A possible class-action lawsuit against Amazon Prime, one of the world’s biggest platforms for streaming film and television, has raised an odd question: what does it mean to buy something?
The proposed lawsuit, which was filed last week in federal court and first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, alleges that Prime’s practice of offering users the chance to “buy” (as opposed to “rent”) content is inherently deceptive. The suit argues that buying something implies perpetual possession – but that Amazon, like many other streaming services, is really just selling its customers viewing licenses that can be revoked at any time, in keeping with fine print that most customers do not read or understand.
Regardless of whether the lawsuit is ultimately successful, it speaks to a real problem in an age when people access films, television series, music and video games through fickle online platforms: impermanence. The advent of streaming promised a world of digital riches in which we could access libraries of our favorite content whenever we wanted. It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
Many movie fans are already familiar with a certain scenario. Let’s say that you are seized, this Friday night, by an urge to rewatch one of your favorite films, Double Indemnity. (You are a popular and sociable person – charismatic, attractive, with many friends – but feel under the weather this weekend.) If you are especially prudent, you own the film on a physical format – such as a Criterion Collection Blu-ray – but if not, you just type watch double indemnity 1944 into a search engine and see what comes up.
Given that beloved older films and television shows are increasingly difficult to find on streaming platforms, you will be relieved to see the film listed on any of the services you subscribe to, such as Netflix, Hulu or HBO Max. When you click on the links, however, there is a high chance that one of those dreaded landing pages appears: “REMIND ME WHEN THIS IS AVAILABLE” or “THIS TITLE IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY.”
There are ways to watch the film that don’t involve paying, but let’s say that you’re a scrupulously honest person. Fortunately, Amazon Prime has Double Indemnity available on demand: you can rent the movie, for 48 hours of playback, for $3.79 – or “buy” it for $14.99. The second option is more expensive, but if it is truly one of your favorite movies you may decide to buy it so you can watch it again whenever you want. And in just a couple of clicks – faster than Barbara Stanwyck can light a cigarette in the darkened living room of a California villa – the Paramount logo is blooming on your television screen. Not bad, right?
The problem is that you aren’t downloading the movie, to own and watch forever; you’re just getting access to it on Amazon’s servers – a right that only lasts as long as Amazon also has access to the film, which depends on capricious licensing agreements that vary from title to title. A month or five years from now, that license may expire – and the movie will disappear from your Amazon library. Yet the $14.99 you paid does not reappear in your pocket.
If you’re a film buff, like me, you may already have heard of things like this happening. In 2018, users of iTunes who had purchased titles for their digital libraries were unhappy to learn that the company had deleted some of them without telling them. Last year, customers of Funimation, an anime streaming service that was acquired by another company, discovered that the titles they had purchased from Funimation would not be ported over to the new platform. Video game and music fans have reported similar frustrations.
If online chatter is any indication, a class-action lawsuit against Prime would have some takers. Reacting to the news of the suit, someone on Reddit described buying the director’s cut of Aliens from Prime; after watching it for 10 years, “I went to my purchased movies in the Amazon app and it is now gone. No explanation and no recourse.”
“Happened to me,” another person wrote. “Bought the original Battlestar Galactica series. Now it’s gone.”
(Amazon did not respond to my request for comment at the time of publication.)
Disappointment with streaming’s limitations are a major reason that many pop culture fans have, in recent years, returned to a format long thought dying: physical media. Like vinyl records, which have had an unexpected renaissance, film discs and other seemingly old-school technologies have been embraced in recent years by a small but passionate segment of film and TV buffs. Earlier this year, the first new physical video store in many years opened in New York.
In particular, movie fans have rediscovered Blu-rays, which debuted in 2006 as a higher-definition successor to DVDs, as well as their new and even higher-definition sibling, the 4K UHD, which has become the gold-standard for “home cinema” enthusiasts. I’m one of those physical-media fans. I have about 400 movies on disc, mostly Blu-rays, hidden in a cabinet beneath my TV. In the age of streaming, some of my friends think I’m deranged.
But the films look great, don’t need the internet to watch and – most importantly – never disappear.
