4 ms·

There should be a law preventing any publisher from censoring or revoking access to the people who have already access to some content. (Other than extreme case

There should be a law preventing any publisher from censoring or revoking access to the people who have already access to some content. (Other than extreme cases that put people in physical danger) If you can read it today, you can (should be) read it 50 years from now, the exact same unaltered book. If someone can access a version of the content, they should always be able to. Revoking access to future versions with updates? Fine, that's fair. But revoking access retroactively? Nope. This should be illegal by the law, otherwise licensors will keep doing this out of control.

arp242 4y ago
I think this goes too far. It would mean, for example, that subscribing to Netflix means I will always have access to all films and TV series currently available. That strikes me as unreasonable: it's pretty clear to everyone that the deal is you pay a certain amount of month to be able to temporarily access the films and series they offer at any particular time. It's really a matter of communication; what do you actually get when you pay $X for something? Right now this is too often unclear, hidden in the ToS or some such. If you want to sell access to Roald Dahl's books for only a week then I don't see anything wrong with that: as long as it's communicated clearly up-front, so I know what exactly I'm getting and can make an informed purchase decision. This is kind of how libraries work, right? It's not a problem because the deal is clear to customers up front. So in short, I'd be in favour of laws that mandate clearer communication of the conditions, rather than laws that forces anyone to adopt a particular way of selling stuff or access to stuff.
- Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
  I don't think subscribing to a library service is the same as buying a digital copy of an item. Someone subscribing to Kindle Plus (or whatever) might not expect to have a permanent copy of each book, but someone who pays for a digital copy definitely does.
  - arp242 4y ago
    Sure, but that's because the terms aren't communicated up-front clearly.
    - naasking 4y ago
      The point is, those terms should not be legal.
      - arp242 4y ago
        Why not? As long as it's clear what you're getting up-front. It's then up to you if you decide if you agree with them or not.
        imchillyb 4y ago
        > Why not? @arp242 Because it's harmful to society as a whole. Many things that are overtly harmful to society, we have enacted laws against. This is no different. Licensing vs. Ownership. Licensing is predatory behavior aimed at deceiving, manipulating, and fleecing the populace. It's easily proven with math and economic studies already done and published. Why are you in favor of an overtly predatory policy, @arp242?
        arp242 4y ago
        I don't think it's predatory at all as long as the terms are clear up front. I know I keep repeating myself, but I really think that's the problem here. The predatory part is that consumers think they are paying for A while in fact they are paying for B. This doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong with B though. That you don't like this model is fair and reasonable. But that doesn't mean we should ban it. I certainly don't see how it's "harmful to a society as a whole"; the only truly harmful part I see is the deception (as well as the overly long copyright duration in general, but that's a bit of a different issue and reducing copyright to a more reasonable term won't mean the death of Kindle or these kind of business models). All of this is true for any purchase you make, and why there are clear laws in the EU for example which state that the full price must be shown up-front, with a breakdown of the cost. So this applies to more than just e-books. These laws should be expanded.
- can16358p 4y ago
  My bad. I was refering to "buying" digital copies, not libraries like Netflix. For libraries though, I think a similar law should force any provider to notice X months in advance (like 3 months) before some content will be pulled, and prevent them from pulling any earlier, giving enough time for subscribers to access/watch uncensored/original content.
  - arp242 4y ago
    Basic consumer protection laws such as that sound reasonable to me; perhaps some more might be a good idea as well. You can argue a bit over the details, but in principle I'm all in favour of that. That's a lot less strong than what you suggested in your previous comment though.
  - op00to 4y ago
    Why do you think the government should control what content Netflix shows?
    - can16358p 4y ago
      It's a double edged sword. I don't think it governments should have right to control anything like this but since they do already, at least they can be helpful on the other end of the spectrum.
EamonnMR 4y ago
Eliminating the subscription economy would be neat and all but I don't think it's likely at this point.
kragen 4y ago
laws aren't good enough; we need machines and math to prevent publishers from censoring or revoking access, which need to be running free software, so it is under the control of the user and not software owners who become single points of failure for this kind of censorship of course machines and math aren't enough; sufficiently repressive laws could eliminate such machines, or limit access to them to an infinitesimal group, or prevent people from learning about them. but machines and math can offer enormous leverage to such book-burnings, as amazon swindle does, or instead offer enormous leverage to those who want to resist them
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Isn’t it that most authors want DRM because they are afraid that their works get pirated?
  - kragen 4y ago
    no, most authors clearly don't want drm or they wouldn't upload their work to dreamwidth, an archive of our own, hacker news, the internet archive, youtube, mastodon, facebook, twitter, etc. but even if they did, the interest of this narrow special interest group in not having their works get pirated is clearly less important than the public interest in having reliable access to honest knowledge about the past
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      Your second paragraph. Are you really arguing that the majority of authors don’t want DRM but they can’t stand up as a majority group against Amazon? I don’t buy it.
      - kragen 4y ago
        yes, that's exactly what i'm saying; amazon is organized and authors aren't that seems so obviously correct to me that it boggles my mind that someone could disagree
breck 4y ago
The solution is simple: an amendment abolishing (c)opywrong law: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

