Apple Pulls Some Disney and Pixar Titles From iTunes Store and iTunes in the Cloud [Updated]

[kudukudu]

In my view this cloud stuff is all half baked. Companies need to work out intellectual property rules that are more consumer friendly. Consider the following:

1. As others have said before, with physical CD/DVD/Bluray and rips you can pass on your entire digital library to your children when I die. What if you have spent $1000s though an itunes account. Your heirs are SOL and your itunes content dies with you. There are some prominent lawsuits in the states on this exact topic which I lost track of a while back. Once people realize they haven't actually purchased anything through the cloud I could see a bit of a consumer revolt.

2. The example here of cloud material disappearing to to changes in rules. This is a good illustration that you are not "buying" anything in the cloud, rather you are "renting" it and your mileage may vary in terms of how long you actually have access to this content.

The bottom line is that content producers and distributors can't have their cake and eat it too. If they don't want people to pirate they need to come up with a mechanism that mimics physical purchasing which has the following characteristics:

1. When you purchase something you get to keep it forever, period.
2. There must be a legal way to transfer ownership of digital content to another person

Until these 2 issues are resolved, people are only going to embrace the cloud for convenience (e.g. watching a TV series that you don't care about), but folks may be less inclined for digital content they want to keep as part of a collection.

The only way the above 2 items won't matter is if the subscription model becomes ubiquitous. If you have have access to every novel written through a subscription, every movie ever made and every song recorded through a monthly subscription like people have today with TV cable, then the question of ownership becomes superfluous. But as long as folks are "purchasing" content what I have said above are going to remain real issues

 

[sonicboom]

Major black eye for cloud media

My iTunes purchase days are over. As of today.
You broke the trust Apple.

 

[simonmet]

Well, I haven't purchased or rented any movies off of iTunes because of the prices. Now I have a 2nd reason to not purchase anything off iTunes. Can't believe they won't refund existing customers...maybe they are in the process of renegotiation.

Christ, this is worst than a network pulling their shows off of a cable network because of fee negotiations.

If they don't do something about this, I suspect there will be class action law suits coming...

I've only just heard about this Vault thing in this thread. It makes me wonder why they do it, what's their motivation?

My guess is it's got something to do with copyright. Remember this is the company that has lobbied heavily (and successfully) for favourable copyright terms and extensions for its content. Is this some kind of loophole they're exploiting to keep resetting the copyright date?

Disney are one of the most hypocritical, conservative and subversive companies I can think of. A business that made itself on the back of other people's work but then changed the rules that would've made some of their early works free by now.

I'm not losing out here because I simply don't buy their bland tasteless crap and never have.

----------

My iTunes purchase days are over. As of today.
You broke the trust Apple.

It's DRM that's the problem. To be fair Apple have been pretty vocal in their opposition to DRM and did successfully get it removed from music purchases so there's no way any license server could deactivate or prevent you from playing music or of passing it down to your kids. Unfortunately, the movie studios are much bigger and harder to break. It's such a massive industry but in the end a people's revolt will force their hand. Consumers have the power to vote with their wallets.

So maybe you'll still consider music purchases? As for me I rarely buy anything on iTunes because the quality isn't as good as their CD/Blu Ray counterparts. I only buy music for which the CDs aren't made (singles mainly) and occasional TV shows when I'm desperate!

 

[ChrisA]

... But don't make it impossible for those who have already PAID for the downloads to redownload. Those movies are their property now. That's absurd.

No way. Those movies were NEVER your property. All you bought was a license to to use the files. They make it clear that you never own the data.

That is the trouble with the entire digital media idea, you NEVER buy the file, you get in effect a lifetime rental agreement that is not transferable. You can't sell or give await the files either.

