Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by narwally » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #233

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.

Only if they use DRM. It’s not possible for me to lose access to the music I’ve purchased on iTunes, the games I’ve purchased on GoG, or the audiobooks I’ve purchased on libro.fm. (Except through my own fault, which shouldn’t apply.)

iTunes doesn't use DRM anymore? I haven't used it since I had a 1st gen ipod mini back in high school, but I remember only certain music was available without DRM and you used to have to pay extra for it.

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

#252

Post by dane-pgp » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

grishka wrote: post #230

dylan604 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The MPAA vs RIAA is sort of an apples vs oranges comparison though. Audio is much easier to compress, and MP3 made it very easy to make files small enough to download via dial-up modems. Video had years to go before quality was good enough at small enough sizes to make them a viable thing on the internet. Because of that, the MPAA got to watch/learn from mistakes that RIAA made in trying to protect its kingdom. Rathe…

Also I don't think there ever were physical audio formats with DRM? CD came out way before piracy was anyone's concern, and then it was too late to change anything. On the other hand, all digital video formats have always had the technical capability for DRM, starting with DVD.

> Also I don't think there ever were physical audio formats with DRM?

MiniDiscs had "copy protection"[0] and this format was supported by major record labels[1]. They were first released in 1992.

> all digital video formats have always had the technical capability for DRM, starting with DVD.

By starting with DVD, you're skipping the DRM-free formats of Betamax, VHS, and LaserDisc then? Unless by "had the technical capability for" you mean "could be later extended to add", in which case there was Macrovision[2] for VHS, but also Extended Copy Protection[3] for CDs, also known as "the Sony rootkit".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc#Copy_protection

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MiniDisc_releases

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_Protection_System

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Copy_Protection

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

#253

Post by colllectorof » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

sascha_sl wrote: post #218

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…

> You're "renting" something that can be effortlessly replicated ad infinitum. This is only slightly less true for books and optical media. You are never paying for the paper or plastic - even on the lowest margins that's at most 10% of it - , you're paying for the privilege of consuming what's on it. > How much of what you pay for "digital rentals" goes to creators and towards running the actual infrastructure to do…

>> You're "renting" something that can be effortlessly replicated ad infinitum.

>This is only slightly less true for books and optical media. You are never paying for the paper or plastic - even on the lowest margins that's at most 10% of it - , you're paying for the privilege of consuming what's on it.

When I pay for a book in a bookstore, part of the money goes towards maintaining the system that produces and distributes books. The system includes various parties, like printers, publishers, distributors, books stores and so on. It's far more than 10% and there is nothing wrong with paying for a reasonably working distributed system like that.

Replacing all of those companies with a single megacorp like Amazon or Apple is not going to result in the same system running cheaper. It will create an entirely different system. Over time that new system will shift to publish entirely different type of content, it will have an entirely different relationship with consumers and authors and it will have completely different effect on the society at large. Given what I see already, I seriously doubt those changes will skew towards the positive.

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

#254

Post by MereInterest » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #227

sascha_sl wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're "renting" something that can be effortlessly replicated ad infinitum. This is only slightly less true for books and optical media. You are never paying for the paper or plastic - even on the lowest margins that's at most 10% of it - , you're paying for the privilege of consuming what's on it. > How much of what you pay for "digital rentals" goes to creators and towards running the actual infrastructure to do…

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.

> 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.

Exactly! This is the part that I cannot get past whenever people talk about NFTs. They are a neat toy, self-contained, and having unambiguous ownership of the NFT. But there is absolutely nothing in the real world connected to it. It's like those pie-in-the-sky physics models that have hundreds of free parameters unconstrained by any experimental measurement. Sure those models might make some interesting predictions, but they have nothing tying them to the real world.

I could imagine a system where NFTs are used to establish ownership, but that requires there to be some trusted source that signs the initial NFT. This could be a land surveyor to make a NFT that represents property borders, or a patent office to make a NFT that represents a granted patent, or a MMO video game company to make a NFT that represents a particular asset within the game. But as it is, J.K. Rowling could make a NFT representing "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and I could make one as well. There's no indication of which one is a valid link from mathematical space to real space.

NFTs need a legal system in order to tie them to anything outside of the NFT ecosystem. They need trusted authorities who are the only ones that can generate NFTs with specific legal authority. And once you have that trusted authority, there's no point in having any of the other trustless blockchain architecture whose sole, flimsy excuse for existing is in avoiding having a trusted authority in the first place.

(Sorry, that turned into a longer rant than I had expected, but your phrasing crystallized some ideas that had been floating around my head, and I wanted to write them out to see where they went.)

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

#255

Post by narwally » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

beefield wrote: post #234

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.

I would imagine this not being the case if they can show that the customer downloaded a DRM free copy of the content at any point. After that it is the customer's problem to keep access to the downloaded copy.

