4 ms·

I don't think victim-blaming is a great way to educate people on the existence and dangers of DRM. Convenience might even be worth it to some people, but I thin

by Lammy 6y ago

I don't think victim-blaming is a great way to educate people on the existence and dangers of DRM. Convenience might even be worth it to some people, but I think it's more often a problem of ignorance. Any TV ad for a Kindle is going to focus on the broad selection and ease of use. Telling those people about the DRM isn't participating in the same conversation that sold them the device.

f1refly 6y ago
On the other hand, I dont think victim-blaming is an excuse for rampant and continuous ignorance either. At some point, after getting abused again and again, users are to blame. All this shouldn't suprise any of them, it's in the ToS after all. Some users read the ToS and made an educated choice, some didn't read them and decided to not participate in any business with a company that obfuscates its goals in a 50-page wall of legal damage control, and some just ignore it and use the service. The ones that ignore the ToS and that get caught by suprise later are absolutely to blame for their own neglectance of the contract conditions.
- Qahlel 6y ago
  You cannot avoid the TOS. They are all designed to protect the seller not the buyer. On top of that, you -as a single consumer- has no choice to select parts of the TOS. It's a unilateral-contract by definition.
  - f1refly 6y ago
    You, as a comsumer, always have the right to not accept the ToS and take your money elsewhere. Amazon fortunately doesn't have a monopoly on the ebook market.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      What store sells ebooks legally and doesn't have similar ToS?
      - f1refly 6y ago
        I usually go to the publishers or, if self published, authors website directly and buy from there. Books are distributed as epub that I can load on my ereader calibre alike.
        sbarre 6y ago
        You keep saying this, but you leave out the fact that not that many publishers sell direct, and most popular books are not available in this manner. So yes this works _sometimes_, but not most of the time. For the majority of users who are looking for a very specific book, not just _any_ new book to read, buying it digitally means buying it from a DRM-laden marketplace.
        falcolas 6y ago
        Amazon is also a publisher. Many books I’ve read have been self-published by authors via Amazon’s system.
      - wccrawford 6y ago
        Any of them that sell DRM-free ebooks would work. Of course, they have a much smaller selection than Amazon and you likely won't find the book you want. So it's not really a proper alternative. You either accept their TOS or you don't get to read the book you want digitally.
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      There is nowhere you can take your money that doesn't force you to accept the same abusive terms of service. They all pay lawyers to write this stuff and they all come up with the same self-serving clauses. Once you've read one of these documents, you've pretty much read them all. What they say is basically: > you have no rights > you promise not to try and exercise any right you think you have > you will not do anything the company doesn't like > the company can do anything whether you like it or not > the company is not responsible for anything ever > we make no guarantees about anything
  - syshum 6y ago
    At one point in time, One-Way non-negotiable contracts where unenforceable and considered coercive. I wonder when / why that changed when we added "on the internet" an called it is "Terms of Service"
    - falcolas 6y ago
      Why is easy - because corporations love them. As for the “how”, that’s also pretty simple. Enough money applied to lawyers who argue for the corporation’s side in contract disputes, enough to set precedent.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  All this shouldn't suprise any of them, it's in the ToS after all. This is an extremely weak argument, IMHO. For a start, it's clearly impractical for the average person to even read all of the legal documents they theoretically agree to. It would take an absurd amount of time and have a devastating effect on our quality of life and the productivity of our society. Even that assumes the reader would be qualified to understand the legal implications of a long, often complicated document, possibly written according to the laws of another country, in the first place. This again seems extremely optimistic, given that professional lawyers spend years studying their own legal systems and are then often very well paid for sharing the expertise they have acquired. So the idea that burying something unfair or unreasonable in a ToS document that realistically almost no-one is going to read and properly understand is really just a conceit of the legal profession (and possibly not even that, since even lawyers understand the fiction that is happening here). The essence of any legal contract is an agreement, understood and entered into voluntarily by all parties involved, that exchanges things of value to the parties. Different legal systems might use slightly different words to say that, but they mean much the same thing. Hiding shady stuff in the small print of an agreement written by one side's professional lawyers and probably never even read never mind understood by the other side is far from sufficient to meet that standard for a legal contract. This is why good businesses and their lawyers go out of their way to present the key details of any agreement clearly and up-front, not to hide them on page 91. It's also why courts hearing consumer rights cases sometimes side with the consumer even if something else was stated in a ToS or similar document.