If You Download Digital Copy of Movie Can You Download It Again

April 02, 2022 Post a Comment

As the entertainment industry shifts its distribution strategy to permit people buy or hire movies closer to—or simultaneously with—their release in theaters, yous may find yourself amassing a larger digital library than you've had in the by. Only when yous buy a movie from a digital service like Amazon Prime Video or Vudu, does it really belong to you? What if you purchase a vocal on iTunes or download i to your telephone from Spotify? Are these files yours forever? If y'all cancel the service or, as unlikely as it may seem, i of these huge companies goes out of business, what then?

The answer is a piddling complex, but the short version is, no, you don't actually ain the digital media files that y'all purchase. This doesn't mean you're imminently at risk of losing every digital motion picture and Goggle box show you've ever bought at the whim of a megacorp, but it is possible. Here's what you need to know.

What it means to "ain" digital content

What do nosotros mean, exactly, when nosotros talk about owning something digital? Everybody knows—or hopefully everybody knows—that it doesn't hateful you can turn effectually and sell that digital particular to someone else, circulate information technology, or otherwise distribute it en masse. Yous don't need to dig far into whatever terms-of-service understanding to find such deportment expressly forbidden.

For this word, to own a digital file is to exist able to lookout man or listen to that content anytime you want, with no farther payments, in perpetuity—or at least as long as you can get a device to convert that ancient 4K video file into something that your brand-new holodeck on your space yacht can read.

By that definition, well, you withal don't own anything. Not actually. What you're purchasing in nearly cases is a license to watch that video or listen to that song. Effectively that license is proficient for as long as it really matters. I hateful, let'south be honest: If an 8K sensurround remaster of The Lord of the Rings comes out in 2030, are you going to care nigh the 1080p version you bought on Vudu?

Let'southward accept a look at the FandangoNow/Vudu terms of service, which are adequately typical. I've bolded the important parts.

When yous order or view Content and pay whatsoever applicable fees, you will be granted a non-exclusive, not-transferable, non-commercial, limited license to access, use and/or view the Content in accordance with whatever usage rights contained herein and additional terms that may be provided with your devices and/or with such Content ("Usage Rights").

Pretty standard stuff. You tin can watch the particular equally often as you want, simply the terms specify that you lot tin't "sell, rent, lease, distribute, publicly perform or display, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any right to the Content to any third political party." You probably already know this: Just because you purchased and downloaded a moving-picture show doesn't mean you lot can fire information technology to a DVD and sell the DVD—among other reasons, considering you would have to crevice the digital rights management on the file, which is also expressly forbidden. Digital rights direction, or DRM, allows a company to restrict what y'all can practice with a digital file, such equally preventing copying or permitting y'all to watch it simply a sure number of times.

In the FandangoNow/Vudu terms of service, there is ane boosted department worth looking at, under "Viewing Periods":

Fandango's say-so to provide Content to y'all is subject to restrictions imposed by the moving picture studios and other distributors and providers that brand Content available to Fandango ("Content Providers"). These Content Providers may designate periods of time when Fandango is prohibited from renting, selling, enabling downloading and/or streaming certain Content to you lot, including Fandango/Vudu Purchased Content, and yous hold that these limitations tin can limit your Content admission.

The "including Fandango/Vudu Purchased Content" part is the big one. What this means is that if Disney, for example, decides it doesn't want to allow Vudu to sell its movies anymore, the visitor tin accept Vudu plow off Disney movies. Unlikely as that may be, theoretically the service could cake admission to movies you've already purchased—as the terms land, "[Y]our ability to stream or download Content may terminate if our licenses stop, change or expire."

Here'south how Amazon says the same thing. Again, the bold emphasis is mine:

"Availability of Purchased Digital Content. Purchased Digital Content volition generally continue to exist available to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may become unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions or for other reasons, and Amazon will non be liable to yous if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for farther download or streaming.

A case about this is working its way through California courts.

