What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online?
That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would close the service in June. Customers were told that unless they switched to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be able to access the movies and TV shows they had purchased.
This isn’t simply a case of Netflix removing Friends from the service after its content deal expired. They were movies and shows that people had bought with the expectation of being able to watch them whenever they wanted, indefinitely.
Vicki Russell posted on X last week saying that Telstra was asking her to pay $200 for Fetch to retain access to what she claimed were $2,500 worth of purchases.
“After years and years of buying movies, my entire library is gone. What a fucked up thing,” she posted.
She later said Telstra had contacted her and offered her a free Fetch box, which she acknowledged was a “reasonable solution”.
A Telstra spokesperson said this was a rights issue, which meant customers had to move to a similar content service to continue accessing the content. Customers had not been able to make new purchases since late September last year, the spokesperson said, and customers had migrated to Fetch since December.
“We have partnered with Fetch as our new entertainment platform and the vast majority of movies or shows customers have purchased on their Telstra TV Box Office can be migrated,” the spokesperson said.
Content “may no longer be available”
In the era of VHS, DVDs and Blu-ray, when someone bought a movie in a store, it was theirs as long as it could be played. And even in the pre-streaming digital age, people could (and generally still can) buy files of movies, TV shows, and music. Barring digital rights management locks that some companies place on those files, you can generally continue playing them as long as you have a player that can read them.
Now, firmly in the age of streaming, ownership is largely subject to terms and conditions that people often don’t read, said Shaanan Cohney, a professor of computer science and information systems at the University of Melbourne.
“Every time you click to buy or rent content online, there’s always a box somewhere that says the terms and conditions apply, as with everything you do online.
“It’s unreasonable to expect consumers to read these terms and conditions (but) in the case of the Telstra TV box office, they had a whole section on how they could remove content.”
These types of provisions are pretty standard among technology companies. Customers can rent or purchase movies through Amazon Prime, and the company’s terms of service state that content “will generally continue to be available for download or streaming… but may become unavailable… Amazon will not be responsible to you.”
Apple’s iTunes, which allows users to download files they have purchased, has a similar clause, saying that while the content is unlikely to become unavailable, people should “ensure their ability to continue enjoying the content” by downloading all purchases to a device and making a backup copy.
In March, game developer Ubisoft outraged hardcore fans of the 10-year-old online racing game The Crew when it closed access to customers who had paid for the game and continued playing it. Ubisoft justified its move by saying it would allow the company to focus resources on newer or more popular titles.
The avenues for appeal are relatively limited. A spokesperson for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) told Guardian Australia: “Businesses must not mislead consumers about their rights under Australian consumer law when goods and services are offered under a licensing agreement.”
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‘Very clear disclosure’
Telstra’s announcement led many in X to suggest another avenue: online piracy.
Cohney said there is a strong moral – but not legal – argument to explain why people resort to downloading copyright-infringing content through torrent websites.
“This doesn’t mean that people should go out and do this, but it certainly adds more moral strength to piracy advocates,” he said. “And I think the more media companies engage in this kind of bait-and-switch, the more attractive piracy and these kinds of preservation efforts will be to people.”
Coinciding with the arrival of streaming services in the 2010s, film studios have used an anti-piracy law passed by the former coalition government to force internet service providers in Australia to block thousands of piracy websites using court orders.
Users now need to use a virtual private network connection to access these sites, and rights holders argue that this hurdle has substantially reduced piracy in Australia.
In order to pay content creators and maintain consumers’ rights, content should be more easily transferable between services so that a user doesn’t have to stay with the company through which they first purchased, Cohney said.
Some video game companies and music and movie services allow you to download a copy that does not require a permanent connection to the owner of the service provider or the owner of the media, he said.
“Another approach is to buy physical copies.”
Cohney said a better way would be to make it clearer to consumers what they’re really getting when they buy.
“It’s about having mandatory rules about what kinds of things can be in the terms of the conditions… If a provider wants to offer content in a way that violates those conditions, there has to be some substantial indication that it is in the consumer’s interest. . as well as a very clear disclosure of that particular change.”
