mbdrake76

I often play Fortnite on my 14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro via GeForce Now RTX3080 tier at Epic settings with a resolution of 1440p and it's absolutely fine - every bit as good as playing it natively on my HP Omen laptop with RTX2060.  Providing you've got the bandwidth and latency, GeForce Now is a good option.  Shadow of the Tomb Raider (which I picked up free via the Epic Games Store) runs around 100-135fps at 1440p on GeForce Now.  GFN could do with more support from developers, but ultimately I'm very happy with the performance and availability of the service.

M68000 said:

Why are people so up in arms about this?  If you have nothing to hide why are you fighting Apple’s attempt to make the world safer from criminals and sick people?   This “ceo” made the amazingly stupid comment about “presumption of guilt”?   Well,  at least in the United States a person is innocent until proven guilty.   

I’m frankly amazed by the feedback in this forum in the last few days,  people who trust and love Apple and now don’t want to help Apple try to make the world safer.  

If you work for any large company I hope you know that any email, chat messages and files on company computers can be looked at and scanned by security and network admins.

if you want total privacy,  get rid of cloud storage and maybe go back to using a typewriter LOL

Apple does not want their products used for crime and is making an attempt to do something about it - what is so hard to understand?

Your employer has the right to monitor your activities at work - but certainly not at home.

My general concern is if things were to go wrong, and things can and do go wrong.  We're Apple users, we expect things to go wrong!  Due to a bug or hash mismatch (okay - the odds of it triggering a false positive are very low), it could be possible for completely innocent images to be flagged up incorrectly.  Apple hasn't exactly the most marvellous reputation for dealing with sensitive and urgent problems when accounts are closed for something the account isn't responsible for.

But, as many other people have said, it doesn't have to stop there.  The same tech can be used (or expanded) to check for other content that, say, governments can enforce on Apple to weed out and notify them of any infraction.  This has the capability (mind you, most things do) for abuse.

HOWEVER..

Adobe already do this with their cloud services.  This is outlined here:

https://www.adobe.com/uk/legal/lawenforcementrequests/childsafety.html

So those using Lightroom Desktop/CC or Lightroom Classic which syncs photos to the Adobe Creative Cloud are already having their photos scanned with CSAM technology when it's uploaded to their servers.  I've not seen any articles that mention this, or any feedback that Adobe has to say on it.

I can definitely see why Apple wants to implement CSAM on the iPhone (and perhaps give Apple a chance to say to law enforcement - hey, you don't need to crack the phone - we do the job for you!) - and it'd be one of the few companies that aren't already doing so (Google already do it through many of their products and services already - https://transparencyreport.google.com/child-sexual-abuse-material/reporting?hl=en), but it does somewhat go against their privacy matters mantra.

The EU Commission apparently wants to do people's thinking for them.  I was never under the impression there wasn't any competition.  Everybody knows about Spotify, and I'm fully aware that I subscribe via the web site and pay there and not the App Store.   I know this because of the articles on the web site and I know how to look things up and pay attention as to what's going on. What a load of old twaddle from the EU commission.

AppleZulu said:

There should probably be more clarity with all this, but it doesn't seem as difficult as it's being made out to be.

It has always been true that when purchasing copies of recorded content, music, motion pictures, books, etc., it's incumbent on the purchaser to store and maintain that content. For physical media, the seller's responsibility clearly ends when the buyer takes possession. Losing or damaging your physical copy does not create any requirements on the seller to replace it with a new copy, and they're not required to keep titles in stock, just in case. That's why there's a booming business on eBay, reselling out-of-print materials. Also, the seller is not required to replace your physical media for free should they issue an upgraded version. The accountants for the Beatles and Rolling Stones know this fact very well. The upgraded Let it Be will be available no CD, LP and BluRay for purchase everywhere this year, just in time for Christmas!

In reality, it's not all that different for digital content. You can buy music and video on iTunes, download it and put it on whatever storage device you wish. Apple will probably still have it in stock in their library, too, and if so, you can re-download it again, if you like. It's always been pretty clear to me, however, that my purchase doesn't obligate them to keep it in their library in perpetuity. The owners of copyrighted content are always at liberty to pull it from a store if they don't want to sell it there any longer. This isn't clear to everyone, it seems, so maybe there could be better information provided. Of course, popping up a detailed legal disclaimer or agreement every time someone makes a purchase won't help much, either, because everybody clicks that stuff without reading it. So who knows what the answer is?

The main difference between a physical purchase and a digital one is that a seller of physical goods can't demand that you hand back a physical purchase if they decide not to sell it anymore.  And a physical product should be replaced if it's found to be detective within a certain timeframe (usually 14 days) - otherwise what recourse does the consumer have if they're not able to play the media they've spent money on?  I had bad discs when I bought the complete Breaking Bad Blu-Ray set (because silly Sony put the discs in super scratchy cardboard holders).  I contacted Sony and they told me to deal with the retailer I bought it from.  Got my money back.  Sony eventually redesigned the packaging - eventually - and now everything is good.

Yet, that can (and does) happen with digital purchases - all thanks to DRM.  For Apple (at least), the situation is all over the place.  A film/TV distributor can pull an item from being sold through iTunes/Apple TV, but still keep it in the library for download (and streaming).  But they could also do both - remove it from sale and from Apple's servers.  And Apple doesn't have to give the consumer any notice whatsoever.  So a 'purchase' through Apple's iTunes/Apple TV is effectively a gamble.  It's not a rental because at least with that you have a definite date on which the title will be pulled from your library. 

