The general idea is that when a person buys something with their money, their own, hard-earned money, that the item is theirs, or they have the use of something for a while. Plus, a website that says ‘purchase’ with a price next to it, and also has the option to ‘rent’ with the price also next to it, should be able to understand that a person paying the money to buy something will expect that it will stay in their collection until they don’t want it any longer. That doesn’t appear to be the case when it comes to Apple and as a result, there is a lawsuit that is seeking to ascertain whether Apple has been attempting to cheat people or if there is something more to the claim that they can simply pull anything they want from their service, and yank it from those that have purchased it as well. There’s more to it than this of course, but the general idea is that people who have paid good money for a movie or TV show shouldn’t have to worry about losing the download they’ve purchased in Apple decides to nix certain movies and shows from their platform, since the difference between purchase and rent is pretty obvious, and while rentals last for a certain amount of time and will not remain in a person’s digital collection, a purchased item is no different than buying a DVD from the rack, it should be able to stay in a person’s collection for some time to come. A plaintiff that became embroiled in a lawsuit against Apple had this to say via MovieWeb:
“Apple contends that ‘[n]o reasonable consumer would believe’ that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely. But in common usage, the term ‘buy’ means to acquire possession over something. It seems plausible, at least at the motion to dismiss stage, that reasonable consumers would expect their access couldn’t be revoked.”
Why there’s any confusion is hard to say, but it doesn’t appear as though it’s on the part of the consumer unless there’s something hidden in the purposefully confusing agreements that an individual must read and sign or at least agree to when using Apple products and downloads. The greatest point of confusion here or anyone to acknowledge is that once money is exchanged for a product, that product tends to belong to the buyer unless the money is only renting something, in which case the product WILL revert back to the platform at the end of the agreed-upon time. Why this is even a struggle doesn’t make a lot of sense, other than the idea that Apple might be trying to pull a fast one, or people are getting riled up over a mistake. It’s hard to say which it might be since it’s simply too difficult to understand how anyone could possibly get this mixed up. Even if the product is a download one might reasonably expect that if the platform goes away that the company wouldn’t be able to simply yank the purchases from every customer in any case. Maybe there’s more to be understood concerning this matter, but the fact is that the best way to think of it is that Apple shouldn’t be able to yank the purchased items from the consumers any more than a physical store is able to repossess anything that a consumer has legally bought from the store.
The fact that Apple is even arguing this point is a bit disconcerting since it could possibly indicate that a lot of people might be close to losing what could amount to a virtual library of music, TV shows, and movies. Thankfully there are enough streaming sites out there to provide a wealth of entertainment, but the point is that the convenience of having something that a person wants to watch at any given moment is kind of nice, and streaming sites do cycle through various programs and movies from time to time. It’s not a huge inconvenience to be certain, but its one that a person can’t help but think is more than a little crooked if Apple claims that they can and would yank the digital libraries that have been built by so many buyers. One has to imagine that some folks that use Apple extensively for their entertainment needs might be feeling a little bit apprehensive since the idea of paying so much for their movies, music, and TV shows, which aren’t too much different in price, might be feeling the uncertainty caused by wondering if they could lose a great deal of data at one point without knowing why.
The cost of a movie, song, or TV episode really isn’t that bad on iTunes to be sure, but thinking that it would still be a loss that has no solid explanation.
Follow Us
