, if the company goes bust, you might have a short window in which to download something but otherwise are probably out of luck. Here’s the Terms of Use:
I have stripped the DRM from all the Kindle books I have bought. It’s not that difficult to do. The de-DRM-ed books work perfectly well on my Kindle nonetheless. People are way too paranoid about Amazon and Kindle books, based on a single stupid incident that Amazon will never repeat.
My backed-up DRM-free Kindle books can be converted to ePub or any other format, so even if Amazon dies and my Kindle breaks down, I own those books forever.
Just fyi for people who’ve never done this, when you purchase an instant video from Amazon, they also allow you to downloadit to two locations. You might not be able to stream it online forever, but you will be allowed to keep the movie in some form.
Just to clarify, the books in question were sold illegally by a company that did not hold the legal copyright. Amazon removed the illegal books from people’s Kindles and refunded their money. And I seriously doubt Amazon will ever do such a thing again because of the flak they got over it.
IMO, not an ugly incident, and a perfectly reasonable solution.
I’m a little confused that you say people “… are way too paranoid about Amazon and Kindle books …”, and then you take exactly the (IMO illegal) precautions someone would take who feared that Amazon would someday renege on their license.
So which is it? Should one simply use the DRM-licensed books one has leased in accordance with one’s license? Or should one take pre-emptive precautions to convert ones *content leased with conditions *into content owned outright just in case?
I’m guessing that the copyright on that show will expire before Amazon goes away.
Back to the OP: There are no guarantees.
From the POV of any corporate successor(s) picking over the carcass of a dying Amazon, maintaining all that content & providing ongoing streaming (or DRM unlocking) of it is a pure liability. They get no revenue from the effort but they have all the expense of providing it.
I suspect the real value of a failing Amazon would be in the voluntary customer loyalty, the lazy customer habit, and the grudging customer lock-in built up in the good years. The buyer will want to maintain that to maintain the income stream. But they’ll want to do it as cheaply as possible.
A blanket decision to kill off the 90% of content or 90% of customers that represent only 10% of their revenue would not be surprising. Certainly any content where the upstream rights arrangements have gotten too complex or too cloudy to deal with could/would be cut off.
OTOH, royally pissing off most of your content buyers wouldn’t be an obviously winning strategy. Unless you’ve got real deep customer lock-in & most customers will grumble but not be willing to pay the umpteen thousand it would cost for a new device & to re-lease *all *their existing content from some competitor, not just the 10-20% which is being cut off.
Looking just at the content distribution piece, I’d bet one of the better “plays” one could make on a dying Amazon would be a squeeze on the content suppliers; “Listen, Sony: You either cut your fees & residuals in half or we’ll stop distributing your stuff.” Along with a skilful PR campaign to make it not Amazon’s fault when Sony tells them to go pound sand & Amazon’s “forced” to remote-kill all the Sony content it ever sold. Squeezing vendors is a pretty standard business tactic in both bankruptcy & fragmentation cases.
My bottom line: You aren’t buying anything when you pay for streaming or DRM-ed content. You’re *leasing *it. And your lease (& hence your use of the content) dies with the company who granted it to you.
Amazon videos can be downloaded to your Tivo or Unbox after purchase. If Amazon goes out of business, wouldn’t you still have it on your Tivo?