 

[Poisonivy326]

iTunes on iOS is still a fairly user-friendly app that I can use easily.

iTunes on OSX however has become THE most user-unfriendly, unwieldy piece of bloatware that Apple has -- I don't even open it up anymore unless I'm syncing or backing up my iphone because I just can't make heads or tails of it. It's also (at least on my computer) prone to crashing and to me the very opposite of the "it just works" philosophy.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

People always get this wrong. It's like going to a store and making a magic copy of any given item or even out of thin air. Is it right? Likely not, yet it can depend what it is. Like that car example, "You would not steal a car" Of course not yet people sure would download or make a magic copy of one if they could.

stealing is still stealing, i don't care if you are making an "imaginary copy" you are still stealing. Saying otherwise is just denial, and trying to somehow justify your wrong doing.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

*Looks fondly at shelf full of Blu-Rays which cost no more than iTunes downloads, provide a superior image and sound, and can't vaporize into thin air*

Agreed, but Apple has made sure you'll never be able to put any of those Blu-Rays into your Mac product by removing optical drives from their latest products and those that have drives do not support Blu-Ray. I wonder why?

All part of Apple's Master Plan of dominance and dictatorship. Bit by bit, piece by piece. All sugar coated and delivered in a pretty box straight to the lemmings lined up outside the Apple Store.

For me, it's blu-ray disc to MKV (raw blu-ray data) format stored on 4TB external USB drives (not Wunderbolt) and with the MKV files I can watch them as-is in true blu-ray quality on laptops or personal media centers or transcode them relatively quickly into a 1080p format my tablets (Android and iPad) can play. I have one iTunes movie, and it's one that is NOT available on Blu-ray anywhere but is in 1080p HD in the iTunes store.

 

[mj1108]

This is exactly why I don't purchase ANY videos from iTunes or Amazon....

 

[elensil]

I understand preferring to not back files up, just like I understand preferring not to floss. In the end, though, you're taking a risk by avoiding just a modicum of effort. Back your files up, even (and especially) those which are stored in cloud services. That applies to movies and music purchased from Apple, documents you create, pictures you take, etc. And floss. Flossing is important

For you knowledge, good sir, I floss, backup with Superduper, and put on my pants all by myself

I was just making an argument on behalf of an "average joe", highlighting the fact that general public has placed trust of their content to cloud services. Withdrawing purchased titles is a violation of said trust (that is misplaced). Most ppl don't read T&C's either.

P.S. apparently I also use Oxford Commas, using Oxford Commas is important

 

[calvin2006]

Hey, I wasn't the one asking for funds to be wired to a PayPal account, albeit in jest

I don't know why you would put so much implicit trust in something Apple purportedly "implies". We used to call that wishful thinking, and it often enough bites you in the end. If you buy from a computer via iTunes, Apple definitely explicitly advises that you back up the files; I suspect it says no such thing for AppleTV-purchased content. But, I would be astounded if anywhere Apple actively advised not backing up.

I understand preferring to not back files up, just like I understand preferring not to floss. In the end, though, you're taking a risk by avoiding just a modicum of effort. Back your files up, even (and especially) those which are stored in cloud services. That applies to movies and music purchased from Apple, documents you create, pictures you take, etc. And floss. Flossing is important

I'm just relieved some people on here recognize a joke and don't get all bent out of shape over saying something in jest.

 

[Bishope1999]

Er, well, okay. But you won't be able to pop those into your stock Bluray player and play them if they are CRL'd.

Again, I'm comparing this to downloaded licensed content (streamed licensed content can be revoked and there is no way to stop that); if you go with the "tech savvy" out on Bluray, the same "tech savvy" out exists for cracking local FairPlay-protected content.



Refer to the AACS specs, or the ~English depiction thereof in http://www.aacsla.com/specifications/AACS_Spec_Prerecorded_Final_0.953.pdf

Specifically, Chapter 2 "Content Revocation". Every licensed AACS player respects the CRL included on every (mass-produced by a "Licensed Replicator") Bluray disk, and if a disk contains a newer version of the CRL than the most recent one it has encountered, "the Licensed Product shall replace the previously stored CRL data, if any, with the newly read CRL data". Further, upon every play of encrypted or unencrypted (!) content, the most recent CRL is used to ensure that the content being played is still properly licensed.

That is, the Mac Blu-Ray Player either does not obey the AACS license requirements (in which case it will soon find that its Host Key is revoked and any new disks will cease to play on it) or it is silently keeping track of the most up-to-date CRL entirely without needing to check in via the Internet, and checking each disk with that most-recent CRL every time it plays a disk.

