For about ten years, I’ve been warning people, “hang onto your media. One day, you won’t buy a movie. You’ll buy the right to watch a movie, and that movie will be served to you. If the companies serving the movie don’t want you to see it, or they want to change something, they will have the power to do so. They can alter history, and they can make you keep paying for things that you formerly could have bought. Information will be a utility rather than a possession. Even information that you yourself have created will require unending, recurring payments just to access.”
When giving the above warning, however, even in my most Orwellian paranoia I never could have dreamed that the content holders, like Apple, would also reach into your computer and take away what you already owned. If Taxi Driver is on Netflix, Netflix doesn’t come to your house and steal your Taxi Driver DVD. But that’s where we’re headed. When it comes to music, Apple is already there.
I don’t know anything about this issue. i know it’s been heavily discussed online but I haven’t lost any music as I store everything locally and don’t use any Apple subscription services. But, this remark is valid. Today it might be Apple but Amazon pulled books from kindle customers off their devices a few years ago without warning. Those users were reimbursed but they lost content they thought they owned forever. Corporations can’t break into your house and steal your CD or Book collections. They can now with digital lockers. You should be afraid and you should take precautions to keep that from happening.
The majority of content you buy digitally, if you read the fine-print, you don’t own. You are granted a lifetime license to that content for your payment but you are not the owner. Much different than when you bought a CD. Good luck passing on your digital DRM copies of anything you’ve bought online to your kids. Your Kindle collection can’t be willed to another person.
Something to think about.