That's why I uploaded all of my DRM free purchases to iCloud, that way I'll have access to it forever. /s

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

#256

Post by pbhjpbhj » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #176

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is more the licensed content such as movies and music. They likely can't provide it to you in a format sans DRM. So even having the option to download the file, will likely require the media to verify online to unlock at playtime.

I'd be in favor of the law having a clause like the "No Surrender of Others' Freedom" clause of the GPL. Basically saying "If you provide movies like this, then you must make them available without DRM. If you have other legal or contractual requirements that forbid you from making them available without DRM, then you can't make them available at all."

Moreover, DRM prevents copyright content from entering the public domain. In my personal opinion, anything that's not available without DRM shouldn't get copyright - otherwise it subverts the deal at the centre of copyright.

The way around this would be to have a way to lodge a DRM free copy, which would be released to the public domain when the copyright expires, or on abandonment (so people wouldn't be denied access if the company didn't keep their servers running).

Copyright is not a natural right, the balance is totally out of whack. Copyright terms have become abusively long; the deal is not fair anymore.

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

#257

Post by sascha_sl » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #254

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.

> 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. Exactly! This is the part that I cannot get past whenever people talk about NFTs. They are a neat toy, self-contained, and having unambiguous ownership of the NFT. But there is absolutely not…

This is the same issue all decentralized systems of ownership/value have, including all cryptocurrencies. Technology itself can't be a trust anchor without enforcement.

The dollar has value due to a mixture of trust in its continued value and in the entity enforcing it.

Bitcoin has value mostly because people speculate it has value. The extra decentralization loses its value as soon as you add enforcement, because now it is just a really complicated dollar.

Similarly, smart contracts do not solve an actual problem we can't solve with real contracts much cheaper, and the contract itself is unenforceable if any participant stops cooperating.

If you have to rely on police and courts to enforce your smart contract, why do you need the decentralized smart contract to begin with? Can you even model a smart contract that satisfies the legal constraints of all countries where participating in it is possible? Why aren't you just leaving this to lawyers and signatures on paper?

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

#258

Post by dane-pgp » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #53

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"no reasonable person" defense is used when the defendant knows they were caught in a lie and have no other defense. It's the legal version of "just a prank bro" or "I was kidding", and just as despicable.

And, as we've recently discovered, the academic equivalent is "I was just testing the security of the code review process".

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

#259

Post by hellbannedguy » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #86

1cvmask wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know why his account was terminated? I couldn’t find anything on that.

I only found this vague statement: > Price says that Apple terminated his account when the company suspected him of breaching its terms and conditions, but due to the clause in question Apple did not have to confirm a breach occurred or give Price notice or explanation before shutting down his Apple ID. [0] [0] https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-pro...

We need to revise all consumer protection laws. Way more than we did a few years ago.

I would start with, Mandatory Arbitration.

Let consumers take these companies, including credit card companies, to court. What is the limit for small claims---$25,000? Companies might treat customers different? I wouldn't mind doing away with Terms if Service all together. If a company can't act within our laws without a 10 page TOS, so be it. Or, maybe strict protections for small companies, and nill for large companies. Companies that can afford to investigate claims against them?

All my belly aching here won't do a thing though. These companies have bought our representatives.

I'm waiting for a day someone has a successful website, like Hacker News, where people could offer suggestions to their representatives directly.

I don't think I'll ever see that day because those in charge know these matters are above the intellect of most Americans, and most Americans would rather escape the inequities of real life, especially on line?

I just looked up that 2008 Consumer Protection Act.

This popped up?

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/03/811718978/supreme-court-casts...

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

#260

Post by MereInterest » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

martin-adams wrote: post #220

elcomet wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with this ? I'm not familiar with accounting.

It means that all revenue could at some point trigger a refund, for example if they want to exit the media distribution business and shutdown the services. That would be an expensive thing to do. I suspect any law would state it has an availability period before refunds are not eligible.

That's only if they design the distribution system such that it relies on the existence of the servers. If I start up Age of Empires 2 (assume in a computer or older VM such that compatibility isn't an issue), I can start a multiplayer game through LAN without any issue. If I start up a game of Overwatch, I cannot play against somebody in the same room without connecting through Blizzard's servers.

It is perfectly reasonable for a company to be liable for refunds if they want to deliberately take products or features away from users. In order for a company to avoid this liability, they must provide a way for those features to still be available to users, even if the company no longer supports the product.

This is pretty easy and straightforward to legislate. A media company that provides distribution of individual works (like Steam or Apple, as opposed to subscription services like Netflix), must provide a method for users to easily and automatically back up all purchased content. A company that runs servers necessary to the use of a program (e.g. matchmaking servers for video games) must provide the server executable, in a form that can run on currently-available commodity hardware, and must allow the client to select a privately-owned software. Companies that don't meet these requirements would still hold full liability for refunds if they remove product features later on.