I am thrilled at the new announcement…but I have to stop and ask…has anyone at Plex talked to Amazon? Their policies do not seem as such that they will like what I/we do with their service. They have the right to terminate an account because it exceeds what they deem “normal use”. So, if I begin to upload my media collection (>10 TB)…are they going to kill the account because unlimited is not real? Or worse…once I get it all uploaded and start streaming from it…determine that my bandwidth usage exceeds normal use?
“5.2 Suspension and Termination. Your rights under the Agreement will automatically terminate without notice if you fail to comply with its terms. We may terminate the Agreement or restrict, suspend or terminate your use of the Service at our discretion without notice at any time, including if we determine that your use violates the Agreement, is improper, substantially exceeds or differs from normal use by other users, or otherwise involves fraud or misuse of the Service or harms our interests or those of another user of the Service. If your Service Plan is restricted, suspended or terminated, you may be unable to access Your Files and you will not receive any refund of fees or any other compensation.”
Even worse is their privacy policy section:
"3.3 Our Use of Your Files to Provide the Service. We may use, access, and retain Your Files in order to provide the Service to you and enforce the terms of the Agreement, and you give us all permissions we need to do so. These permissions include, for example, the rights to copy Your Files for backup purposes, modify Your Files to enable access in different formats, use information about Your Files to organize them on your behalf, and access Your Files to provide technical support. Amazon respects your privacy and Your Files are subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice located at www.amazon.com/privacy."
So, if I upload 100% legit content…am I going to get a call from the RIAA because Amazon felt it violates copyrights and are snooping in my stuff? Or simply because I have a truckload of content?
Am I blowing things out of proportion? Full disclosure - I work in IT and Security…so I am probably always paranoid. Thanks.
There’s about 10 threads on this board covering various aspects of this subject, and if that’s not enough for you, head on over to reddit and you can read until your eyes bleed.
@clefus said:
I am thrilled at the new announcement…but I have to stop and ask…has anyone at Plex talked to Amazon? Their policies do not seem as such that they will like what I/we do with their service.
From what I have read, Plex has only talked to Amazon about the technical aspect of running a cloud server (as in: will it work, technically).
They (Plex employees) have also stated publicly that as long as you are not running your Plex server as a paid competitor of Netflix, you are “probably going to be just fine”.
However, ultimately you (= the user) are responsible for the content you upload to Amazon and the way you use it. If you think your content is of such nature that it could get you in legal trouble, or if you are skittish by nature, err on the side of caution and don’t do it.
Speaking strictly for myself, about 99% of my movies/series I have bought legally, and I’m comfortable using Amazon’s cloud… but use your own judgement for your own stuff and decide accordingly.
That is probably as close to a real answer as you are going to get
That’s one way to spin it. What they LITERALLY said (and I quote):
“What you upload to your Amazon drive is your responsibility. Amazon’s policies apply. As previously mentioned we do not encrypt your files. We are not giving you the ok to do what may be illegal in your region or against Amazon’s terms of service. If you are not comfortable with using Plex Cloud then do not use it”
They also said, REPEATEDLY:
“Use it for personal use and not trying to run a streaming media business and you should be fine.”
@clefus said:
I am thrilled at the new announcement…but I have to stop and ask…has anyone at Plex talked to Amazon? Their policies do not seem as such that they will like what I/we do with their service.
From what I have read, Plex has only talked to Amazon about the technical aspect of running a cloud server (as in: will it work, technically).
They (Plex employees) have also stated publicly that as long as you are not running your Plex server as a paid competitor of Netflix, you are “probably going to be just fine”.
However, ultimately you (= the user) are responsible for the content you upload to Amazon and the way you use it. If you think your content is of such nature that it could get you in legal trouble, or if you are skittish by nature, err on the side of caution and don’t do it.
Speaking strictly for myself, about 99% of my movies/series I have bought legally, and I’m comfortable using Amazon’s cloud… but use your own judgement for your own stuff and decide accordingly.
That is probably as close to a real answer as you are going to get
if you bought them in disks, technically it’s illegal to rip them off the disk.
if you bring the disk to your friend’s house, you are fine.
if you copy the movie into a flash drive and bring the flash drive to your friend’s house, you are technically breaking the law.
Exactly. And if people have a problem with breaking the letter of the law, I think the general advice seems to be “don’t use Plex Cloud then”.
You could also wait till encryption is supported, which may or may not happen, but arguably you’d be breaking the law even further by hiding what you’re doing.
Security by obscurity. Amazon’s cloud service is so mind-bogglingly enormous that they really can’t be bothered monitoring the contents of your Drive, even if they wanted to. They would have to have a specific reason to do so. In short, they are huge and you are not that interesting.