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
If people don't know I guess I agree, though with the question of: should they have known? If people do know but choose not to consider what may happen, they had that education you mention but disregarded it. I can't feel too sorry for them. > I don't think victim-blaming is a great way to educate people What would be a better way, specifically?
- Moru 6y ago
  If you try to point out all this to someone, the usual response is that they don't care, it doesn't happen to them. I have been trying this since Steams first versions and more or less gave up by now. People value convenience above all else.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Oh yes. I've had those conversations myself.
  - sbarre 6y ago
    That, or "people" make their own educated decisions about the trade-offs they are accepting, and those may be different - yet equally valid - from your own decisions.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      True. How often that careful measuring occurs would be interesting to know. Except for some people on here on HN I can't think of any personal acquaintances who do it that way.
raxxorrax 6y ago
The fool me once discussion is always relevant. What is new is the fact that consumer stupidity takes everyone down as well. Without that we wouldn't suffer through this cloud hell.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Lots of people aren't victims, they choose to remain ignorant after being warned. Often they don't take the warnings seriously and even insult the person who was just trying to help. They absolutely deserve to be blamed for the results of their choices.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Lots of people aren't victims, they choose to remain ignorant after being warned. What makes you think that? It seems highly unlikely to me that the average customer of an ebook reader or a streaming TV/movie service or one of the gaming networks has any idea about how the DRM works or how intrusively the provider of their electronic content can later monitor their use of it and change or revoke their access to it. Who do you think is going around and warning all these people, in such a way that they can reasonably understand the implications of what is being said, about the risks that come with these kinds of technologies? Now, if you were arguing that governments should be regulating these industries, mandating information for customers about the risks and prohibiting abusive behaviours by content providers, then I'd be the first to agree with you. I think such measures are long overdue. But that's not the same thing as what you wrote before.
  - unix_fan 6y ago
    Yeah, but all those things only happen to the other guy. It can’t happen to me. It’s like trying to explain to people why they should care about privacy on the Internet. They can’t see themselves in that position, ever.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > What makes you think that? I used to tell people and most of them ignored what I said. > It seems highly unlikely to me that the average customer of an ebook reader or a streaming TV/movie service or one of the gaming networks has any idea about how the DRM works They don't have to understand technical details. They just have to understand one fact: they don't actually own what they're spending their money on. I told them, they understood and they didn't care. > Who do you think is going around and warning all these people, in such a way that they can reasonably understand the implications of what is being said, about the risks that come with these kinds of technologies? Me. I used to tell everyone I know. It was useless. > Now, if you were arguing that governments should be regulating these industries, mandating information for customers about the risks and prohibiting abusive behaviours by content providers, then I'd be the first to agree with you. Don't get me wrong. I generally agree with this. Actually I have a radical opinion: copyright should be abolished and it should be illegal to implement DRM in any form. This doesn't change the fact that these people cannot be helped. They want their pleasure and if you're pointing out issues you're just getting in their way. They absolutely deserve to be blamed if their accounts get banned and they lose everything.

