Cory Doctorow explains why Amazon’s new Unbox service sucks.
I’m consistently impressed with how far companies push the contractual agreements that people simply click-through. No matter what the product (iTunes Store, Amazon, etc.) be sure to read the fine print of what you’re actually signing up for. I’m okay with most of what iTunes allows one to do (and not do). I wish I could write to DVD something purchased from the store, and expect to be able to once iLife 07 comes out.
I think it all comes down to what a customer expects to be able to do with content. We’ve been sold by Apple and Microsoft these ideas of being free to create, rip, mix, and burn to our hearts content, but lately these ideas have been challenged by the Intellectual Property rights exerted by the MPAA and RIAA. Customers expect to be able to make backups of something they bought (since they’ve been able to do so for years otherwise).
There’s a semantic issue at the heart of this too: consumers don’t purchase something, they license it. People aren’t used to the idea of licensing when it comes to entertainment purchases (technically we’ve always been licensing things when one buys a VHS tape or DVD). My dad is a hunter, so he purchases a license to hunt deer every year. He pays the state for the right to kill an animal. On an album by album basis, I pay Apple (via the iTunes Store) for the right to listen to and make a CD copy of some music I like. I don’t pay for the right to change the encoding of the file–the file is the representation of the license, just like a piece of cardstock is the representation of my dad’s hunting license.
However true this may be, it still stinks. If I keep something on my computer, I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that I have right to do whatever I want with it. Few people consider streamed movies property in the way they consider downloaded files property, so perhaps a change there would make sense. Perhaps Apple et al should keep the songs I license on their server, away from my computer, so I don’t feel tempted to treat them as my property.
Anyways, that was a bit of a tangent. Amazon’s new service is what I wanted to talk about and I wonder what the future holds for our digital distractions? In 20 years there may not even be the option of buying DVDs anymore, DRM files may be the only format I can choose from. That’s a scary picture that needs to be nipped in the bud today. Send a message to the holders of Intellectual Property rights by not using DRM that doesn’t allow the consumer to make a physical copy. For instance, I’ll not purchase anything from the iTunes Store unless I can burn it to CD as needed.
It’s amazing how far they’ve gone with these policies. I bet that most people who will buy movies from this service are people who assume the legal jargon is irrelevant and that they basically do own the movies.
I don’t think anyone knows what will happen in 20 years. Perhaps some big company will go bankrupt, causing the cancellation of millions of downloaded movies which people thought they owned, and suddenly these issues will make sense to Joe Consumer. Or perhaps the idea of movie ownership will fade away altogether. Why should people bother with owning movies if they can select any movie ever made with their remote control, start it buffering while they make popcorn, and watch it in high quality for a rental fee? The technology isn’t too far off.
Personally, I only buy things with no DRM or with DRM which I can trivially avoid. But I’m afraid the day will come where I have to choose between accepting crappy agreements or missing out on something I’d really enjoy.
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