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Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

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Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#181

Post by inigyou »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #173
kazinator wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling someone a license, and then revoking it is like destruction of property. The injured party is owed a refund in the amount of the present day replacement cost. It's the same as if someone sold you a toaster with a remote self-destruct feature, and then invoked the self-destruct. They owe you a new toaster.

IANAL but I bet that: - If the license terms include a section on termination, and termination is done in accordance with the license terms, it's fine legally. - Licenses can be transferable but that doesn't make them non-terminable. I could be wrong, though. It's pretty crappy that we got to the point that overly simple actions (like clicking on buttons or breaking stickers on packages) can be considered accepting l…

It could be either way. Companies love putting legally invalid terms into license agreements.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#182

Post by jrjdjdjdkr »

papyrus9244 wrote: post #166
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.

[dead]

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#184

Post by smallmancontrov »

papyrus9244 wrote: post #166
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.

There's a reason why they teach the prisoner's dilemma on day 1 of business school: a group which is more fragmented has less power. From the consumer perspective, this is why monopolies are bad and this is why boycotts don't work. From the slimy businessman perspective, this is why monopolies are good and boycotts are the only way consumers should be allowed to push back. Boycotts are empirically understood to be an ineffective strategy -- which, of course, is usually exactly what the people proposing them as an alternative to legislation are usually after.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#185

Post by drstewart »

inigyou wrote: post #137
bell-cot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> need to refund in full the purchase cost. In practical terms, the logistics of many-years-later refunds would be unwieldy at best. Do the purchase records still exist? What if I no longer have that credit card or email address? How can you prove you're the heir of the deceased? What if I now live in a country where the "deletion" status is different? And how could you stop all the scammers who smelled free money? A…

Doesn't matter. It should be up to the corporation to figure it out or else it's illegal and they get fined 300% of their total yearly revenue for each affected person.

Boom! Big and tough enforcement, I like it.

Similarly, we should put in a law to force consumers who post bad reviews to prove they actually transacted with the business. If they can't, they have to go to every person who saw the review and personally retract it.

Can't figure out who saw it? Tough. It's up to you to figure out, or else it's illegal and they get 5000 years in prison for every view it got.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#186

Post by stronglikedan »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #183

Without laws to force companies to honor this, The only reasonable answer to this ownership issue will end up being piracy. Also, “Buying” the movie and making a copy of it for personal use shouldn’t be illegal.

> Also, “Buying” the movie and making a copy of it for personal use shouldn’t be illegal.

Unless I missed something recently, it's not illegal. You've always had the right to make backups of content that you purchased legally. It's the distribution that has been illegal.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#187

Post by hadlock »

papyrus9244 wrote: post #166
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.

You are not going to get the guy at 7-11 or the cashier at Target who just bought a PS5 for her son to boycott watching movies on it. Boycotts only work if it is demonstrably going to make their life worse if they don't. Losing access to a movie that interested you 15 years ago when you were still in high school is not one of those things.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#188

Post by em500 »

qingcharles wrote: post #72
goldenarm wrote: post #20

IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button? If not, should we change the law?

California Assembly Bill 2426 (AB 2426), effective 1 January, 2025. Expands the state's false advertising laws to explicitly ban companies from using words like "buy," "purchase," "own," or "keep" if what the customer is actually getting is a revocable digital license governed by shady T&Cs.

I don't think this type of legislation will have any kind of real world effect. Apple App store labels all their buttons with "Get". Google Play Store just prints the price on the button for paid apps/games.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#189

Post by charles_f »

papyrus9244 wrote: post #166
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.

Also, corporate bullshit such as this should be stigmatized.

Re: Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

#190

Post by smallmancontrov »

mingus88 wrote: post #125
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

ok but who enforces the law? If you haven’t been paying attention lately, laws are only as good as they are enforced and it has become obvious that the ruling class is not going to enforce laws against themselves. The solution here is not something most people are willing to inconvenience themselves over

Rewind a bit over 100 years and the robber barons had an iron grip over the US economy, US politics, and people who understood the mechanisms despaired at ever prying it away from them.

Then the wind shifted and, suddenly, we could and we did. It took them decades to undo that progress and decades more to reassert their grip.

Don't self-sabotage by imagining that it is impossible to achieve change through democracy. We've done it before and we can do it again.

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