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‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services

Ownership rights are buried in the fine print and downloading or buying physical copies may be the only ways to keep your favourites

“We’ve partnered with Fetch as our new entertainment platform and the vast majority of movies or shows customers have bought on their Telstra TV Box Office can be migrated across,” the spokesperson said. Now firmly in the streaming age, ownership is largely subject to the terms and conditions people often do not read, a lecturer in computing and information systems at Melbourne University, Shaanan Cohney, said. “It’s having mandatory rules around what kinds of things can be in the terms of conditions … If a provider wants to offer content in a way that is in violation of those, there has to be some substantial indication that it’s in the interests of the consumer as well as very clear disclosure of that particular change.”

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