The End of Ownership

Your digital library is not yours.

How much digital content have you "purchased"? Perhaps a number of books on your Amazon Kindle… or an album or hundred on the iTunes store… or an app in the Google Play store? Those $1.29 song tracks can be very, very tempting.

…but how much of this content do you actually own? (answer: none)

"Buying" digital content does not mean you own it at all. In almost (and I'm just leaving room here for that one exception that must exist somewhere) every instance, you are LICENSED the PERMISSION to use that content… you don't own it. The truth is that "purchased" digital content is really nothing more than a long term rental.

…"purchased" digital content is nothing more than a long term rental.

For example, let's say you "purchase" a book from the Amazon Kindle store. This makes sense since this is really the only method to get content onto your Kindle that Amazon directly advertises (there are other ways, but Amazon seems to make effort to reduce visibility to these). The book magically appears on your device for your reading enjoyment. The next day you pick up your Kindle and just as magically, the book is gone. No notice, no refund, nothing… the book is simply not there anymore.

Or perhaps you're on your iPhone and you tap the Buy button on that new album from that amazing musical artist that you adore. You want to listen to this album over and over. It is AMAZING. A week later it is magically gone. Again, no notice or reason… it's just… not there. This is because there ultimately one truth: Your library is not yours.

This was brought to the attention of the consumer world years ago when Apple unilaterally decided to add an album by U2 to EVERY iTunes user's library. Apple did this without purchase and without consent. This was the first time consumers were faced with this harsh reality: Apple owns your library and can do anything it wants to it, including add and remove content. In this case it was an abrupt injection of content into your device… but it could have just as easily been a removal.

These companies make this truth as obscure as possible. It's frequently only a single line in their terms of service. Amazon mentions things like subscription cancellation, but really only has a single line that grants them full authority to remove items from your account, stating "Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you by the Content Provider" and only tacitly dance around the fact that the content provider can revoke this license at any time for any reason. The same is true for Apple, who states "…Content may be removed from the Services and become unavailable for further download or access from Apple…". At least Apple is kind enough to quietly suggest that you back up your library in such a way that it (Apple) can't manipulate it (your content) behind your back.

There are only 2 reasons to "buy" digital content:

• The total price you might pay from repeated rentals is higher than the price you might pay through "purchasing" it.

• The content is not protected and you can move that content to a location that is inaccessible by the platform (and therefore copyright) owner.

If neither of these things are true, then you're likely wasting money under the pretense of "ownership".

Streaming services are a great answer to this. Streaming services do two things that are valuable here: They make no pretense about ownership, and you can still enjoy content an unlimited number of times (as long as the content is available on that service and you continue to pay the subscription fees).

I believe this is also at least partially the reason for the recent rise in vinyl, CD, and Blu-Ray sales. Aside from vinyl's reputation about being a better/warmer capture/replay of audio content, it is complete ownership. It's irrevocable. It's yours forever. Blu-Ray is similar… as long as you have a player, you can watch that movie. Forever (or until your player dies). Physical media is forever. As long as you have a method to play that content, it can never be taken from you. It truly is yours.

Digital content ownership is a lie. Seriously… Someone should sue for misrepresentation. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. The use of the terms "Purchase" and "Buy" would seem to imply that you then own that content… but this is far from the truth. The only thing you might even conceivably "own" is the license… but absolutely not the content. I'm amazed a class action misrepresentation suit hasn't been raised yet.

BUY PHYSICAL MEDIA. It is the only way that no one can take your media away from you… and in some instances, can be even better than what you're "buying" from a digital media provider.