Tip: don't buy digital movies on Amazon Instant Video
Whenever I purchase movies or videos, I do so on DVD or Blu-Ray exclusively and never as digital content on the Internet.
The reason is simple: if I purchase it on DVD or Blu-Ray, I can watch the film whenever I want to, regardless of online access or other restrictions that may be in place.
Amazon Instant Video users who have purchased select Disney movies in the offered digital format are in for a surprise this Christmas season as it is currently not possible to play them anymore.
Update: Extremetech reports that Amazon claims that the removal of the videos has been "caused by a temporary issue", and that "customers should never lose access to their Amazon Instant Video purchases. Some videos at the time of writing are still not available though on the site at the time of posting that update. It can be however that they are available for users who purchased them earlier.
Movies and shows affected by this include "The Muppet Christmas Carol" and "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas" while other Christmas themed movies such as "Disney's a Christmas Carol" or "Mickey's Magical Christmas" are still available.
The reason? Disney pulled them for Christmas, likely to push the films on the company's own TV channels (ABC airs the Muppet Christmas Carol on ABC Family and ABC Family HD for example).
So, you cannot watch Christmas themed movies during the time you are most likely to watch them. Who watches Christmas movies in Summer?
What many users of Amazon's service do not know is that rights holders can pull videos and movies whenever they select to do so.
This means that even if you have "bought" the right to play the digital version of the movie using Amazon's service, you may not be able to do so if the rights-holder pulls it. This is indicated under 2e in the Terms of Use:
Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to be available to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may become unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions and for other reasons, and Amazon will not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming.
What this means is that users who have "bought" the film on Amazon in digital format cannot play it currently. If they want to watch it, they have to watch it on Disney's TV channel -- along with all the ads and fixed schedule -- that comes along with that experience.
Some may be able to play it if they have downloaded it previously to their devices, but that needs to be confirmed first.
It is not clear why only some movies have been pulled by Disney from Amazon's service for the time being. What is clear is that Disney's decision is going to irritate many legit customers who have bought those movies on Amazon.
Disney's strategy is short-sighted at best. Some customers may decide to watch the show or movie on TV instead, even if they are disgruntled by that. Others may turn to the dark side of the Internet to gain access to the contents.
It is near certain that some will stop buying Disney movies in digital format as a consequence of this.
Closing Words
For me, it is just another confirmation that it is not worth buying digital contents as you give up control over when and how you can access those contents. (via Torentfreak)
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Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
EMRE ÇITAK posts are useless because they are fraught with inaccuracies and are irrelevant.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
Rreedom of Association is one of our most important rights. Some people think it’s Freedom, but no, I say Rreedom is far more important. There are many STATE-MANDATED associations that save jobs, that’s right MANDATED. I can’t name any of them, but rest assured they are bad, because saving jobs are bad, and people having jobs leads to dictatorship!!! Anyone who disagrees is too radical for Ghacks maybe, because I’m not sure.
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.
No, they didn’t lmao.
https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1706523877478670542
What does this article about Musk/Tesla have to do with computing, devices, phones?
More irelevant filler.
yeah sure… they are always the victims and it is only against them ????
Believe them 100% and never question anything. This lawsuit sounds like the type you heard when people were eating batteries.