Amazon Prime Video is able to remove a video from your library after purchase.

We are contacting you regarding a past Prime Video purchase(s). The below content is no longer playable on Prime Video.

In an effort to compensate you for the inconvenience, we have applied a £5.99 Amazon Gift Card to your account. The Gift Card amount is equal to the amount you paid for the Prime Video purchase(s). To apologize for the inconvenience, we’ve also added an Amazon Gift Certificate of £5 to your account. Your Gift Card balance will be automatically applied to your next eligible order. You can view your balance and usage history in Your Account here:

atrielienz, (edited )

They’ve done this previously with books, music, and other media purchased through them and they aren’t alone. Apple and Google have also been on the hook for this. This usually happens when they lose the right to sell some form of media (they make deals with record labels, artists, movie companies, publishers etc to license the right to sell that media for the purpose of streaming). You’re buying the right to stream/enjoy that media indefinitely (until they lose the rights to sell it to you and then they have to remove it from their library of streamable media). You can absolutely download that media and keep it somewhere not connected to the internet. But they can absolutely remove it.

The one exception used to be Google Play Music. Their terms were such that you actually owned the music you purchased. I assume that’s part of the reason they sunsetted that app and their music selling altogether. The cost was too high vs the number of paid users.

Apple has also done this and it was a big deal because they didn’t notify customers at all at the time.

Edit: I’m gonna add that this licensing agreement is similar to the one made when we bought physical media from retail stores. They have the right to sell it until their licensing agreement runs out. When or if it runs out they send back their remaining inventory and proof that they sold everything else. And the only reason a company isn’t requesting that media back in this event is because it’s cost prohibitive for them.

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

“your” library

m3t00,
@m3t00@lemmy.world avatar

download files and store elsewhere. music mp3s anyway. never tried their vids. mostly crap

utopiah,

shocked Pikachu face

Did customers really forgot the ebook 1984 event or assume they’d “just” get “better”?

Honestly kind of deserved, don’t buy from Amazon! Wondering why? Read Chokepoint capitalism but TLDR their business model is monopoly and monopsony. They’re terrible.

mechoman444,

Arrrr maty!

A2PKXG,
@A2PKXG@feddit.de avatar

Ianal, but I assume they might get into trouble for the use of words like buy and own, if this is how they treat the purchases.

Car,

You’ll buy a limited license to access content (Top Gun) which is owned by a publishing entity (Paramount) and which will be served through an intermediary (Amazon Prime Video) and delivered from a content network (Akamai) and you’ll like it!

Mr_nutter_butter,
@Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world avatar

It’s just a long term licence to watch it

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Strictly speaking, so is a DVD or other physical media, per the EULA they flash across the screen for half a second before starting the show and therefore makes it legally binding.

The big difference is that nobody’s running around trying to claw back DVDs. Whereas, with Amazon, its trivially easy to just click “Remove License” from the repository and snatch back an arbitrary number of licenses. Purely a question of convenience.

Of course, if you have a… uh… backup copy stored conveniently on a PLEX server, then they can’t claw that back either.

Mr_nutter_butter,
@Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world avatar

They did try to do expiring dvds thank god it didn’t work

RoseRose56,
@RoseRose56@lemmy.world avatar

As I said(probably) in another post, you own nothing since you sing up and accept the terms. They can change the terms when ever they want, they can remove videos when ever they want or the rights for a movie or series end. If you want to have something, find a provider that sells and lets download files, so you don’t lose what you buy.

A2PKXG,
@A2PKXG@feddit.de avatar

At least in Germany there are Limits to t&c’s. To put it simply, there musn’t be any ugly surprises.

The merchant retroactively cancelling your purchases would be an ugly surprise of that nature.

stealthnerd,

When you buy something from a streaming service you’re only buying the right to stream it, nothing more.

You can’t compare it to owning physical media because there are ongoing costs involved for Amazon to host it and ever changing contracts with media companies outlining what they are allowed to host.

Lordgeoffery,
@Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

Then what do you call a video rental?

Stabbitha,

…A temporary right to stream? What even is the point of this question that’s asked as some sort of gotcha?

Lordgeoffery,
@Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

What’s it to you?

Stabbitha,

Thanks for the reply, I kinda wanted to downvote you again.

