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> Purchasing the right to see a movie, listen to a song, on a service, will never be the same as holding a physical copy.

Yeah, that's a no-go, chief.

Even if it's somehow baked into the terms of service, I don't think it's reasonable for the average person to assume the content they are purchasing (not leasing, not renting, not subscribing to, but purchasing) might someday disappear, outside of the service shutting down forever.

As a technical person, I understand that may happen, but in this case, it's surprising. This is more evidence that we are not doing enough to police marketing and legalese.

Someone once told me that with bad contracts, two people can come away with different understandings as to what was greed upon. Good contracts can only be interpreted one way. The same should be true for almost every part of our economy - leases, sales contracts, mortgages, investments, employment agreements, terms of service, etc.

Personally, I believe we need to reign in the "unlimited" data claims, "adjustable" APRs, non-compete agreements, and privacy policies.




> Someone once told me that with bad contracts, two people can come away with different understandings as to what was greed upon.

An apropos typo ….


Buying a DVD gives you the right to view that content, but that "right" disappears if you scratch the DVD.


Unless you have a private copy, which is allowed in many countries. As long as you keep a backup, you effectively have this "right" for life.

And what if the publishers break into your home and are the ones to scratch the DVD? That reflects better what happened in the article.


You can keep a copy of your iTunes media, it's perfectly legal.

Apple is not the publisher, they are the distributor. They are not "coming into your home and scratching your DVD", an actually analogous analogy would be they stop supporting the DVD format with new disc players they release.




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