Yes, in theory if you wiped all of MBRP's local storage, installed it again, and only ever played disks older than the one that contained a CRL which revoked the license for an earlier disk, all would be good. Unlike a hardware Bluray player where such a workaround is much more costly and potentially impossible, you at least have a "workaround" with a software player.

Anyway, like I said, I can't see any indication that CRL has ever been used (unlike the Device Revocation List, which quite assuredly has been used to revoke the license of players who failed to follow the AACS spec to the letter), and honestly would be very surprised if it ever were. But, the technical means is there to revoke your license, and the license is indeed an "at the pleasure of the content providers" license.

Long story short: back up your content so you have it locally. On blurays, I'd back up the content because at least in my house shiny plastic disks have a half-life of approximately six months when they are in heavy use (i.e., my "license" to play that disk is much more likely to be revoked by someone setting it down outside its case and it getting scratched to hell and back than by Disney deciding no one should be able to play Lion King ever again). I completely agree that this is a better situation than relying on streaming. Just don't assume that you "own" anything. It can be made very difficult for you to use.

But that is in reference to illegally copied Blu-ray discs, not because the studio decides that it no longer wants you to play your disc. They cannot disable your physical disc, only prevent players from playing them if they went crazy. Kinda like a company sending a firmware to break you tv to make you buy a new one.

Basically it is hardware related, along with the keys that the discs have. Like Cinavia. If you make a copy of a Blu-ray disc with Cinavia and the player that supports it, recognizes it, the audio will stop playing from that disc on that player. But even then, that is all it can do. Put it in another player and it will play until it picks up the watermark and if the player supports it. There is no way for the Blu-ray player to rewrite the info of the disc or disable it as it is only a BD Rom.

 

[calvin2006]

The three movies that had disappeared are back. Good times are here again.

 

[xibis]

I just pulled up my movie collection on my ipad and saw that Lion King was still there. I started streaming and it worked as well as started to download it to my device. Don't see any problems here.

 

[Xiroteus]

stealing is still stealing, i don't care if you are making an "imaginary copy" you are still stealing. Saying otherwise is just denial, and trying to somehow justify your wrong doing.

It's a good thing the world works on the severity of any given crime. If I owned a store I sure would care more about someone stealing a tangible copy of an item that I had to pay for vs making a copy. Is it a type of theft? Could very well be. Would it be wrong to make a magic copy of a movie from a store? Sure. Is it as bad as stealing their copy? No, it's not. Just because something is not as bad does not mean it is not theft nor a crime.

That's my only case when I talk about such topics. It's not black and white and they are different, like most crimes. Just saying stealing is stealing regardless of the severity could be like saying you would be just as bothered if someone copied your car or other items in your house vs stealing them all outright. I think stealing them outright would bother me a lot more.

No way. Those movies were NEVER your property. All you bought was a license to to use the files. They make it clear that you never own the data.

That is the trouble with the entire digital media idea, you NEVER buy the file, you get in effect a lifetime rental agreement that is not transferable. You can't sell or give await the files either.

It's clear what most people mean when they say they own a film. When I own a disc, I can sell it, trade it, give it away. That is another weakness of digital media, one has almost no legal control over it. That's another reason digital files hold little value to me. Far too over priced for lower quality media that one cannot sell, trade or give away.

 

[smoking monkey]

yes, people have been pirating movies for years because they knew that in 2013 Disney would pull a handful of titles from an online store...

Your decision to pirate music/movies is far worse than Disney pulling a couple of movies from being able to be re-downloaded. You are acting like they stole movies from you, when in actuality, you are the true thief. You might as well start stealing your groceries, furniture, and cars now too right?? Oh wait, you can't cowardly hide behind your computer while stealing those items, can you???

Er, where did I say that I pirate? I agreed with the poster who stated it's understandable why people pirate. Personally, like others have stated, I like my content tangible and own over 700 CDs and 400 DVDs along with about 150 records. If you want I can post a picture if you think I'm bluffing.

I'd prefer you don't call me a thief without knowing the full facts.