And here is Google's version, for media content sold through its Play store:

Content that you buy or install will be bachelor to you through Google Play for the menses selected by you, in the case of a buy for a rental period, and in other cases every bit long as Google has the right to make such Content available to you. Inorthward certain cases (for example if Google loses the relevant rights, a service or Content is discontinued, at that place are critical security issues, or there are breaches of applicable terms or the police), Google may remove from your Device or finish providing you with access to certain Content that yous have purchased. For Content sold by Google LLC, you may be given notice of whatsoever such removal or cessation, when possible. If y'all are not able to download a copy of the Content before such removal or abeyance, Google may offer yous either (a) a replacement of the Content if possible or (b) a full or partial refund of the cost of the Content. If Google issues you a refund, the refund shall be your sole remedy.

Interestingly, Google says that it may offering you a refund if it deletes your content without asking.

How probable is any of this to happen? Not very, which nosotros'll discuss in a moment.

Here's what you definitely don't ain

There is some media content that you are absolutely, flat-out renting. On the music side, Spotify is a proficient example. If you cancel your subscription, y'all no longer have access to any files you've downloaded to your phone. Your subscription lets you charter these files, with no choice to buy. The music manufacture loves this organization, by the way, equally you're continually paying to listen to the same songs, albeit a fraction of a penny each time. I've singled out Spotify, but all streaming music services are like this—in contrast to download services such equally iTunes or Amazon Music (come across beneath).

Streaming video, manifestly, is another category in which you don't ain anything, even if you download content to watch on your mobile device or computer. For example, if you cancel your Netflix service, annihilation you've downloaded gets locked out, just equally with Spotify. The same with Disney+'due south Premier Access. Even though you lot're paying a price that'south closer to a buy fee (usually $30), information technology's still more than like a rental that'due south accessible only as long as you go on your Disney+ subscription.

Going one step further, if you lot go to a different country, fifty-fifty if you're but on vacation, you might become locked out of content you could sentinel in your original land. A VPN might assist with that by geoshifting your location; then again, it might not.

And then what does this all really mean?

It's unlikely that any corporation would willingly nuke the presumed assets of millions of customers, despite how much these companies might love for you to buy all your movies even so once again. The backfire would be substantial, and the resulting lawsuits would probable take years and millions of dollars to resolve. Corporations, for the most part, would be reluctant to alienate and acrimony such a huge customer base.

That'south not to say it couldn't happen. Merely accept the squabbles between Roku and Warner, or Roku and Google, as two of many examples in which consumers are forced to deal with the fallout between bickering companies.

A more probable scenario is that a media company goes out of business organization. In this case the most probable course is that some other corporation buys up the digital-media portion of the business organisation and carries over your correct to sentry the content you bought. This already happened with Vudu, which was owned by Walmart for over a decade and is now owned past Fandango Media, a corporation itself owned past NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia … which are endemic past Comcast and AT&T, respectively.

But if yous're however worried about losing access to your purchased content, the solution is to get physical. Information technology's a lot harder for companies to cease you from watching a physical disc, though that has been tried in the past. Although digital rights direction is congenital into Blu-ray and DVD players and receives periodic updates via the web, if yous don't connect the player to the web, it should be able to continue playing whatever compatible disc format. Some discs even come with a code that unlocks a digital copy, which is certainly user-friendly—though every bit we've discussed, you tin't expect those copies to last forever (most discs even have a appointment by which y'all need to activate the lawmaking).

Sound is even easier. Shocking as it may seem, you can even so buy CDs. Rip them to a hard drive, and y'all have digital copies for as long as your hard drive lasts (and presumably, the CD will last even longer). Alternatively, you can buy and download DRM-free music and convert it to any file format you like or trust. iTunes and Amazon Music files are DRM-free, as are the downloads from many smaller music sites, many of which offer even college-quality sound files. For older music downloads that have DRM, you can typically convert them to a DRM-complimentary format such as FLAC or WAV.

Then, no, yous don't ain your digital files, and theoretically y'all could at some betoken be prevented from watching or listening to them. In reality, your digital drove is probably safe for the foreseeable future—but if the very thought of a visitor locking yous out of your movies and music makes you lot aroused, nosotros advise embracing physical media such equally 4K Blu-rays and CDs, which will likely survive any digital-media apocalypse.