8 ms·
IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button? If not, should we change the law?
by goldenarm 3mo ago
IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button?
If not, should we change the law?
- inanutshellus 3mo ago"we're training the public that they're 'buying' a revokable license, not the song" ~MPAA ;)
- vman81 3mo agoThey'll argue you're "buying" a license that they can revoke when they feel like it. My feelings on the matter have been summed up by someone else more clever than me as: If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.
- Garvi 3mo agoCopying something isn't stealing by any legal definition. It's copyright infringement.
- eloisius 3mo agoI’m just collecting training data for my AI.
- ivan_gammel 3mo agoauthentic intelligence?
- reactordev 3mo agoautomated intercept... or acquisition interface. /s
- RajT88 3mo agoYou wouldn't steal a baby
- comrade1234 3mo agoI might download one.
- yladiz 3mo agoSpeak for yourself.
- BigTTYGothGF 3mo agoI wouldn't buy one either (it's been illegal in my country for ~150 years).
- dantillberg 3mo agoIt will be quite the novel legal case the first time someone makes an unauthorized copy of a baby.
- bee_rider 3mo agoMake an unauthorized copy of a baby that grew up to be famous, so you can use their likeness and get a bonus case.
- RajT88 3mo agoWho knows? In 100 years, we may be cloning famous people and forcing the clones to make movies and TV on the cheap. Full House: Angelina Jolie reboot (Starring Angelina Jolie baby clones)
- kps 3mo agoThat's a derivative work of two parties’ IP.
- IncreasePosts 3mo ago"you wouldn't copyright infringe a car" doesn't have the same ring to it
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- pdpi 3mo agoThe problem is that we've always been buying licences, it's just that the licence used to be attached to a physical object, so transferring the licence was as easy as transferring ownership of that physical object. It's never been legal to copy a book, film, or music album and sell the copies, for example, because the licence doesn't allow it. Hence freeware, shareware, and copyleft licences.
- redsocksfan45 3mo ago[dead]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dathinab 3mo agoyes, but it was (is?) in many places legal to copy Filmes and Musik albums as backup, and iff the original is lost you can very much sell the backup alongside with the license you did buy (kinda, it gets messy practically). It only mattered that if you sell it you lose it, i.e. you can't buy 1 sell (or gift) 10. Similarly in analog times this where not unilaterally cancelled licenses. Which are effectively nothing more then time limited licenses where you just don't know how long. (1: un In law areas outside of copyright this kind of license cancellation terms are often seen as predatory, fraudulent and abusive practices. And _sometimes outright illegal no matter how well you communicated what the license/contract does_ before it was acquired (in some countries). (1: unilateral cancellable without a brach of license/contract from you side and some other special edge cases to be more precise) Which is the crux of the problem, not that it isn't attached to physical media, but that it can be cancelled in a mostly despotic manner and you (often) can't make (relevant) backups or similar to protect the availability of the medium either.
- pdpi 3mo agoDon't get me wrong: this system where Sony (or whomever else) just deletes stuff from your account with no recourse is absolutely batshit insane. What I'm getting at is that people are getting the shape of the problem wrong (it was never ownership vs licensing), so the solution has to be different too. E.g. Bluray AACS revocation provides the technical means through which licences for physical media can be revoked just like purely downloadable stuff can.
- iwontberude 3mo agoPiracy isn’t stealing because copies don’t destroy the original
- kazinator 3mo agoThe proliferation of copies economically devalues the originals.
- sophrosyne42 3mo agoNobody has a right to have an economic value for what they sell. That is a special privilege, not a right, and harms everyone for the enrichment of the privileged
- kazinator 3mo agoNobody has any right/privilege at all, except what a system of rights/privileges spells out. Behind a system of rights there is always a philosophy, which either postulates rights, or certain primary rights, as being somehow inherent or "inalienable", or else somehow justifies the establishment of rights without circular reasoning ("we need these rights so we can have nice things").
- sophrosyne42 3mo agoSure, and I say we should exclude a system of rights and privileges which involves intellectualnproperty
- Silhouette 3mo agoNobody has a right to have an economic value for what they sell. This is true. (It's true in every other industry as well.) But the opposite side of that coin is that if you want people to spend the considerable amounts of time and money required to create new works that are actually any good then you need to have some viable model for compensating them that makes it worthwhile for them to do that. Whatever else you can say for it - copyright has been far more effective than any other model ever tried at the scale of human society in achieving that.
