We were upset when content "bought" in the UK disappeared after we moved to NZ (specifically, I think it happened when we changed credit card billing address). We complained and they gave some of it back "at their discretion", but we weren't even sure what we'd lost. It seemed completely absurd that they used the word "buy" in this way.
Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
341–350 of 403 posts
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#342IMO 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?
Yes which is why this won't ever happen. It should just be illegal to wholly terminate an account. If someone is breaking ToS, ban them from doing the ToS breaking thing like posting or commenting. No reason to terminate the entire account.
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's unreasonable, wouldn't be practical, and goes against precedent. The analogy here is if you buy a vacuum cleaner from a store and it doesn't work because of a defect. You bring it back and get your money back. The store isn't required to provide you with another working vacuum cleaner. If the vacuum cleaner is no longer manufactured, they're not required to find one in mint condition on eBay that's 10x or 100x…
Comparing physical objects to digital one is absolutely ludicrous. It costs almost nothing to copy a digital work. The store does not lock your access to your vacuum while it's in your home. This may happen in the future with cars for example. Imagine you driving and suddenly your car dies because the car company "banned" you and locked your car.
> This may happen in the future with cars for example. Imagine you driving and suddenly your car dies because the car company "banned" you and locked your car.
Something very similar has already been happening for years with cars.
Car dealerships and lease/loan companies install remote tracking and deactivation systems in vehicles they sell/lease, with the idea being that if you don't pay your loan/lease, well the car just won't run.
There's been a number of cases where this has been abused. For instance in Canada a dealership locked a car they no longer owned[1] because the owner refused to pay a removal fee for the device.
Tesla has been removing features from second-hand cars[2], which is definitely trending in that direction.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-man-fights-ba...
[2] https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/tesla-disablin...
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#344IMO 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?
Good point. Though I suspect it would be a pretty small percentage of people doing that.
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
NFTs need a legal / authority system ensuring they are tied to something. I agree and this is why NFTs and block chain are simply not needed at all. A simple certificate signed by an authority would make more sense .. no purpose in a anonymous block chain for this I can see.
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Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 acces…
>>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. Inasmuch as I am sympathetic to the argument, how would a government force DRMless software without attacking encryption itself or violating a company's 1st amendment rights to sell whatever di…
The government doesn't necessarily have to take an offense stance at all. Just removing the legislative protection for DRM schemes would go as long way. You could make it a condition that companies that want to gain legal defense for their DRM'd content must register a DRM-free version with, for example, the Library of Congress.
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#347Is there a defined "age limit" on iTunes accounts (or any other digital asset account)? I don't know the ToS, but I assume that it's illegal to sell, trade or gift an iTunes account to someone else. Assuming that I continue to maintain such an account for the rest of my natural life, die, and then bequeath the account to someone, will there come a point where Apple says "this account is older than any human, therefore it is no longer a valid one and will be disabled"?
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#348It seems the prudent thing would be to allow access to existing material while preventing them from doing anything to their account besides changing the password.
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which employee is going to be responsible for doing all that, considering they just ran out of money and most definitely will not be getting a paycheck for executing this plan?
That's why this needs to be a law - to create an incentive where one would otherwise not exist.
I think the slightly longer version is that going bankrupt is not usually a discrete step in time and that planning and negotiating between creditors, debtors, and the government is going on. So if there is a law there is a government interest in customers being treated right before, for instance, big owners get a payout from a sale of assets.
If there are literally no assets there's very little that can be done though, you could threaten the owners with jail but what can they even do if there is no money? If there were a law it would almost necessitate something more like unemployment insurance where companies are forced to hold insurance to deal with this in a predictable way if they shut down or close a customers account.
Actually, unemployment insurance might be a pretty good analogy. If a company goes out of business and you get laid off as an employee you get unemployment mostly paid for out of money the company paid to an insurance policy. In this case instead of being triggered by unemployment it's triggered by loss of access. In the same way, if a company is closing a lot of accounts their insurance rates go up.
Re: Apple sued for terminating account with $25k worth of apps and videos
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
University libraries all over the world would disagree, their archivists make very sure that digital journals are still available to their audience even if the subscription has expired. Access to digital content is a solved problem, even though Apple would have you believe otherwise.
How does this work? Is it normal for university libraries to keep a huge secret backup collection of PDFs? What happens if the university chooses to discontinue its subscription, as opposed to the publisher going out of business?
Contracts stipulate that material that has been paid for remains available even after the subscription is cancelled, that's usual for publishers. There's also agreements that material is transferred to archive sites if a publisher goes out of business and finds no buyer.
I wouldn't know about ToU violations, universities routinely get banned from arXiv for weeks because CS departments hand out assignments to write a webcrawler - no clue what kind of grovelling is requited there, but it must be well ritualized now.