For well over a decade, we have talked in regards to the many issues that arise when copyright is in comparison to “property” — and other folks attempt to transfer over concepts from bodily, tangible assets into the arena of digital. A vital side of this: while you “acquire” something digital on-line, is it a “acquire,” or is it a “license” (particularly a license that could be revoked)? If it was once a real “acquire,” then you definitely should own it, and the seller should not be ready to take it back. But in observe, over and over and over again, we now have noticed stories of other folks having issues they supposedly “bought” disappear. The scenario is so crazy that we have referred to it as Schrödinger’s Download, in that many copyright holders and retailers would like the same factor to be a “sale” one of the vital time, and a “license” probably the most time (the “instances” for every have a tendency to be when it hurts the consumers probably the most). This has, now and then, seeped into physical goods, where they’ve tried to add “license agreements” to bodily merchandise. Or, worse, when some copyright folks claimed that purchasing a DVD means you do not if truth be told own what you bought, but rather are merely “buying get entry to” to the content, and that may be revoked.
Anyway, I’m amazed that we do not see more lawsuits about this type of factor — but one was not too long ago filed in California. Someone named Amanda Caudel is suing Amazon for saying that you’ve “purchased” a video download, which Amazon would possibly disappear out of your library whenever it wants. As the lawsuit makes clear, Amazon directly says that you are purchasing the film (as opposed to renting it).
And, they indicate, in your account, there is a record of “Your Video Purchases & Rentals.” But, the lawsuit claims, what you purchase doesn’t appear to act like an actual purchase:
Reasonable customers will be expecting that using a “Buy” button and the representation that their Video Content is a “Purchase” means that the consumer has paid for complete access to the Video Content and, like every got product, that gets right of entry to cannot be revoked.
Unfortunately for shoppers who chose the “Buy” option, that is deceptive and unfaithful. Instead, the ugly reality is that Defendant secretly reserves the suitable to terminate the consumers’ get admission to and use of the Video Content at any time and has achieved so on a lot of occasions, leaving the consumer without the facility to experience their already-bought Video Content.
Defendant’s representations are deceptive as a result of they provide the impact that the Video Content is purchased – i.e., the individual owns it – when if truth be told that isn’t true as a result of Defendant or others may revoke get admission to to the Video Content at any time and for any explanation why. In so representing the “Purchase” of Video Content as real ownership of the content, Defendant took benefit of the (1) cognitive shortcuts made at the point-of-sale, e.g., Rent v. Buy and (2) price of the Video Content, which is corresponding to an outright acquire as opposed to an apartment.
Though some shoppers might get fortunate and never loose get entry to any in their paid-for media, others would possibly someday in finding that their Video Content is now completely inaccessible. Regardless, all shoppers have overpaid for the Video Content because they aren’t, in reality, owners of the Video Content, despite have paid extra money to “Buy” the product.
The plaintiff (or moderately, her lawyers) are trying to make this a category motion lawsuit, and are arguing that (among different things) this is false promoting. I Am, not strangely, sympathetic to the plaintiff — and stay disillusioned at how copyright and similar restrictions are being used to chip away at possession and precise property rights. That stated… I’m Not that constructive; the case gets very ways. In the previous, firms had been able to wiggle out of similar claims, and i Am beautiful confident that Amazon tries to push disputes like this to binding arbitration, which means that the lawsuit could also be dead on arrival. Still, it’s yet some other reminder of ways copyright is chipping away at real assets.
