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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

#11

Post by strogonoff »

sneak wrote: post #2

All these "stores" have the same wording in their TOS: "this content is licensed, not sold", et c. They all use the terms "buy", "sale", "purchases", "owned", and other similar words in the UI. There's a clear contradiction here, and they shouldn't get it both ways. It's very obvious (to those who know how FAANG walled gardens work) that it's a rental and contingent upon them not evaporating your account for some stu…

Transferrable software/media licenses present a challenge that can be either a technical or a social/economical one.

There is a high temptation to abuse the system due to the ease of making a copy. On one hand, it can be attacked with a zero-trust outlook from technical angle (DRM). On the other hand, in a society with higher minimum quality of life and satisfaction eliminating required trust may do more harm than good, as really no one would want to go through the trouble of making illegal copies.

I strongly agree that “selling” something you do not get to own should not even be a valid concept.

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

#13

Post by lettergram »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #4
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.

Really surprised to see Apple taking this approach. You'd think they could have come up with something less offensive to their users. This is the exact same line Sidney Powell is using in her defense against Dominion: "'No Reasonable Person' Thought Her Election Fraud Claims Were Fact" [0]. Amused but not surprised to see this from her, I am quite aghast to see this from Apple. The fact is, just like any reasonable p…

Not sure why Sidney Powell was brought up here, but that’s ongoing litigation and neither side has emerged victorious.

Further, the claims in that article were odd and don’t seem to match the filing Sydney Powell actually made: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.225699/...

So I don’t think that’s necessarily a great source to cite.

EDIT: In either case, these are lawsuits. There’s a few things that have to occur in the Powell (and Apple) case:

1. Is it reasonable to believe the people making said statements or taking actions believe they are correct / the truth

2. Was there malicious intent (predicated on point 1). Those suing have to prove the statements are both (a) convincing to a 3rd party and (b) show the defendant was trying to take action contrary to their beliefs

Because of the setup, it makes sense to basically say “prove a reasonable person believes the claims and prove the defended intended to cause harm, using evidence contrary to their beliefs”

That’s equivalent to saying “prove it.” This is standard in a motion to dismiss, which is step one in the legal battle.

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

#14

Post by tluyben2 »

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 do not think consumers know this at all and very much do agree that what they buy will be available to them during their lifetime at least. When I told friends that this can (and does) happen to books on Kindle that they paid for, they were very surprised. I am a reasonable consumer but yes, of course I assume that if it does not say 'rent this movie or book for a day' but instead uses the word 'buy' (often next to the button rent, so they they are making a distinction!), it will not dissapear. If it does disappear, I should get a refund, no matter the reason for it disappearing.

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

#15

Post by habibur »

oblio wrote: post #10
ryandrake wrote: post #7

Wow, $25K and he did not have download access to a single bit. That's insane! I hope this goes to trial and sets a precedent. The word "buy" is extremely misleading when it comes to cloud content. Never buy anything that the manufacturer is allowed to later repossess or deny your access to!

They should just force all these vendors to relabel those buttons to "Rent" or equivalent.

> They should just force all these vendors to relabel those buttons to "Rent" or equivalent.

Yeah. That will be a little less misleading. Also with an expiration date "Rent for 5 years". So people know what they are exactly paying for.

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

#16

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

oblio wrote: post #10
ryandrake wrote: post #7

Wow, $25K and he did not have download access to a single bit. That's insane! I hope this goes to trial and sets a precedent. The word "buy" is extremely misleading when it comes to cloud content. Never buy anything that the manufacturer is allowed to later repossess or deny your access to!

They should just force all these vendors to relabel those buttons to "Rent" or equivalent.

IMO they should just forbid taking away access. You can't terminate the account. If someone does a chargeback, you can terminate access to what they charged back. You can forbid them to write any additional data in the future. You can decline to sell them anything more. You can sue them for any monies they owe you. But if you're providing property-like digital goods, you must give indefinite read-only access to those goods, even if the account is otherwise banned from interacting with your service.

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

#17

Post by Diggsey »

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 lose access to as a result of that termination.

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

#18

Post by hirundo »

surfsvammel wrote: post #9

It seems I was fooled. I’m pretty tech savvy, but I guess I am naïve, I though my movies—no, I counted on my movies—being available to me indefinitely.

They are just available to you more indefinitely than you thought.

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

#19

Post by wdn »

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.

They are a monopoly. I hope the Judge on Epic class call this Apple’s Motion to Dismiss.

Hopefully there will be platform independent store where you can buy once and available on all devices.

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

#20

Post by jsnell »

danaris wrote: post #12

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26912118

Not a dupe, I think?

There are two distinct lawsuits. The previous submission is just about the case on Apple making content impossible to download. But this article also discusses the case where Apple terminated an account with $25k of purchases.

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