- 15155 3mo ago"Stealing" in basically all common law jurisdictions requires intent to deprive the rightful owner of the property.
- dathinab 3mo agoyes digital piracy was never stealing, but a mixture of contractual breach, copyright infringement and (illegally) causing financial damages through (illegally) causing lost sales. Hence why you don't get tried for theft when you commit digital piracy. Which, as absurd as it might sound, sometimes (/in some cases) would be better to be tried for due to very unbalanced laws. But also it should be pretty obvious that this isn't what people mean when they say "if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing" and a intentionally misinterpretation of statements based by nitpicking formulations is neither contributing anything meaningful nor is it appreciated (in most situations).
- kazinator 3mo agoSelling someone a license, and then revoking it is like destruction of property. The injured party is owed a refund in the amount of the present day replacement cost. It's the same as if someone sold you a toaster with a remote self-destruct feature, and then invoked the self-destruct. They owe you a new toaster.
- RiverCrochet 3mo agoIANAL but I bet that: - If the license terms include a section on termination, and termination is done in accordance with the license terms, it's fine legally. - Licenses can be transferable but that doesn't make them non-terminable. I could be wrong, though. It's pretty crappy that we got to the point that overly simple actions (like clicking on buttons or breaking stickers on packages) can be considered accepting license terms. Is that really a "meeting of the minds"?
- inigyou 3mo agoIt could be either way. Companies love putting legally invalid terms into license agreements.
- mrguyorama 3mo agoThey have no incentive not to, because we have purposely built our contract law to encourage you to purposely put completely illegal and unenforceable terms in your contract, and it doesn't invalidate the contract, rather it only invalidates the things you already couldn't do!
- kazinator 3mo agoSure; if the fine print sticker on the bottom of the toaster says that the toaster may be remotely deactivated at any time, without a refund being issued, then it's fine. After all, you agreed to the sticker by breaking the tape seal on the box.
- dathinab 3mo agoThey will argue that, but this is unlikely to hold up in front of court even in the US. The problem isn't it being illegal. But they instead bank on most people not having the means (money/time) or will to sue them over this. Especially given that the actual "damages" you can effectively sue for often relatively small for most users (likely <15€ per movie, so for most account <100€ per person "per situation where you could sue"). And if there is an exception (someones losing hundreds of movies or class action law suite) settling is likely still cheaper for Sony. This is the problem with many laws the cost of breaching them is often too small (but only IFF you are a huge company with their own lawyer department etc.). If management would be personally liable with _mandatory prison sentences_ for the CEO/Company Owners if it seems the law was knowingly breached because penalties are cheaper then benefits (or repeated offenses etc.) things probably would look quite different. Other approaches to counter this includes things like penalties of base+%of yearly revenue, %yearly Profite etc. The problem here is this approaches are often a mix of unfair (e.g. same revenue with large profit margin is penalized way less) and/or can be fudged/circumvented (e.g. if based on profit, but even if based on revenue it can be partially circumvented in some situations. So I think making executive personally liable might be the only way to fix this.
- RiverCrochet 3mo agoThen the button should say "Buy Revocable License." Inevitably people will ask what that means. That will lead to a FAQ on the company's site somewhere, and various videos on the social media explaining it periodically with lots of comments. That will be a good thing. Corporate marketing teams will eventually settle on something better sounding but technically legal, something like "Premier Anytime Access" for specific movies (versus "Bronze 24-hr Access"), or similar.
- tshaddox 3mo agoPiracy has never been stealing. If you get into trouble with the legal system for piracy, it's for copyright infringement, not larceny.
- lukan 3mo agoBut actual piracy has always been about stealing, so maybe it was not a smart move to label the movement after thieves and murderers, while insisting it is not about theft. Because yes, it is copying. Nothing gets taken away. But when a pirate took a ship and it's gold away, it was gone.
- tshaddox 3mo agoThe analogy being made from piracy to copyright infringement is more about living entirely outside the rule of law and less about the obvious fact that stealing is one of the main things that pirates do. The analogy was first made in reference to unauthorized book publishers, which is pretty close to modern usage (although it used to refer only to the producers of the unauthorized copies, not the consumers). But there's also things like "pirate radio" (unauthorized broadcasts, not necessarily of copyrighted material, and not even necessarily illegal at the source of the broadcast) and "pirate taxis" (simply unlicensed taxi services)
- lukan 3mo agoAnd "pirate camps".
