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archer75

macrumors 68040
Jan 26, 2005
3,116
1,746
Oregon
There you go. This is the typical approach to this topic. Shift blame away from Apple (which is maybe even technically validated by the underpinnings that caused this issue) but ignore the main issue. From BodyBuildPaul's perspective, he purchased a movie from a big, stable company (Apple) and trusted that he would have access to the movie he purchased just like buying the Blu Ray disc and/or downloading the digital file. Apple is so large & stable it's not going under anytime soon so what is there to worry about? Besides, there are tons & tons of threads on here where passionate Apple fans will argue that this very thing CAN'T HAPPEN. One will especially pound the "user error" message every chance he gets. Read all that enough and even the cynical can become a believer.

Trust the cloud with your media storage and this can happen. Possess the media yourself and there are no middlemen wedging themselves in between you and your media collection. What does letting money-hungry strangers in get us anyway?

Very tangibly: I stop by- say- Walmart and buy the Blu Ray version. There is NO scenario that has Walmart or the studio behind the movie or the distribution deal between Walmart and the studio getting redone or canceled or the Studio pulling the movie for some reason or deciding to roll out a special edition of the same movie (making it a technically different version vs. the one I already have), etc... able to come into my home and remove the Blu Ray so I have to buy again if I want to watch that movie again. Very simply: I am unaffected by all the stuff that can happen behind the scenes by media owners, distributors & retailers.

Now the "trust the cloud" version: I don't even "own" the media in the same way- it's called lifetime lease*. Studio reserves the right to pull the video. Distributors can change and the new one wants to get paid if you want to stream a movie they now manage (the new distributor hasn't been paid anything by you, so they even feel justified in seeking fresh payment). Etc. There are for-profit middlemen in there all working every angle to make a new buck. When something like this happens, each player can readily blame the others, giving the customer no solid remedy. There's not enough money in any single incident to involve the courts.

This "the future" mentality to "trust the cloud" is much more to the sellers/owners/distributors/etc benefit than the consumers. I suspect that's mostly why "the cloud" is even this big thing being pushed and pushed and pushed. Yes, it offers a number of tangible benefits but one has to always ask themselves: where's the hook in all this goodness? Worse, who goes the most out of their way to try to sell consumers to "trust the cloud" as "the future"? US consumers.

And what happens when such an event occurs? Some of us will marginalize the negative experience of our fellow consumer as a direct or indirect attempt to shift blame away from one of the (our favorite) for-profit players. We ignore/miss/marginalize the fundamental problem for the party most like us- a fellow consumer- to push what the for-profit corporation wants us to push. Are we paid to do this? NO, we just do it. Why? Because towing the company line is more important to us than empathizing with a real experience of another consumer conceptually just like us.

Bottom line IMO: all this "Trust the cloud" nonsense just sets up this very scenario for those that don't realize how different owning/controlling a digital or disc copy is from only the good-sounding-but-obviously-inferiror lifetime lease*.

This is like asking a woman what's wrong! Holy wall of text batman! Settle down.
I don't think you read my post at all.

I'm not shifting any blame. I'm simply saying that's a different issue. This thread is about media backups. Buying something in itunes leaves that thing in itunes. That's not a backup. So yeah, the rights holder could pull that(and I don't agree with this at all). Backing up would have been if he downloaded it and then stored it on multiple hard drives or even uploaded it to icloud, dropbox, drive, box, etc. There it could not have been touched.

You'll note where I also said I've never purchased a movie from any streaming service and that I store all my content locally.
 
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DarkIcarus

macrumors member
Apr 9, 2016
46
19
I completely agree with what archer75 said. They are two totally different services. Trusting that your media is safe on any media streaming service without downloading means the service could lose the rights to that media at some point. But using a cloud service to backup up your existing data is completely different. You'd have your local copies and offsite copies in the cloud. This is not including the copy on, for example, Apples services as long as they keep the rights.

People who preach that the cloud is not safe or reliable are just being ridiculous. Its just like the rubbish that comes from religious fundamentalists. It has no substance in reality. And let me just add I do not agree with Apple removing content from peoples accounts or think you shouldn't download and backup your data. Good backup practises are important. I am purely stating that the cloud is not a bad thing or unreliable if used correctly and that distribution rights on a streaming service and a cloud backup/storage solution are two very different things.
 

seagate_surfer

macrumors newbie
Mar 31, 2017
19
4
Cupertino, CA
There are two golden rules that come to mind when discussing backup strategies:

1. RAID is not a backup. This cannot be stressed enough. RAID does not prevent failure, it merely prevents your system from going down when something inevitably fails, allowing you to remain up-and-running while you fix/replace the issue.

2. The go-to backup method is the 3-2-1 method. You should always have 3 copies of your data, stored on 2 different mediums, and one offsite in case of disaster. If there were a fire in your home, you would want at least one copy of any important data stored elsewhere so that you didn't lose everything. Cloud storage services are a common solution to this. The upside being that you get that offsite security, usually with very low overhead as subscription costs can be quite reasonable and it's all someone else's responsibility to manage the hardware. The downside is uploading data is obviously very reliant on things like the reliability/performance of your ISP. Another option is to back up to external HDDs and store those in a different location.
 
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cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,154
I feel at a crossroad with media.
I now stream most films, although I have about 100 on a hard drive.
I now use Apple Music, although I have an AIFF music library.

It all nicely stored on my NAS, backing up to an external drive, plus offsite to Amazon drive.

I do wonder if it’s something I should still invest in or just backup to usb as a safeguard.
It’s a static collection other than files I downloaded from Apple Music which I will never own.

How have people changed their backup strategy in the new world of steaming?

Fortunately I haven't been burned like many people that have lost access to content they paid for. Just the thought of that irritates me. Every time I agree to a EULA I think to myself "how can they rip me off?".

IMO its still best to download the content you pay for. Regardless of reason or fault trusting anyone other then yourself with what is essentially your property isn't always the best idea. There are associated cost to the provider (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc) of this content so you should always be weary. Plus like mentioned licensing of such...ugh.

I even take it a step further and make sure I can the capability of removing any/all DRM from content I download. The first download from a new content source for me is a test to verify I can nearly remove DRM. Now I wont do that for subsequent downloads nor do I share content however if push comes to shove I can if I need too.

I'll abide by their EULA when it comes to not ripping them off. However if they rip me off, all bets are off.
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There are two golden rules that come to mind when discussing backup strategies:

1. RAID is not a backup. This cannot be stressed enough. RAID does not prevent failure, it merely prevents your system from going down when something inevitably fails, allowing you to remain up-and-running while you fix/replace the issue.

2. The go-to backup method is the 3-2-1 method. You should always have 3 copies of your data, stored on 2 different mediums, and one offsite in case of disaster. If there were a fire in your home, you would want at least one copy of any important data stored elsewhere so that you didn't lose everything. Cloud storage services are a common solution to this. The upside being that you get that offsite security, usually with very low overhead as subscription costs can be quite reasonable and it's all someone else's responsibility to manage the hardware. The downside is uploading data is obviously very reliant on things like the reliability/performance of your ISP. Another option is to back up to external HDDs and store those in a different location.

A lot of RAID solutions are excellent for data backups. What you probably mean is it should only be considered as ONE of your three backups?
 
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