Lordgeoffery,
@Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

Ouch! My feelings are hurt… Lol don’t. Be a turd plz

Sivalente,

While it’s shitty that they can take it away like that, at least they seem to have paid back the cost plus an extra gift card. Idk if cost was refunded or added to the account as credit, but either are at least something.

torpak,

The only thing that surprises me is that anyone is surprised by this. If you buy a physical book from anywhere, you own it. If you “buy” the rigth to play a movie (or read a book) from amazon, you own nothing. Usually they don’t show that so clearly but that’s the reality.

shartedchocolate,

People need to fuck off with this “I’m surprised you’re surprised” stuff. It contributes nothing to discussion except showing how far superior of an internet user you are, by no longer being surprised by sketchy shit.

torpak,

I wouldn’t do that if I hadn’t warned everyone who would and wouldn’t listen about this since the start of the business model. I’m just frustrated, that nobody listens until it’s to late.

Seudo,

Meh, makes me feel a little better about our slide into dystopia knowing we had it coming are too damn lazy and apathetic to do anything about it.

yuunikki,

deleted_by_author

    •
    zbyte64,

    Alternatively: People know Amazon would do this, they’re just surprised that we are all standing around letting it happen

    Schadrach,

    Hell, this isn’t the first time Amazon has done this, even if it’s the first time they’ve done it for video. Of all things, they retroactively removed a version of 1984 from Kindle, including having Kindle devices delete local copies the next time they connected to Amazon.

    torpak,

    If I recall correctly there was a time, where they did a deal with Disney a few years back. Disney wanted to bring one or more of their classic animations back to the cinema and Amazon disabled playback of those movie(s) for that time even for people who had “bought” them.

    torpak,

    I remember the 1984 incident. At the time I thought this is so ironic, it has to be satire. Now, just a few years later it doesn’t even register as odd anymore.

    UnderpantsWeevil,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    If you buy a physical book from anywhere, you own it.

    Even that isn’t strictly true, as IP laws metasticize and mutate over time. But its far more expensive to try and reclaim a book than to revoke a digital license on a 3rd party repository.

    If you kept your digital copy of a digital book on an e-reader in airplane mode, you’d have as much access to that as any trade paperback. And backing up my collection of PDFs to a drive is significantly easier than shouldering a shelf’s worth of books.

    The fundamental issue with digital media is that its ultimately convenient to access a central digital archive than to keep your own personal collections on hand and catalogued. But then you have to ask the question “Who controls that central digital archive?” And if its a bad actor, there’s your problem. Its the same problem physical libraries have, too. Don’t let the guy who burned down the Library of Alexandria run your neighborhood branch. Don’t let Ron DeSantis near it, either.

    torpak,

    When it comes to corporations, the problem is there are no good actors. They are required by law to do what ever maximizes shareholder value.

    Squid,

    Wow I didn’t mind purchasing content before… My pirate hat is now officially glued to my fucking head.

    la508,

    If I were to sail the seven seas, I’d probably use a lightweight Kodi build like POVico (despite it being kind of ugly) on a Chromecast w/Google TV, and sign up to Real Debrid.

    You know, theoretically.

    calavera,

    Stremio is pretty good also

    Lordgeoffery,
    @Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

    Hellz yeah! And buy physical SSDs to store them forever. Fuck the sys.

    Stabbitha,

    You guys, your account is just a collection of records in a database. Literally any service that you make digital purchases from – Amazon, Steam, Sony, Microsoft, GOG, etc., can remove purchased content from your account. They just delete a single line from a database.

    Y’all need to stop being surprised when digital companies are able to do digital shit to your digital stuff.

    cyberpunk007,

    I guess I should be working on breaking the DRM and backing up my audible books on a regular basis…

    set_secret,

    there is an app for that. it’s called free audible or something.

    MaxVoltage,

    god this is so Lemmy Rage bait

    Lordgeoffery,
    @Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

    Ur post is lemmy rage bait lol

    parsiuk,

    You know where Amazon (and any other company for that matter) can’t pull content from? My Jellyfin instance. Yo-ho-ho!

    UnderpantsWeevil,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    True. But your jellyfish instance only really works for you and a few trusted friends/neighbors. I would still like a comprehensive library that I can browse and select from at a moment’s notice.

    The infuriating nature of Amazon / Hollywood / IP law / etc, is that these two combined goals are inimicable to the profit motive. I can’t have access to a big public library of continent, because that means someone else won’t be able to collect the real-time maximal market-rate from me to access it.

    Shit happens. Tech breaks. You forget where you leave things. People outside your social circle (people you’ll never know existed) will want access to that same media at some future date. And Jellyfin doesn’t get them that.

    pandacoder,

    Skull joke? 😂

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