----------

It's clear what most people mean when they say they own a film. When I disk I can sell it, trade it, give it away. That is another weakness of digital media, one has almost no legal control over it. That's another reason digital files hold little value to me. Far too over priced for lower quality media that one cannot sell, trade or give away.

Again, exactly.

 

[Hemingray]

Coming from Disney, this is not a surprise. And this is why I still buy DVDs. I hope they get sued.

 

[mrmac007]

Don't believe a word they say

Thats why i have a 3TB hd and store my stuff locally, i don't trust all this store your stuff in the cloud when they want they can take it off you.

 

[Xiroteus]

Er, where did I say that I pirate? I agreed with the poster who stated it's understandable why people pirate. Personally, like others have stated, I like my content tangible and own over 700 CDs and 400 DVDs along with about 150 records. If you want I can post a picture if you think I'm bluffing.

I'd prefer you don't call me a thief without knowing the full facts.

Again, exactly.

I notice that happens quite often even when stated that you understand why OTHERS may do so or that downloading and stealing tangible items is different. You never said either one was right nor trying to justify anything only that they are different like shooting someone is worse than tossing a rock on someone thought both are clearly wrong.

I do wonder why stating such things gets turned around to where we are trying to justify actions we do not even partake in.

 

[Tech198]

In fact, i'll go as far as saying, no-one should ever purchase everthing from the iTunes Store, since it's a false intention.

It may *feel* good knowing that you've puchased something from iTunes, but your a fool if you beleive that for one minute, you get to keep it.

No-one reads EULA's anymore, however i did get my money back for a movie i *accidenly* purchased...

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

It's a good thing the world works on the severity of any given crime. If I owned a store I sure would care more about someone stealing a tangible copy of an item that I had to pay for vs making a copy. Is it a type of theft? Could very well be. Would it be wrong to make a magic copy of a movie from a store? Sure. Is it as bad as stealing their copy? No, it's not. Just because something is not as bad does not mean it is not theft nor a crime.

That's my only case when I talk about such topics. It's not black and white and they are different, like most crimes. Just saying stealing is stealing regardless of the severity could be like saying you would be just as bothered if someone copied your car or other items in your house vs stealing them all outright. I think stealing them outright would bother me a lot more.

Funny that you say that...

Pirating actually carries very severe punishments and fines compared to stealing other things. For example:

$220,000 for downloading 24 songs originally $1.92 million

But, I guess they are just basing it on severity of crime, right?!

In fact, i'll go as far as saying, no-one should ever purchase everthing from the iTunes Store, since it's a false intention.

It may *feel* good knowing that you've puchased something from iTunes, but your a fool if you beleive that for one minute, you get to keep it.

No-one reads EULA's anymore, however i did get my money back for a movie i *accidenly* purchased...

Really, because I'm pretty sure that if I buy something, and download it to my computer, I will have it for as long as I would like to keep it. Apple or Disney, or whoever, is not going to come into my house and delete movies off of my hard drive. This is an instance where a handful (out of many) movies have been taken off of an online store, and now cannot be re-downloaded. The movies that are on peoples hard drives, iPads, iPhones, iPod's, etc. still work 100% exactly the same as they did before. Stop acting like we shouldn't buy movies because apple can just take them right off of our computer any time they want. THEY CAN'T!!!

People like you are just spreading fud, acting as if apple somehow magically zapped the movies that people bought off of their hard drives. There is no reason to be afraid to purchase movies off of iTunes unless for some reason, you don't back them up. In that case, it's honestly your own fault. People need to stop blowing this out of proportion. Sad how quickly people jump to conclusions without trying to read and, you know, maybe comprehend what they are reading.

 

[WestonHarvey1]

This is why people should be afraid of purchasing content from the iTunes or Amazon digital video stores. Nothing beats a 1080p physical disk that you can keep on a shelf that the content owner can't remove from your library.

There is probably more risk of losing your removable media in a fire than there is of having licenses canceled on your paid content. There are real tradeoffs but the benefits of the iTunes model are huge. My 2 year old can select and watch whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He wouldn't do as well with DVDs.

 

[Xiroteus]

Funny that you say that...

