How To Change Your Vudu To Go Download Location

As the entertainment manufacture shifts its distribution strategy to let people buy or hire movies closer to—or simultaneously with—their release in theaters, you lot may find yourself amassing a larger digital library than y'all've had in the by. But when you buy a motion-picture show from a digital service like Amazon Prime Video or Vudu, does it actually vest to you? What if you buy a vocal on iTunes or download one to your phone from Spotify? Are these files yours forever? If you cancel the service or, as unlikely as it may seem, 1 of these huge companies goes out of business concern, what so?

The answer is a niggling complex, just the brusque version is, no, y'all don't actually ain the digital media files that you purchase. This doesn't mean you're imminently at hazard of losing every digital moving-picture show and TV evidence you've e'er bought at the whim of a megacorp, but it is possible. Here's what y'all need to know.

What it means to "ain" digital content

What exercise we mean, exactly, when nosotros talk about owning something digital? Everybody knows—or hopefully everybody knows—that information technology doesn't hateful you lot tin turn around and sell that digital detail to someone else, broadcast it, or otherwise distribute it en masse. You don't need to dig far into whatsoever terms-of-service understanding to find such actions expressly forbidden.

For this discussion, to own a digital file is to exist able to sentry or listen to that content anytime you lot desire, with no further payments, in perpetuity—or at least equally long as you can become a device to convert that aboriginal 4K video file into something that your brand-new holodeck on your infinite yacht can read.

By that definition, well, you still don't own anything. Not actually. What you're purchasing in most cases is a license to sentinel that video or listen to that song. Finer that license is good for as long as information technology really matters. I mean, let's exist honest: If an 8K sensurround remaster of The Lord of the Rings comes out in 2030, are you going to care near the 1080p version you bought on Vudu?

Allow's have a await at the FandangoNow/Vudu terms of service, which are adequately typical. I've bolded the important parts.

When you gild or view Content and pay whatever applicative fees, yous will be granted a non-exclusive, not-transferable, non-commercial, limited license to access, employ and/or view the Content in accordance with whatsoever usage rights contained herein and boosted terms that may be provided with your devices and/or with such Content ("Usage Rights").

Pretty standard stuff. You tin watch the item equally often as you desire, but the terms specify that y'all can't "sell, rent, lease, distribute, publicly perform or display, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign whatever right to the Content to whatever third political party." Yous probably already know this: Simply because y'all purchased and downloaded a motion picture doesn't mean you tin can fire it to a DVD and sell the DVD—among other reasons, considering yous would have to crack the digital rights management on the file, which is likewise expressly forbidden. Digital rights direction, or DRM, allows a visitor to restrict what you tin do with a digital file, such as preventing copying or permitting yous to scout it only a certain number of times.

In the FandangoNow/Vudu terms of service, there is one additional department worth looking at, under "Viewing Periods":

Fandango'southward dominance to provide Content to you is bailiwick to restrictions imposed past the film studios and other distributors and providers that make Content available to Fandango ("Content Providers"). These Content Providers may designate periods of time when Fandango is prohibited from renting, selling, enabling downloading and/or streaming certain Content to y'all, including Fandango/Vudu Purchased Content, and you lot concord that these limitations can limit your Content access.

The "including Fandango/Vudu Purchased Content" role is the big ane. What this means is that if Disney, for case, decides information technology doesn't want to allow Vudu to sell its movies anymore, the company can accept Vudu plow off Disney movies. Unlikely every bit that may exist, theoretically the service could block access to movies you've already purchased—as the terms state, "[Y]our ability to stream or download Content may terminate if our licenses stop, alter or expire."

Here'southward how Amazon says the same thing. Again, the assuming emphasis is mine:

"Availability of Purchased Digital Content. Purchased Digital Content will generally continue to exist bachelor to you for download or streaming from the Service, as applicable, but may get unavailable due to potential content provider licensing restrictions or for other reasons, and Amazon volition not be liable to you if Purchased Digital Content becomes unavailable for further download or streaming.

A case about this is working its manner through California courts.