- imglorp 3mo agoI'm hoping someday this will go the same way as other companies trying to redefine "unlimited", "free", or "lifetime". I hope lawyers reclaim "buy", "own", and "purchase" from shitbag marketers back into contract law, where they have English meanings. https://retailwire.com/t-mobile-att-verizon-fined-10-2m-for-unlimited-claims https://retailwire.com/t-mobile-att-verizon-fined-10-2m-for-... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/lawsuit-t-mobile-must-pay-for-breaking-lifetime-price-guarantee https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/lawsuit-t-mobile... At the very least, if Sony yanks your purchase, they should merely refund it in full.
- teeray 3mo agoA $10m fine for mobile telcos is a rounding error. “Softer quarter due to outstanding legal and regulatory obligations…” The fines need to be a standard percentage of income or the personal assets / freedom of officers needs to be on the line if we want those punishments to change behavior.
- account42 3mo agoIt really should be fines plus ALL money gained through the illegal activity. If you steal a car you don't get to pawn the stereo, give back the money gained and then drive off into the sunset.
- Laurel1234 3mo agoJail time (hard jail time, not that country club bullshit) for the entire C-suite and you might see some change.
- Laurel1234 3mo ago> The fines need to be a standard percentage of income or the personal assets / freedom of officers needs to be on the line This is the obvious solution to most problems but of course they're the ones writing the laws so it'd never happen in a trillion years.
- mrweasel 3mo agoApple was sued for having revoking access to hundreds of movies that a customer purchased. They tried to claim that "No reasonable consumer would believe' that purchased content would remain on the iTunes platform indefinitely". Sadly the case was settled, see: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/apple-settles-allegations-it-deceptively-sold-video-content https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/apple-settles-alleg...
- inigyou 3mo agoSo basically "you should have expected to be scammed because everyone knows we are always scamming everyone"
- dd8601fn 3mo agoNot even a defense of Apple here… but I think most everyone does know. We just agree to bury our heads in the sand and not to do anything about it as long as service continues in good faith. It comes up occasionally ever few years, whenever Amazon claws back an ebook or something like this (particularly egregious) thing happens. But then we just go back to normal. Blurays are obscenely customer hostile too, but I decided a long time ago that they’re as close as I’m getting to owning a copy. At least I have way to inoculate myself against this scenario without outright stealing. But now even Blurays are getting harder to buy. Some of the bigger titles I try to buy aren’t being made… or never were (streamer exclusives).
- mrweasel 3mo agoI think many made the same assumption that I made: A movie can be withdrawn from iTunes or an eBook from Amazon, but if you already bought it you'll retain access, it's just that no new sales can be made. Regarding BluRays, and to some extend DVDs, I'm in the same boat. I have season one of a TV show, but season two never made it to DVD and now it's locked away in the vaults of some production company, you can't even stream it. There are so many movies and shows that will just be lost in the future.
- qingcharles 3mo agoCalifornia Assembly Bill 2426 (AB 2426), effective 1 January, 2025. Expands the state's false advertising laws to explicitly ban companies from using words like "buy," "purchase," "own," or "keep" if what the customer is actually getting is a revocable digital license governed by shady T&Cs.
- dataflow 3mo agoIs it working/being enforced? Anecdotally I haven't seen or heard of any changes in verbiage, but I haven't been paying that much attention.
- galleywest200 3mo agoSteam/Valve follow the law: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purchase-license-digital-storefront https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purch...
- inigyou 3mo agoSo they avoided having a "rent" button by using the technically correct "add to cart", "continue to payment" instead of "buy this game", "buy all games in cart", and just have a separate sentence in small grey text that is confusing to most people. Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting.
- cptroot 3mo agoIn my experience it's a pretty clear warning, but I might not be the best person to judge. The thing to remember is "buying" a revocable license is pretty different from "renting" a temporary license, and those words have pretty different connotations.
