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They'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
by vman81 2mo ago
They'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 2mo agoCopying something isn't stealing by any legal definition. It's copyright infringement.
- eloisius 2mo agoI’m just collecting training data for my AI.
- ivan_gammel 2mo agoauthentic intelligence?
- reactordev 2mo agoautomated intercept... or acquisition interface. /s
- RajT88 2mo agoYou wouldn't steal a baby
- comrade1234 2mo agoI might download one.
- yladiz 2mo agoSpeak for yourself.
- BigTTYGothGF 2mo agoI wouldn't buy one either (it's been illegal in my country for ~150 years).
- dantillberg 2mo agoIt will be quite the novel legal case the first time someone makes an unauthorized copy of a baby.
- bee_rider 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoThat's a derivative work of two parties’ IP.
- IncreasePosts 2mo ago"you wouldn't copyright infringe a car" doesn't have the same ring to it
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- pdpi 2mo 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.
- pennomi 2mo agoIt’s not about transfer, it’s about being practically irrevocable.
- pdpi 2mo agoI wasn't clear: My point is that limitations on transfer serve are proof that we've always been using licences. Yes, physical media being de facto irrevocable is the important part, but even that has caveats (such as Bluray AACS revocations).
- redsocksfan45 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- dathinab 2mo 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.
- iwontberude 2mo agoPiracy isn’t stealing because copies don’t destroy the original
- kazinator 2mo agoThe proliferation of copies economically devalues the originals.
- sophrosyne42 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoSure, and I say we should exclude a system of rights and privileges which involves intellectualnproperty
- Silhouette 2mo 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 2mo ago"Stealing" in basically all common law jurisdictions requires intent to deprive the rightful owner of the property.
- dathinab 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoIt could be either way. Companies love putting legally invalid terms into license agreements.
- mrguyorama 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoPiracy has never been stealing. If you get into trouble with the legal system for piracy, it's for copyright infringement, not larceny.
- lukan 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoAnd "pirate camps".