FILM SCHOOLED: How are you going to prepare for when movies leave you?
For about nine years of my life, I was a figure skater. Around the time that I began showing up to afternoon practices at the rink, the beloved 6th generation iPod had been released to music fans and Apple consumers everywhere.
When you compete in figure skating, no matter in what form, you have a program set to music. Traditionally, there was a person at the rink that had the CD-burning know-how that could set you up with an edited song that fit the length and melodic needs of your program, and you would patiently wait in line at the hockey penalty box for it to be your turn to hear your program on the big speakers, slap on that yellow belt designating “this is MY program” and pour your heart out with your skating.
The iPod then became the most popular choice for downloading program music on. It was so simple — my ice dancing coach Russ repurposed the phrase “plug and chug” just to send me off on my turn for a run-through.
One day, Russ started playing a different song than I was normally used to for the Rocker Foxtrot, a mid-level dance with a 4/4 beat. The reason for this small and trivial change? The song was gone from iTunes — Russ’ library and the store itself — with no return in the cards.
Lamenting this may seem pointless, but there are many program songs that I’ve saved in my library to this day because reminiscing is a comforting practice from time to time. Half or more of the songs I skated to in my brief career, some that brought me immense joy in performance, were removed from iTunes and never saved to a CD and, without a reminder of their melodies, I lose the happy memories of performance as well.
Can iTunes, or whatever remnants of it that still exist, take this away? Let’s ask a lawyer.
Apple’s henchmen of a legal counsel wrote the iTunes user agreement well, empowered by the general truth that the average person won’t read it before agreeing to it (otherwise known as an adhesion contract). When you buy something off of iTunes, or any Apple product, what you are buying is not ownership of the song, TV show, film, etc. You are buying a license to engage with it within non-transferable limits, which allows Apple, at any time, to “reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any iTunes Products, content, or other materials, comprising a part of the iTunes Service at any time without notice.”
Apple can do this through loopholes in the Federal Copyright Act of 1976. iTunes and its parent company “has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize the following: … distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.” That license that you purchase, which you are probably unaware of and are unable to negotiate for greater ownership of, is one of those authorized copies of the original work.
OK, literally whatever. Who uses iTunes when we have streaming, the beacon of a new age of content consumption?
This same issue came up in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California not even a full year ago — involving consumers streaming movies. Plaintiff Amanda Caudel (most likely picked out by the law firms representing this class action group) filed a complaint that Amazon Prime Video’s option to “Buy” a movie for almost $20 is designed to “deceive, mislead and defraud consumers.”
Their case is built on the notion that “reasonable consumers will expect that the use of a ‘Buy’ button and the representation that their video content is a ‘Purchase’ means that the consumer has paid for full access to the video content and, like any bought product, that access cannot be revoked.”
But Amazon has, and continues to, revoke this access to content that has been paid for under the guise of “buying it” instead of buying a licence — basing their reasoning on the fact that this differentiation is stated in the terms of agreement. And the court agreed with them.
This is just a snippet of the overall degradation of content consumption, especially for film. You ever go to Netflix or HBO Max and try to look for the first installment in the “Chucky” series only to find the god-awful “Cult of Chucky” movie? Or have you been waiting for what seems like years for “Sex and the City 2” to return to a platform that you are actually subscribed to?
The tumultuous mixing and mashing of product licensing and distribution agreements is only going to make this worse as time goes on, until one day your favorite Nickelodeon game show or anime is unable to be viewed except on VHS or DVD. Some of the most valuable films, TV shows and songs that shape our current popular culture memory are disappearing as quickly as we can sign up for another subscription service. Attached to them are personal memories, emotions and understandings that may be lost as well.
I’m not saying that you should go log on to eBay and search for that somewhat-friendly looking VHS player that’ll bring you viewing satisfaction and faux social prestige. There’s a broader adhesion contract at play here, where we as the consumers have virtually no bargaining power over the streaming giants and hedge funds that mix up their licensing agreements every so often in their witches’ cauldrons.
For the meantime though, snuggle up with your favorite “9 to 5” DVD a little closer tonight.
Lauren Mattice is a senior writing about film culture. She is also the digital managing editor at the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Film Schooled,” runs every other Wednesday.