I think the key object in all this - long term - is to ideally strengthen and improve the consumer rights to a digital asset.  At the moment it places the rights of the copyright owner far above that than it does the consumer. 

davidw said:

mbdrake76 said:

This is absolutely not a frivolous case and isn't wasting the court's time (as evidenced by a judge).   How many people honestly believe "buy" is simply a case of licensing?  I'm willing to bet your average consumer won't.  They'll look at it and believe they will own that movie in perpetuity - being able to stream and download as many times as they like.  Having read the terms laid out by Apple, it's a confusing mess.  It's been in dire need of an update for years.

This isn't a case of picking on Apple - this is something that is by-product of having an ID associated with purchased content being taken away.  In this case, it happens to be Apple.  That said, Amazon has been sued for the same thing (https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/28/amazon-says-users-dont-own-content-bought-on-prime-video) although I'll be damned if I can find the outcome of the case.

That's not how the question should be posed. The way it should be posed is ........ "How many people honestly believe that when they "Buy" a movie, (be it on a DVD, BluRay or digital download), that they actually own the contents? There are a lot of people that don't understand how licensing works, but most average consumer will know that they don't own the movie. They only own the right to play the movie. They just don't associate that as "licensing". 

Can you imagine any judge dropping the charges against a person caught selling hundreds of pirated DVD movies at a flea market on the notion that ..... Well, not to many people honestly believe that when they "buy" a DVD, that it's simply a case of licensing. 

When you "Buy" a movie from iTunes and download it, it's like buying a DVD or BluRay. You can play that download as many times as you want and stream it from your iTunes library to as many of your devices (connected to iTunes) as you want (but only to 5 computers). If you want to remove the DRM so you can play that downloaded movie without the DRM restriction, then a simple software will remove the DRM. Just as simple as removing the DRM (encryption) in a DVD movie. The DRM restriction is required by the movie industry.

This is not the case where a person lost all his iTunes and app purchases because Apple revoked his Apple ID. This case involves a person that did not download his/her movie purchases, which can be done for all purchases and was just streaming his/her purchases from Apple server. But Apple stop streaming one or several of the movies he/she purchased, for whatever reason. The person believed that "Buy" meant he/she would always be able to stream all of his/her purchases from Apple's servers for as long as he/she wants. Just as it he/she were to "Buy" and own a DVD or BluRay.  But not only does the purchaser not own the contents of his/her purchased movies, neither does Apple. The content owners can terminate Apple license to stream and sell their movies at any time. Which is why Apple stated .......... "...... that content users have already downloaded "can be enjoyed at any time and will not be deleted unless [a user has] chosen to do so."    

Difficult to say, to be honest.  How many people have had to replace a DVD or Blu-Ray for whatever reason?   I don't think anybody is under any illusion that if a Blu-Ray or DVD is lost, the consumer isn't entitled to a replacement from the retailer or the studio.  If the physical media is damaged, at least initially, the retailer will be able to fix that. 
Going forwards into months and years - not so much. 

Digital media. especially in the Apple space, is different from physical media in that you can stream and download as often as you like (up to a certain number of devices) providing the distributor allows it.  You don't need to seek permission every time from Apple or the distributor to play a movie stored on physical media (ignoring the whole pain of AACS encryption keys for the moment). 

In addition to distributors potentially withdrawing content, there have also been cases where people have lost access to their movies because a distributor rolled out an update to an existing title incorrectly - may be changing the title or ID for some reason - yet it is the same movie you've purchased.  Both of these things have happened to me.  A film I purchased just vanished because the distributor went bankrupt.  And thanks to an update from another I  somehow I ended up with two copies of the movie Amelie in iTunes (and charged for both).  So if a distributor/studio mucks things up like that, what recourse is there for the consumer?  Who takes responsibility?  My contract is with Apple, not the distributor.  And also note that a download-only constitutes the movie or TV show up to HD quality - you cannot download and backup 4K titles or iTunes Extras.  Plus Apple's DRM limits the no. of devices it can be played on - physical media doesn't.  And removing DRM isn't legal in many territories - here in the UK, for example, you cannot legally make a backup copy of physical media - with or without DRM.

I'm also of the opinion that it isn't a realistic expectation in 2021 (in an age of streaming) that everybody should download their entire library of movies for offline backup.  In the same way I don't expect people to make backups of their physical media.  Especially if it is an average consumer (likely not very technical) who owns a low-end Mac, an iPad, an iPhone or Apple TV, or any combination thereof.  Sure, you can download movies to iPhones and iPads, but you cannot for Apple TV which is streaming-only device.  Downloading to iPhones and iPads is more of a convenience for when you're traveling and intend to watch it in an area with poor connectionvity.   And sure, you can backup an entire iPhone and iPad including its contents to a Mac's internal storage - if you have space.  And not many people are going to manage that if they have a large library (it is possible to move local iPhone/iPad backups to external storage, but it's fiddly).

Heck, even Apple's own marketing states: "Buy. Rent. Watch. All inside the app. Welcome to the new home of thousands of films, including the latest blockbusters from iTunes. Now you can buy, rent and watch, all from inside the app — as well as watch everything you’ve previously purchased from iTunes."  There's no little asterisk there that links to teeny-tiny text with the caveat that the content may not be permanent and one might potentially lose access to their purchased content if a distributor removes it from the store.  The terms and conditions hint at this, but it is in no way as thorough as Amazon Prime who has made it abundantly clear in recent months.  If Apple is going to get a good smacking from a judge, it's going to be there at the very least.

Just my tuppence.