And hither is Google's version, for media content sold through its Play shop:

Content that you purchase or install volition exist available to y'all through Google Play for the menses selected by y'all, in the case of a purchase for a rental menstruum, and in other cases equally long as Google has the right to make such Content available to y'all. In certain cases (for example if Google loses the relevant rights, a service or Content is discontinued, there are critical security issues, or there are breaches of applicable terms or the law), Google may remove from your Device or cease providing y'all with access to certain Content that yous accept purchased. For Content sold past Google LLC, you may be given notice of any such removal or cessation, when possible. If you are not able to download a copy of the Content before such removal or cessation, Google may offering you either (a) a replacement of the Content if possible or (b) a full or fractional refund of the price of the Content. If Google problems you a refund, the refund shall be your sole remedy.

Interestingly, Google says that information technology may offering yous a refund if it deletes your content without request.

How likely is any of this to happen? Non very, which we'll discuss in a moment.

Here's what you definitely don't own

There is some media content that you are absolutely, flat-out renting. On the music side, Spotify is a good example. If y'all cancel your subscription, you no longer take access to whatever files you've downloaded to your phone. Your subscription lets you lease these files, with no choice to buy. The music industry loves this arrangement, by the way, equally you're continually paying to listen to the same songs, albeit a fraction of a penny each time. I've singled out Spotify, but all streaming music services are like this—in dissimilarity to download services such every bit iTunes or Amazon Music (see beneath).

Streaming video, obviously, is another category in which you don't own anything, even if y'all download content to lookout on your mobile device or computer. For example, if you cancel your Netflix service, anything you lot've downloaded gets locked out, only as with Spotify. The same with Disney+'s Premier Access. Even though you're paying a toll that's closer to a purchase fee (ordinarily $30), it's still more like a rental that'southward attainable only equally long as you go along your Disney+ subscription.

Going one step further, if you go to a different state, fifty-fifty if you're merely on vacation, you might get locked out of content you could watch in your original country. A VPN might help with that past geoshifting your location; and then again, it might not.

So what does this all really mean?

It's unlikely that any corporation would willingly nuke the presumed assets of millions of customers, despite how much these companies might dear for you to buy all your movies all the same once again. The backfire would be substantial, and the resulting lawsuits would likely take years and millions of dollars to resolve. Corporations, for the most part, would exist reluctant to amerce and anger such a huge customer base.

That'due south not to say it couldn't happen. Just accept the squabbles between Roku and Warner, or Roku and Google, every bit two of many examples in which consumers are forced to deal with the fallout between bickering companies.

A more likely scenario is that a media company goes out of business concern. In this case the about likely course is that some other corporation buys up the digital-media portion of the business and carries over your right to watch the content you bought. This already happened with Vudu, which was endemic by Walmart for over a decade and is now owned by Fandango Media, a corporation itself owned by NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia … which are owned by Comcast and AT&T, respectively.

Only if you're withal worried about losing access to your purchased content, the solution is to go concrete. It's a lot harder for companies to cease you from watching a physical disc, though that has been tried in the past. Although digital rights management is built into Blu-ray and DVD players and receives periodic updates via the web, if you don't connect the player to the spider web, it should be able to continue playing whatever compatible disc format. Some discs even come with a lawmaking that unlocks a digital re-create, which is certainly convenient—though as we've discussed, you tin't await those copies to concluding forever (most discs even have a date by which y'all need to activate the code).

Audio is even easier. Shocking as it may seem, yous tin can still buy CDs. Rip them to a hard drive, and you have digital copies for as long equally your hard drive lasts (and presumably, the CD will last even longer). Alternatively, you can buy and download DRM-free music and catechumen information technology to whatever file format you similar or trust. iTunes and Amazon Music files are DRM-costless, as are the downloads from many smaller music sites, many of which offer fifty-fifty higher-quality audio files. For older music downloads that accept DRM, you tin can typically convert them to a DRM-gratuitous format such equally FLAC or WAV.

So, no, you don't own your digital files, and theoretically you could at some point exist prevented from watching or listening to them. In reality, your digital collection is probably safe for the foreseeable future—but if the very idea of a company locking you lot out of your movies and music makes you lot angry, nosotros advise embracing physical media such as 4K Blu-rays and CDs, which will likely survive any digital-media apocalypse.