Take your editorializing elsewhere. Your constant need to make everything a verbose "us vs. them" is tiresome, especially laced with its alternating claims of socialism and conservatism to suit your current outrage.
Hey, you first. You think I'm not tired of you pushing your agendas and beliefs down my throat every time I make a comment? Get over yourself. Your opinions and beliefs are no more valid than anyone else's.
The customer doesn't have a right to it.
That's the problem. In your world, the consumer has no "rights" PERIOD.
Where is the logical link between a company not selling something the way you want it, and you subsequently just taking it anyway?
The logical link is pretty simple, but I'm certain you won't get it any more than the music industry didn't get the original Napster (EVERYONE is a thief!) versus iTunes (OK they're not thieves; they're simply not going to let themselves get ripped off being forced to buy an entire album of CRAP to get ONE good song). It boils down to this, though. It's not logical for someone to complain about "lost sales" due to piracy when they refuse to SELL the item. You cannot do both at the same time because one cancels the other out. If you want a "sale" you have to SELL. I'm sure that went way over your head, though.
Um, yes. It's their movie. They can take it off the shelf whenever they want.
The next step will be, they can disable it so your purchased copy won't play in your own house anymore because they want you to buy HBO. You'll be all for it because the discs or other format will come with a small print disclaimer that says the license you agreed to when you bought me says they're allowed to do that. I'm sure you are for gun control, etc. also so long as someone passes the law. In other words, you're all for LAWS regardless if they're fair or even stupid laws. It doesn't matter to you. You make no differentiation what-so-ever.
Explain what possible anti-piracy motivation a studio would have in removing titles from online stores.
I can explain it AGAIN, but you will IGNORE it again. But since you asked.... The music industry cried about "lost sales" due to piracy, but they offered no option but to buy CDs (I'm sure you agreed 100% with that viewpoint. Either buy the CD or do without). Once iTunes opened, a great many people stopped pirating and started buying songs for 99 cents. Why would they do that if they're just immoral no good thieves? In your world, there is no valid explanation because there is no relationship between piracy and online availability. Any rational person can see that what really happens is that people do the right thing when there's a product available online. So like Napster versus iTunes, if the studios make a movie available for rent and/or purchase, people will buy them. If not, they MIGHT buy them on the format they WANT them to buy it on (be it Blu-ray, HBO or DVD) or they might just pull a Napster and download it off Bit Torrent or whatever anyway. You can call them thieves if you want, but statistics showed that over half the United States (let alone the world) are in fact, thieves by that viewpoint. Get the prisons ready. I hope your taxes can support that large a prison population. Or the studios (be they music or movie) can make their product available in a reasonable manner for a reasonable price and the problem disappears.
You think the studios care when you watch something? All they care about is getting your money.
What? If that's not the asinine essence of your screed, I don't know what is.
That's how it's supposed to work.
You're wrong, though. If they wanted my money they'd offer their product to buy or rent, not pull it from the shelves and then cry that people are downloading something they no longer feel like selling or renting. Clearly, they do NOT want my money. They want HBO's money or whomever will buy exclusive rights to it. Sorry, but I don't want HBO.
Not really. It's exactly the same with all products. You don't own the IP in your toaster any more than you do your software--the difference is that the relative value of IP is higher in the software. The physical disc is sold to you--it's yours, and that makes you responsible for taking care of it. You're allowed to back it up; in most cases you're able to get discounted replacement media for breakages and damage, particularly as you get outside the sub-$50 disposable range. In purely digital distribution, you can simply download it again or restore from a backup.
Sorry, but you're NOT allowed to back it up. Read the DMCA. Stop wasting my time.
Watch it on iTunes before it gets removed. If figured that last part was pretty obvious just like you'd have to watch it at the theater before it gets removed, watch it on pay-per-view before it gets removed, and/or watch on it broadcast TV before it gets removed.
There's a problem with that suggestion. How am I supposed to know when it's going to be removed? Apple does not advertise or state when they are going to pull a movie or song. They give ZERO notice. I figured I had a lot of time to get around to renting Superbad. After all, I had a lot of movies to rent when I first got my AppleTV. Apple never once stated that ANY movies would be removed from the rental category. Their own "Must See HD" lists imply you CAN rent certain movies when in fact you cannot. Writing Apple does not good. I wrote them several times asking what happened. They did not reply even once with ANY answer. Some movies have disappeared within a matter of weeks. Some are not available to rent period (look at ANY recent Disney film; NONE are available to rent) so the argument doesn't hold water in that regard either.
As for being stupid to buy AppleTV, I bought them first and foremost to stream my music collection around the house (alternatives like Sonus don't handle things like movies period in that regard). So it's not a total waste regardless, but Apple IS pushing it now as a rental and purchase medium. Maybe that's a mistake as clearly despite being the largest online music retailer, they have very little influence over the studios. In fact, the studios resent their success even though they're making them money. I guess it's never ENOUGH money to keep them happy. The consumer pays the price every time, unfortunately.