- inigyou 3mo agoNo, the thing to remember is that "buying a revocable license" is a dishonest way to say "renting for at least one millisecond"
- Razengan 3mo agoUnrelated, but that is such an unfortunate acronym.. There's no way the people who perpetuated it didn't know what they were doing I propose, let's see.. Definitely Isn’t Legal Doctrine, Obviously or.. Based Only On Basic Speculation perhaps Consult Official Counsel, Kindly or more succinct, This Isn’t Trained Solicitor Advice
- xerox13ster 3mo agoRespectfully, and for the pun: all of those are as ass as IANAL. I don’t understand what is wrong with NAL/NLA not a lawyer/not legal advice.
- NopIdoN 3mo agobe utterly mercenary when helpful interlocutors suggest trusting legal expertise
- chillfox 3mo agoPretty sure you could get some action from the ACCC here in Australia if you go through the process to lodge a complaint.
- pnw 3mo agoWhy, do you want Sony to add mandatory Digital ID to their platform?
- chillfox 3mo agoThe fuck has digital ID got to do with anything? The ACCC goes after companies for anti consumer behaviour… Like taking away stuff you have bought, or misleading consumers by calling renting buying.
- pnw 3mo agoThe ACCC is the compliance and enforcement body for Digital ID for all Australians. https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/digital-platforms-and-services/digital-id-regulation https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/digital-platforms-and-se...
- chillfox 3mo agoDidn’t know, but it makes sense to hand them that. And I still don’t see how it has anything to do with what we were talking about.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3mo agoIf Walmart sold you a lawnmower, but you had to leave the lawnmower in their store, would you consider it your property just because they let you start it up and hear it rumble? If you wouldn't do that for Walmart, why would you do it for Sony?
- IAmBroom 3mo agoThat's a truly weird analogy.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3mo agoIt's a truly weird scenario... why would you consider it property when it resides on another person's computer?
- VibrantClarity 3mo agoPeople are buying vehicles at great cost that can be remotely disabled. If the analogy were slightly less tortured, I'm sure the answer would be yes.
- amiga386 3mo agoNot even "Rent". Rentals are priced by the time you rent for. If you want to rent something for 30 years, you can, and you'll keep paying for 30 years. This is a one-time cost and you just don't know when they're going to snatch it back from you. They won't tell you. They won't even give you a notice period. They don't know themselves. They only find out when the licensor they're sublicensing from demands "too much" for ongoing licensing and they just give up and pretend they didn't sell you that and take your money. The button would have to be "Licence, subject to unilateral revocation at any time."
- Fezzik 3mo agoAt the same time, I expect consumers to have a skosh of sense - I would never expect a third party to hold any sort of digital media remotely for me, in perpetuity, just because I gave them a few bucks. I know they should, based on allowing consumers to “buy” movies but, at the same time, I have a good enough understanding of the world to know that’s not likely.
- ibejoeb 3mo agoLaws like that are just going to give rise to new tortured wording. You're buying a revocable license to view the content under certain conditions. It was already in that territory even with physical media; that's what region locking is. Likewise, if bitrot set in and your disc became unplayable, the distributor didn't send you a new one. You never had a perpetual, irrevocable, and otherwise unrestricted license to view that content. I'm not saying that it is not worth trying to fix this, but now that the technology enables content owners to more fully control your access, they're not going to be keen to relax that only to leave that money on the table.
- card_zero 3mo agoWhat? "You never had a license" - no, of course not, that's not what buying is. You had a phonograph record or whatever, and it didn't get replaced when worn out in the same way that the shoe manufacturer doesn't replace your worn out shoes which you have bought. Region locking, what about it? It's interference with ownership too. Things you can buy have to be accurately described as what you actually get, so "buy this" ought to be an accurate description of what the deal actually is, too.
- ibejoeb 3mo agoI get it, but your advertising to it what you want it to be, not what it is.
- zaptheimpaler 3mo agoIt’s good but will ultimately end up like the GPDR popups. Everything will say rent, won’t change the fact that you can’t actually own anything. The law should instead give us real ownership.
- tshaddox 3mo agoThis is always a cute proposal, but what are people expecting to happen? If such a law actually rolled out with strong enforcement, all the buttons would just change from "Buy" to "Rent", which wouldn't meaningfully improve access to and fair usage of media.
- lukan 3mo agoIt would create consciousness about the whole affair and not just in some nerd circles, but in the general population. People know the difference of buying and renting and they will be enraged if found out they have been scammed.