Amazon is reminding its users that they don’t own the Prime Videos they’ve purchased. A lawsuit from Amanda Caudel earlier this year has brought this fact back into focus. Many experts have pointed to these sorts of outcomes when streaming’s rise began. Physical mediums seem to be the only way you can ensure that you will enjoy continued viewing of your favorites because of the ways in which rights to movies, tv shows, and other media change hands in the year 2020. Amazon is currently arguing that by the lines of its terms of service that an end-user does not own the movie they have in their library. Instead, they own a license to stream the media at their leisure. But, a lot of people are unaware that this would be the case, which leads to messy situations like the one being debated here. Attorney David Biderman explained the terms of use argument down below:
Videos by ComicBook.com
“The most relevant agreement here — the Prime Video Terms of Use — is presented to consumers every time they buy digital content on Amazon Prime Video,” Biderman said. “These Terms of Use expressly state that purchasers obtain only a limited license to view video content and that purchased content may become unavailable due to provider license restriction or other reasons.”
“An individual does not need to read an agreement in order to be bound by it,” he added. “A merchant term of service agreement in an online consumer transaction is valid and enforceable when the consumer had reasonable notice of the terms of service.”
Amazon filed a motion to dismiss her complaint earlier this week. They’re saying that because she wasn’t personally injured, the case can be thrown out. It can get a bit technical, but their motion has the meat and potatoes if you want to check it out below.
“Plaintiff claims that Defendant Amazon’s Prime Video service, which allows consumers to purchase video content for streaming or download, misleads consumers because sometimes that video content might later become unavailable if a third-party rights’ holder revokes or modifies Amazon’s license,” Biderman wrote. “The Complaint points vaguely to online commentary about this alleged potential harm but does not identify any Prime Video purchase unavailable to Plaintiff herself. In fact, all of the Prime Video content that Plaintiff has ever purchased remains available.”
Do you still have a large physical media library? Let us know down in the comments!