Pirating actually carries very severe punishments and fines compared to stealing other things. For example:

$220,000 for downloading 24 songs originally $1.92 million

But, I guess they are just basing it on severity of crime, right?!

I have read about that case. I recall a lot of it had to do with uploading and also at a time said person was likely an easy mark. In any practical world of reason it would always be worse to steal your car vs making a magic copy of it. They are not the same crime.

How about on a personal level? You would feel the same way if someone stole your lets say computer vs making a copy of it? Does not mean one would not bother you yet the action that leaves you with your item seems better.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

I have read about that case. I recall a lot of it had to do with uploading and also at a time said person was likely an easy mark. In any practical world of reason it would always be worse to steal your car vs making a magic copy of it. They are not the same crime.

How about on a personal level? You would feel the same way if someone stole your lets say computer vs making a copy of it? Does not mean one would not bother you yet the action that leaves you with your item seems better.

You can try to say that in any practical world it would be worse to steal an actual CD vs a copy of a CD, but I just showed you someone who was fined $220,000 for stealing 24 songs. That's a case that really did happen, hear in the real world, where we live. Not some imaginary "practical world" that you have fabricated. Please show me one instance where ANYONE has ever been fined even half of that amount for stealing a couple of CDs.

you keep making up a crime to justify pirating software and media.

NOBODY can "copy" my car, stop acting like they can. It's an invalid point because IT'S NOT POSSIBLE. There is no doubt that they are not the same crime because you literally CAN'T do one of them.

Just because people put content on the internet does not magically mean that you are not stealing because in your mind it's just a copy and not something physical. It is still stealing.... That movie that's on the internet still came from physical media, it took real people to act, edit, and produce it. Anyone who says that it's not really stealing because it's not a real thing is just trying to justify it to themselves. It is a real thing. It is lines of code in an app. It's frames in a movie. Just because they are digital does not make them imaginary items that are only "copied" and not stolen.

 

[AllieNeko]

Not sure this is true. Once the computer is "authorized" for playback, I don't believe it checks a server every time. Case and point, offline viewing. I can download titles into my laptop and watch them on a plane. iTunes has no internet connection while in flight to determine my license rights. The computer is already authorized to view all content associated with that specific Apple ID.

What I meant is true, but I may not have been clear. You can't get encryption keys to your content on a new device in the future once the App Store is shut down.

 

[Xiroteus]

You can try to say that in any practical world it would be worse to steal an actual CD vs a copy of a CD, but I just showed you someone who was fined $220,000 for stealing 24 songs. That's a case that really did happen, hear in the real world, where we live. Not some imaginary "practical world" that you have fabricated. Please show me one instance where ANYONE has ever been fined even half of that amount for stealing a couple of CDs.

That was not a typical case. It feels overblown as one would have to steal thousands of dollars worth of CD's to run into that much trouble. I know it had to do with uploading.

You keep making up a crime to justify pirating software and media.

I seriously need what I'm saying to be read correctly. Where am I justifying pirating? My argument is that one is worse than another not that piracy is not a crime. There is no real way to justify it, all one can do is say they don't give a damn take their chances and do it anyway. I have seen people try and justify it while some know that's can't. They don't care and download whatever they want.

NOBODY can "copy" my car, stop acting like they can. It's an invalid point because IT'S NOT POSSIBLE. There is no doubt that they are not the same crime because you literally CAN'T do one of them.

It doesn't matter if it's not possible. That's not the point and is the only real way to define what downloading is truly like.

Just because people put content on the internet does not magically mean that you are not stealing because in your mind it's just a copy and not something physical. It is still stealing.... That movie that's on the internet still came from physical media, it took real people to act, edit, and produce it. Anyone who says that it's not really stealing because it's not a real thing is just trying to justify it to themselves. It is a real thing. It is lines of code in an app. It's frames in a movie. Just because they are digital does not make them imaginary items that are only "copied" and not stolen.

It's a different type of theft. Most times stealing a tangible item is worse. I think where digital piracy becomes the problem is uploading when one upload can become thousands. Of course not every download is a lost sale etc... Is it still a type of theft? Sure it is. It can't be tossed in with "Stealing is stealing" Different degrees.