YouTube TV’s Disney blackout reminds users that they don’t own what they stream

Google and Disney have been in a contract dispute since October 30 that has resulted in YouTube TV subscribers losing access to 21 Disney-owned TV channels, including ABC, ESPN, and The Disney Channel.

In addition to reducing access to popular live content, the corporate conflict is highlighting another frustration in the streaming era. As Google and Disney continue duking it out, their customers have lost some access to content they thought was permanent: DVR files and digital movie purchases.

A perk of subscribing to YouTube TV, per Google’s marketing, is the ability to “record it all with unlimited DVR space.” A footnote on the YouTube TV homepage notes that unlimited DVR is subject to “device, regional, and Internet restrictions” but overlooks an additional restriction in the form of multi-conglomerate spats.

YouTube TV’s terms of service does state that Google may remove users’ DVR recordings when “Google is asked to delete or remove access to a recording” and that “subscribers are not granted any rights or license by use of recording functions.” But people often neglect to locate, read, and comprehend complex and verbose terms of service.

Once YouTube TV lost Disney content, Google also made this discretion apparent via a support page that reads:

Recordings of Disney content will be removed. If we’re able to reach an agreement with Disney and bring their content back to YouTube TV, subscribers will regain access to recordings that were previously in their library.

One could be forgiven for assuming they had greater control over DVR recordings from YouTube TV. The earliest DVR machines stored can’t-miss episodes and historical sporting events locally, giving users power over when they could watch or delete what they had recorded. As a result, people might presume that today’s DVR recordings work similarly. But nowadays, DVR files are stored in the cloud, giving companies the ability to rip them away at any time. In this case, people are losing access to files that they may have recorded long before Disney and Google’s disagreement went public.