by Lammy 6y ago

f1refly 6y ago

On the other hand, I dont think victim-blaming is an excuse for rampant and continuous ignorance either. At some point, after getting abused again and again, users are to blame. All this shouldn't suprise any of them, it's in the ToS after all. Some users read the ToS and made an educated choice, some didn't read them and decided to not participate in any business with a company that obfuscates its goals in a 50-page wall of legal damage control, and some just ignore it and use the service. The ones that ignore the ToS and that get caught by suprise later are absolutely to blame for their own neglectance of the contract conditions.

Qahlel 6y ago
You cannot avoid the TOS. They are all designed to protect the seller not the buyer. On top of that, you -as a single consumer- has no choice to select parts of the TOS. It's a unilateral-contract by definition.
- f1refly 6y ago
  You, as a comsumer, always have the right to not accept the ToS and take your money elsewhere. Amazon fortunately doesn't have a monopoly on the ebook market.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    What store sells ebooks legally and doesn't have similar ToS?
    - f1refly 6y ago
      I usually go to the publishers or, if self published, authors website directly and buy from there. Books are distributed as epub that I can load on my ereader calibre alike.
      - sbarre 6y ago
        You keep saying this, but you leave out the fact that not that many publishers sell direct, and most popular books are not available in this manner. So yes this works _sometimes_, but not most of the time. For the majority of users who are looking for a very specific book, not just _any_ new book to read, buying it digitally means buying it from a DRM-laden marketplace.
      - falcolas 6y ago
        Amazon is also a publisher. Many books I’ve read have been self-published by authors via Amazon’s system.
    - wccrawford 6y ago
      Any of them that sell DRM-free ebooks would work. Of course, they have a much smaller selection than Amazon and you likely won't find the book you want. So it's not really a proper alternative. You either accept their TOS or you don't get to read the book you want digitally.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    There is nowhere you can take your money that doesn't force you to accept the same abusive terms of service. They all pay lawyers to write this stuff and they all come up with the same self-serving clauses. Once you've read one of these documents, you've pretty much read them all. What they say is basically: > you have no rights > you promise not to try and exercise any right you think you have > you will not do anything the company doesn't like > the company can do anything whether you like it or not > the company is not responsible for anything ever > we make no guarantees about anything
- syshum 6y ago
  At one point in time, One-Way non-negotiable contracts where unenforceable and considered coercive. I wonder when / why that changed when we added "on the internet" an called it is "Terms of Service"
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Why is easy - because corporations love them. As for the “how”, that’s also pretty simple. Enough money applied to lawyers who argue for the corporation’s side in contract disputes, enough to set precedent.
Silhouette 6y ago
All this shouldn't suprise any of them, it's in the ToS after all. This is an extremely weak argument, IMHO. For a start, it's clearly impractical for the average person to even read all of the legal documents they theoretically agree to. It would take an absurd amount of time and have a devastating effect on our quality of life and the productivity of our society. Even that assumes the reader would be qualified to understand the legal implications of a long, often complicated document, possibly written according to the laws of another country, in the first place. This again seems extremely optimistic, given that professional lawyers spend years studying their own legal systems and are then often very well paid for sharing the expertise they have acquired. So the idea that burying something unfair or unreasonable in a ToS document that realistically almost no-one is going to read and properly understand is really just a conceit of the legal profession (and possibly not even that, since even lawyers understand the fiction that is happening here). The essence of any legal contract is an agreement, understood and entered into voluntarily by all parties involved, that exchanges things of value to the parties. Different legal systems might use slightly different words to say that, but they mean much the same thing. Hiding shady stuff in the small print of an agreement written by one side's professional lawyers and probably never even read never mind understood by the other side is far from sufficient to meet that standard for a legal contract. This is why good businesses and their lawyers go out of their way to present the key details of any agreement clearly and up-front, not to hide them on page 91. It's also why courts hearing consumer rights cases sometimes side with the consumer even if something else was stated in a ToS or similar document.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

If people don't know I guess I agree, though with the question of: should they have known? If people do know but choose not to consider what may happen, they had that education you mention but disregarded it. I can't feel too sorry for them. > I don't think victim-blaming is a great way to educate people What would be a better way, specifically?

Moru 6y ago
If you try to point out all this to someone, the usual response is that they don't care, it doesn't happen to them. I have been trying this since Steams first versions and more or less gave up by now. People value convenience above all else.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Oh yes. I've had those conversations myself.
- sbarre 6y ago
  That, or "people" make their own educated decisions about the trade-offs they are accepting, and those may be different - yet equally valid - from your own decisions.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    True. How often that careful measuring occurs would be interesting to know. Except for some people on here on HN I can't think of any personal acquaintances who do it that way.

raxxorrax 6y ago

The fool me once discussion is always relevant. What is new is the fact that consumer stupidity takes everyone down as well. Without that we wouldn't suffer through this cloud hell.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

Lots of people aren't victims, they choose to remain ignorant after being warned. Often they don't take the warnings seriously and even insult the person who was just trying to help. They absolutely deserve to be blamed for the results of their choices.

Silhouette 6y ago
Lots of people aren't victims, they choose to remain ignorant after being warned. What makes you think that? It seems highly unlikely to me that the average customer of an ebook reader or a streaming TV/movie service or one of the gaming networks has any idea about how the DRM works or how intrusively the provider of their electronic content can later monitor their use of it and change or revoke their access to it. Who do you think is going around and warning all these people, in such a way that they can reasonably understand the implications of what is being said, about the risks that come with these kinds of technologies? Now, if you were arguing that governments should be regulating these industries, mandating information for customers about the risks and prohibiting abusive behaviours by content providers, then I'd be the first to agree with you. I think such measures are long overdue. But that's not the same thing as what you wrote before.
- unix_fan 6y ago
  Yeah, but all those things only happen to the other guy. It can’t happen to me. It’s like trying to explain to people why they should care about privacy on the Internet. They can’t see themselves in that position, ever.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > What makes you think that? I used to tell people and most of them ignored what I said. > It seems highly unlikely to me that the average customer of an ebook reader or a streaming TV/movie service or one of the gaming networks has any idea about how the DRM works They don't have to understand technical details. They just have to understand one fact: they don't actually own what they're spending their money on. I told them, they understood and they didn't care. > Who do you think is going around and warning all these people, in such a way that they can reasonably understand the implications of what is being said, about the risks that come with these kinds of technologies? Me. I used to tell everyone I know. It was useless. > Now, if you were arguing that governments should be regulating these industries, mandating information for customers about the risks and prohibiting abusive behaviours by content providers, then I'd be the first to agree with you. Don't get me wrong. I generally agree with this. Actually I have a radical opinion: copyright should be abolished and it should be illegal to implement DRM in any form. This doesn't change the fact that these people cannot be helped. They want their pleasure and if you're pointing out issues you're just getting in their way. They absolutely deserve to be blamed if their accounts get banned and they lose everything.