this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Amazon Prime Video is able to remove a video from your library after purchase. (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by szlwzl@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
74 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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:

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[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Companies issuing refunds in the form of gift cards is just straight-up insulting

[–] ericisshort@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And it may be illegal in some states to not offer the customer an actual refund.

[–] Carter@feddit.uk 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

£5.99 refund. Quite clearly not in the US.

[–] dansity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sssh.. Everyone lives in default country

[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Default country is best country.

[–] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Take me down to %DEFAULT_CITY where the grass is %DEFAULT_COLOR and the girls are %DESCRIPTIVE_ADJECTIVE

[–] odium@programming.dev 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I know they probably actually meant the States of the US, but...

They did say states with a lowercase s. 'States' = regions within a country, 'states' = can mean countries. Technically they aren't defaulting to the US.

[–] looeee@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

£ is from a country that does not have states

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

But it IS a state. Sorry if you're not a native English speaker but just because your vocabulary is lacking doesn't mean they are wrong.

[–] fubo@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Remember, streaming only has a business model as long as it has a better user experience than piracy. That's why iTunes took off in the era of Napster. When a streaming service's user experience drops below that of digging up pirate treasure off a shitty ad-ridden torrent site, that service is not long for the world.

[–] Weslee@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I cancelled Netflix and prime and went back to piracy a few months ago, it's been a nice blast from the past

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In addition to piracy, I've also been checking out DVDs from my local library. It's kinda fun.

Surprised myself because I half expected I'd miss the convenience of Netflix, but I haven't missed it even a little.

"Was I a good streaming platform?"

"No."

[–] Peaty@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The benefit of the library DVD is it takes away the "What will we watch tonight?" conversation. You're going to watch the DVD.

[–] AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It just switches the question to the library: "What will we borrow tonight?"

Source: experience from my Blockbuster days.

[–] RanchOnPancakes@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If you can't save it, its not yours. Sail the seas.

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Or buy it on physical media. More and more studios are pulling their disks and it is getting harder to find. If you have a disk, it can never be recalled.

[–] RoquetteQueen@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Ever since Disney announced they are also going to ban account sharing, I've been going to thrift stores and grabbing any DVDs my children like or might like. I've gotten quite a few classics so far for less than the cost of one month of Disney+. I almost bought a VCR because the VHS collection at thrift stores here is huge and they are so cheap, but rewinding sucks.

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[–] hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's easy to scoff at this whole "You will own nothing, and you will be happy" phrase, but it's really gone too far already.

[–] Gerbler@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I'm really tired of hearing "you don't own it you own a license to it" like it's some revelation for people complaining. We're aware that the system has been constructed to benefit media companies at the expense of consumers.

To be honest; I never really bought the argument anyway. From a legal standpoint I don't give half a shit. From a layman's standpoint it's bullshit. Nowhere do they use terms like "rent" or "lease". They explicitly use terms like "buy" and it's not until the fine print that the term license even comes up.

They know they're pissing on you and telling you it's raining and the goobers doing their legwork by repeating the sentence like they just came up with it annoy me to no end.

[–] gapbetweenus@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

Digital goods are just not physical goods, you don't really own them - which also mean you can't really steal them.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You don’t own the video file. You own access to their video file, which they also don’t own, they only own the right to distribute it. If their distribution contract ends and doesn’t gets renewed, then they can’t let you access the file. At least they refunded you. This system is one of the issues with the ongoing writers and actors strikes. Amazon can decide to stop making a video available, which cuts all dividends revenues to actors and writers. So having a video available for you to watch costs money to Amazon (or Netflix or Max…) but not enough content makes users unsubscribe, so they ride that thin line for maximized revenue. This means that older movies that aren’t blockbusters get dropped in favor of new content. Now new content doesn’t means good content, remember, it needs to be as cheap as possible. Aaand this is why steaming companies are spiraling down and everything is going to shit. Filmmaking is an art form turned into an industry. But art isn’t about maximized profit, it’s about art first. But you can’t make that art without millions of dollars and that requires the art to take a step back to maximize profit, but not too far back. It’s a really big issue in the film and entertainment industry.

— I’m an IATSE local 600 camera operator.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They should be refunding in cash though, not store credit.

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Depends on the contract you agreed to with Amazon.

[–] atyaz@reddthat.com 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Your argument basically boils down to "never use amazon or any other shitty tech company for that matter", which I guess I agree with.

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[–] ilovesatan@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Being a pirate is alright to be

[–] MaxVoltage@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

steam scares me

if one day they go mental i will lose so many games.

i have a pc with a large ass harddisk just to download and save all single player games and never update them.

always play offline.

but they already changed it so you cant play offline really idk maybe it was just that game

[–] chic_luke@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I think the fear mongering on Steam is excessive. The games stay offline on your disk, and most of them don't have a DRM. Gabe Newell has also said that, in case Steam ever shutters, an exit plan will be provided. As for the Steam native DRM, there are already open source implementations that can be used to bypass it and Valve hasn't done anything against it in years - so the only problematic DRMs are Denuvo and similar, which Steam does not control.

GOG used to be a valid alternative, but it isn't anymore. With CDPR themselves publishing games with DRM on GOG, on top of starting to be lenient on DRMs, they are literally having something similar to a DRM that is required for some games, a GOG Galaxy API that is completely closed source. And it doesn't support Linux, the FOSS operating system.

The fact that after years GOG still doesn't seem to care about Linux, CDPR releases their games for Windows only (and more often than not with DRM), and Cyberpunk 2077 only runs on Linux thanks to Valve's efforts is also worrying from a game conservation and ownership standpoint: Windows is a Proprietary operating system completely controlled by Microsoft, who can perform modifications remotely and is allegedly planning to popularize a model where people are sold very low spec PCs that only need to stream a Windows computer from the cloud with more powerful specs… not the platform I want to entrust the future of gaming to.

All in all, Steam is still the mainstream gaming platform I dislike the least and trust the most. If I'm going to buy a game and hope it's going to be playable decades into the future, it used to be GOG, but now it's Steam from me.

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[–] MaxVoltage@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

actually that seems fair. they gave you an extra 5

if steam refunded all my games i would be so happy

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (5 children)

If I take something from your home and then leave you what I've decided unilaterally is fair compensation for it, and you know nothing of the transaction until after it has happened, would that seem fair to you? Asking because I'm pretty confident you have a refrigerator and I know for sure that I've got a crisp, fresh one dollar bill.

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[–] beefcat@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

blu-rays are often as cheap or cheaper than "digital copies", and ripping them to my NAS is pretty trivial these days thanks to makemkv.

the best part is, uncle jeff cannot legally break into your house and take back the disc just because of some petty rights issue.

[–] PrawoJazdy@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I recently bought a 4k Blu-ray player. My brother asked me if I also bought a fax machine because streaming is "where it's at" . Nah My 4k player cleans up DVDs really nice where streaming has artifacts and banding. Not only is it true ownership but a better quality.

[–] beefcat@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (13 children)

4k streaming is also way lower quality than a 4k blu-ray

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[–] parsiuk@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

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[–] torpak@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's just a long term licence to watch it

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[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Sometimes I think I made the right decision to just get a huge harddrive and download all my favorite entertainment in drm free format. Movies, music, games, books. I saw this coming a mile away a decade ago. The only thing that will really hurt me is if/when Steam inevitably goes full corporate cucks and starts going hard on the DRM locking down my library.

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