arp242 4y ago

I think this goes too far. It would mean, for example, that subscribing to Netflix means I will always have access to all films and TV series currently available. That strikes me as unreasonable: it's pretty clear to everyone that the deal is you pay a certain amount of month to be able to temporarily access the films and series they offer at any particular time. It's really a matter of communication; what do you actually get when you pay $X for something? Right now this is too often unclear, hidden in the ToS or some such. If you want to sell access to Roald Dahl's books for only a week then I don't see anything wrong with that: as long as it's communicated clearly up-front, so I know what exactly I'm getting and can make an informed purchase decision. This is kind of how libraries work, right? It's not a problem because the deal is clear to customers up front. So in short, I'd be in favour of laws that mandate clearer communication of the conditions, rather than laws that forces anyone to adopt a particular way of selling stuff or access to stuff.

Wolfenstein98k 4y ago
I don't think subscribing to a library service is the same as buying a digital copy of an item. Someone subscribing to Kindle Plus (or whatever) might not expect to have a permanent copy of each book, but someone who pays for a digital copy definitely does.
- arp242 4y ago
  Sure, but that's because the terms aren't communicated up-front clearly.
  - naasking 4y ago
    The point is, those terms should not be legal.
    - arp242 4y ago
      Why not? As long as it's clear what you're getting up-front. It's then up to you if you decide if you agree with them or not.
      - imchillyb 4y ago
        > Why not? @arp242 Because it's harmful to society as a whole. Many things that are overtly harmful to society, we have enacted laws against. This is no different. Licensing vs. Ownership. Licensing is predatory behavior aimed at deceiving, manipulating, and fleecing the populace. It's easily proven with math and economic studies already done and published. Why are you in favor of an overtly predatory policy, @arp242?
        arp242 4y ago
        I don't think it's predatory at all as long as the terms are clear up front. I know I keep repeating myself, but I really think that's the problem here. The predatory part is that consumers think they are paying for A while in fact they are paying for B. This doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong with B though. That you don't like this model is fair and reasonable. But that doesn't mean we should ban it. I certainly don't see how it's "harmful to a society as a whole"; the only truly harmful part I see is the deception (as well as the overly long copyright duration in general, but that's a bit of a different issue and reducing copyright to a more reasonable term won't mean the death of Kindle or these kind of business models). All of this is true for any purchase you make, and why there are clear laws in the EU for example which state that the full price must be shown up-front, with a breakdown of the cost. So this applies to more than just e-books. These laws should be expanded.
can16358p 4y ago
My bad. I was refering to "buying" digital copies, not libraries like Netflix. For libraries though, I think a similar law should force any provider to notice X months in advance (like 3 months) before some content will be pulled, and prevent them from pulling any earlier, giving enough time for subscribers to access/watch uncensored/original content.
- arp242 4y ago
  Basic consumer protection laws such as that sound reasonable to me; perhaps some more might be a good idea as well. You can argue a bit over the details, but in principle I'm all in favour of that. That's a lot less strong than what you suggested in your previous comment though.
- op00to 4y ago
  Why do you think the government should control what content Netflix shows?
  - can16358p 4y ago
    It's a double edged sword. I don't think it governments should have right to control anything like this but since they do already, at least they can be helpful on the other end of the spectrum.

EamonnMR 4y ago

Eliminating the subscription economy would be neat and all but I don't think it's likely at this point.

kragen 4y ago

laws aren't good enough; we need machines and math to prevent publishers from censoring or revoking access, which need to be running free software, so it is under the control of the user and not software owners who become single points of failure for this kind of censorship of course machines and math aren't enough; sufficiently repressive laws could eliminate such machines, or limit access to them to an infinitesimal group, or prevent people from learning about them. but machines and math can offer enormous leverage to such book-burnings, as amazon swindle does, or instead offer enormous leverage to those who want to resist them

andsoitis 4y ago
Isn’t it that most authors want DRM because they are afraid that their works get pirated?
- kragen 4y ago
  no, most authors clearly don't want drm or they wouldn't upload their work to dreamwidth, an archive of our own, hacker news, the internet archive, youtube, mastodon, facebook, twitter, etc. but even if they did, the interest of this narrow special interest group in not having their works get pirated is clearly less important than the public interest in having reliable access to honest knowledge about the past
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Your second paragraph. Are you really arguing that the majority of authors don’t want DRM but they can’t stand up as a majority group against Amazon? I don’t buy it.
    - kragen 4y ago
      yes, that's exactly what i'm saying; amazon is organized and authors aren't that seems so obviously correct to me that it boggles my mind that someone could disagree

breck 4y ago

The solution is simple: an amendment abolishing (c)opywrong law: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.html https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]