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Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#321

Post by vasco »

FireBeyond wrote: post #313
reaperducer wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of what you pay for "digital rentals" goes to creators FWIW, Apple answered this partly recently. At least as it applies to music. It's not very much, but it's supposed to be a lot more than most other services. I believe the context was refuting accusations in the Spotify dustup. I saw it on a site like macrumors, so some salt may be required.

Tidal, I believe, is the streaming service that gives most to the creators. This may or may not be related to Jay-Z being on the board.

Don't worry, Silicon Valley has already bought Tidal in the meantime.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#322

Post by ajnin »

Qwertious wrote: post #224
jbay808 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this would probably force them to treat purchase revenue as a liability on the accounting books.

Well, question: suppose Steam ran out of money tomorrow. Do you think it would be acceptable for Valve to just delete all user accounts and games, if it saved them $100? Or do you think they have an obligation to customers to at least provide a single transfer of each game download to archive.org or someone, and give customers a magnet link for each game they own?

I very much doubt Valve has the required licensing to release the game they have on their store to any other platform (except for their own games). If Valve ever goes bankrupt and closes shop, it is likely that the users would lose access to their games.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#323

Post by imgabe »

microtherion wrote: post #279
jeroenhd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could terminate the account and refund the purchases in full, that way you can still get the user removed from your platform. Or, better yet, stop the unification of unrelated accounts and have a user be able to purchase and watch movies without necessarily having access to iCloud and such. There's plenty of ways to deal with this problem, but most of those cut into sales figures, such as dropping the pretense th…

> You could terminate the account and refund the purchases in full So a user could sign up, watch all the movies they wanted for 10 years, and then get all their money back, provided they find a way to behave badly enough? Sounds like a pretty sweet incentive to some people, especially if you could manage to then repeat the cycle with another identity.

What is Apple's rate of return on capital? If you gave them $5 10 years ago, they have probably more than doubled it by now.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#324

Post by lambda_obrien »

jordan_curve wrote: post #320
TeMPOraL wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't say people are happy. "They accept" is much closer. They accept the mediocre, because there's nothing they can do about it, and they don't understand how any of it works.

I’m happy. It’s not really a big deal to me if my uploaded content is removed and I think the service that Spotify provides is worth more than what I pay for it.

Same here. I used to have to borrow, steal, or buy content, but now for about 50 bucks a month i can subscribe to a few services and get all the tv, games, and music I want. Until that changes considerably, I'm fine with the status quo.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#325

Post by heavyset_go »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #249
colllectorof wrote: post #205

The reality is that most big tech companies want to get all the benefits of "going digital", while shifting all the costs or downsides of that move to the consumers. This is not accidental. This is a long-term strategy backed by an elaborate PR campaign. The campaign was so successful that most people aren't even aware of how bizarre the whole idea of "renting" digital content really is. You're "renting" something th…

People are so happy that they are fine with not finding their liked/fav songs regularly on Spotify even after they notice it has gone missing. And they also kinda accept the mediocre recommendation (often laden with ads and "place in front" for pay content) which just feels like habit after a while.

> People are so happy that they are fine with not finding their liked/fav songs regularly on Spotify even after they notice it has gone missing.

I'd believe they were actually happy if there was a streaming service that actually didn't have content randomly disappear like it does on Spotify, and if customers still liked Spotify more.

To me, at least, it seems like consumers don't have many choices. They have to compromise with Spotify and others dropping content at the whims of rights holders.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#326

Post by jrockway »

alpaca128 wrote: post #246
_0w8t wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other already pointed out, this should only apply to DRM media. DRM-free should imply that the customer is responsible for it once the transfer is done.

I'd love for this to happen, not just for the amusement of seeing all the giant corporations suddenly jumping to DRM free distribution to save tons of money, and Tim Cook explaining for 5 minutes how innovative Apple was with reinventing their content distribution model.

I think Apple killed off DRM on music in the late 2000s and indeed, Steve Jobs was quite pleased with himself when announcing it.

(What's old is new again -- Epic is basically doing the same thing to Apple now. It all starts when an entrenched monopolist receives an open letter, apparently.)

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#327

Post by II2II »

megablast wrote: post #305
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But with a book, you have that privilege in perpetuity, and you can loan, transfer, and resell it. Coincidentally, NFT’s got the “transfer” side of the equation, but forgot about the “privilege” part! The tokens are yours in perpetuity, and can be transferred to others, but it’s not at all clear what privilege they provide.

> But with a book, you have that privilege in perpetuity, and you can loan, transfer, and resell it. But you don't. Not really. DVDs and books only last, what, 30-40 years. Are you entitled to a free replacement after that time is up?

Books will last much longer than that. Their most common mode of destruction is storage-in-landfill. Moisture (may that be flooding or mold) and fire are the main environmental factors diminishing the lifespan of a book. Things such as the acidity of paper are only an issue for book collectors and libraries. That leaves wear and tear, which can usually be repaired. In other words, books are more than capable of lasting for the lifetime of the original purchaser.

Now contrast that to digital downloads with DRM, where you are at the whim of the vendor. The worse example I've seen is a perpetual license expiring after 2 years, though I have lost access to several hundred dollars worth over purchases over the past decade (and I'm not a big spender).

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#328

Post by visarga »

cipher_system wrote: post #5
realusername wrote: post #3

> Apple countered by arguing that “no reasonable consumer would believe” that content purchased through iTunes would be available on the platform indefinitely Remember this sentence to change your mind for the next time you see some movie to buy online.

I always assumed they would be available as long as Apple or iTunes doesn't go under. Guess i'm not a reasonable consumer but luckily I haven't spent much money on them.

> Guess i'm not a reasonable consumer but luckily I haven't spent much money on them.

I used to have an account on which I spent at least $400. After an attempt to change the email address associated to the account I got locked out. It seems the same email address was used to create a different account in the past and the move just destroyed my access and any possible recourse.

So I switched to Android and stayed on Android for the last 7 years. No more iPhones for me, just remembering how my content got stolen makes me turn away.

I used to be a big fan of iPhones when they came out, even had a first gen iPhone a couple of months after launch. But after losing access to my content it all turned into the feeling that I am being abused.

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#329

Post by bobbyi_settv »

Diggsey wrote: post #17

IMO it wouldn't matter if they'd used the word "Rent" or "Licence" instead: it would still be unreasonable. Account termination is entirely at Apple's discretion, meaning the term of your "rental" is not known when you actually pay for the content. For most people the term will be "forever", so that is the expectation. It's simple: if apple want to terminate your account, they need to refund you for any content you l…

Could this lead to people intentionally violating terms to try to get their account terminated so that they can get money back for every in app purchase, etc, they've ever made?

Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos

#330

Post by thaumasiotes »

ajnin wrote: post #322
Qwertious wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question: suppose Steam ran out of money tomorrow. Do you think it would be acceptable for Valve to just delete all user accounts and games, if it saved them $100? Or do you think they have an obligation to customers to at least provide a single transfer of each game download to archive.org or someone, and give customers a magnet link for each game they own?

I very much doubt Valve has the required licensing to release the game they have on their store to any other platform (except for their own games). If Valve ever goes bankrupt and closes shop, it is likely that the users would lose access to their games.

That doesn't really pose any difficulties for the rule that you have to refund purchases when you terminate the user's access. Under this rule, Valve would incur a bunch of liabilities to its user base, which it would then mostly not pay because it's bankrupt.

They'd be pretty massive liabilities and would significantly eat into the recovery for other creditors, which could have effects on Valve's ability to issue debt, or might just mean that whenever Valve issues debt there's a clause making that debt senior to any future we-terminated-your-account liabilities.

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