I saw this and thought of Joe.
The TLDR (TLDW?) version of this is that some guy had an an Apple Account, and had paid for $25,000 worth of stuff (apps, in-app purchases, music, etc...). Apple decided that the guy had violated the terms of service and cancelled his account. No warning. No appeal. He's lost access to everything he "bought," and he's out all that money. He's suing. I hope he wins. I actually have no idea what he did -- or what Apple thinks he did -- that led to his expulsion from Eden. And I really don't care. I hope he wins.
The "Joe" I referred to above is Joe from my cinema history class. He's big on owning physical media -- something that Lehto talks about in the video above -- so that no corporation has the power to decide what you can and can't listen to or watch.
Joe made me aware of his interest in physical media when, in fr4ont of him, I mentioned having "bought" some video on Amazon Prime. What do I have, he demanded. I don't have a disc or a videotape. I have the right to watch the movie (I forget what it was) on Amazon's platform as long as I have my Amazon Prime account -- and, I suppose, as long as Amazon doesn't decide to stop showing that movie. The fact is, that I have, over the years, "bought" a bunch of movies and TV shows on Amazon. And I recognize that I haven't "bought" these shows in the same sense that I may have bought a videotape or a DVD. In my mind, I've simply rented it with an extra option to rewatch. I rarely rewatch, but I want that option just in case. And if I lose access to something? Que sera sera.*
And I'm pretty sure I have lost content that I "bought," since two episodes of Spongebob Squarepants were removed from circulation. And I may find that more "purchases" are lost, as increasing numbers of movies or TV episodes are deemed to violate contemporary pieties.
Getting back to Joe, I appreciate where he's coming from. And I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how big his collection of movies and television shows (all on physical media) is. But I can't go down that road. I don't collect video -- it doesn't interest me the way it does him, and I also wouldn't hazard a guess as to how much money he has spent on his collection. Worth it, I suppose, if there's a large volume of stuff that you want to be able to watch when you want to watch it, and it's important to you that none of it ever be taken away from you. But I'm not devoted to video that way.
Now, music...that's another story for me. I was never a big radio listener. From the time I first had records I preferred listening to music from my collection. And I still do. So, whereas Joe buys DVDs and BluRays, I buy CDs. There have been a few occasions when I had to buy download-only music. But even then it doesn't feel like it's really part of my collection until I burn it onto a CD. So I'm not sure how much of that phenomenon is fear of having something taken away from me and how much is simple OCD.
Back to Joe again, the topic of physical media has been a recurring subject of our conversations and emails. Every time we hear news about something being censored or edited, he brings up the need to have physical media. And if he reads this blogpost, I know I'll hear it from him...
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*I really shouldn't publicize this attitude. If I am ever involved in a class action suit regarding my rights to what I bought, I don;t want the lawyers to access my account and find the evidence they need to argue that I knew what I was getting into.
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