[Nevermark]

Revocation should come with full refunds.

That would:

1. Balance the revocation economically, for both parties, while leaving the decision to the "seller".

2. The trade becomes the time-value of money vs. the time value of access. Inherently fair. The seller nets interest, and the inflation drop on the original price. What an accountant would come up with, yet automatic.

3. Provide users the remunerative recourse for "resuming" their "perpetual" license with another provider.

4. Motivate the avoidance of revocations, as who wants to have anti-sales.

Maybe there are good reasons for revocations. Fine, but purchasers should not "Get" randomly screwed, while the seller who had control of their sourcing arrangements loses nothing.

"Get" instead of "Buy" does not address the problem. If "Get" requires the user to gamble, it should be "Gamble". "Get for five years" or "Get for 5 viewings" would be ok. But "Get" without a clear definition is inherently misleading. Another dark pattern.

(Also: By law, contracts must be something given for something taken. A one-sided uncompensated nullification-at-will option is a sneaky way around that. Companies that nullify without compensation, or less than full price where the licensing agreement made no refund amount declaration, should be required to return customer money with interest to reflect the bad faith contract. IANAL, just a believer in justice, especially where simple accounting provides answers.)

[Reason077]

> ”Revocation should come with full refunds.”

Of course it should. If Sony are not doing that then it sounds like grounds for a class action?

I remember when Google shut down Stadia. To their credit, they automatically refunded everything I’d ever purchased on the platform. Nice little windfall.

[apparent]

The lawsuit would have to prove that Sony didn't abide by it's T&Cs, which it seems like they may well have. The issue then is whether it's OK to have T&Cs that seemingly conflict with the "buy" characterization that customers are presented with.

[Reason077]

Just because something is written in T&Cs doesn’t make it okay. Consumer laws have precedence over T&Cs.

[apparent]

Consumer protection laws can prevail over terms and conditions, it's true. Are there any consumer protection laws that disallow terms and conditions like the ones Sony used?

[cogman10]

I believe the FTC could probably do something about it if they cared.

This seems to be something that the "Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices" charter of the FTC could address.

The three prongs of when it applies are

- Causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers

- Cannot be reasonably avoided by consumers

- Is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition

It seems like stealing movies users purchased thinking they owned them checks all 3 boxes.

[apparent]

Generally agree, if Sony is deleting things from user-owned devices. If they're simply not making them available for later download, it's trickier. The case against Sony would be stronger if customers could not move downloaded content from their current devices.

[jjav]

They should I agree, but consumer protection has been decimated in the US. Also the CFPB has effectively been dismantled. All is fair game as long as the oligarchs get a few more millions they don't need.

[reilly3000]

I strongly feel that if I click on a button that says “Buy” I am making a permanent purchase. The verb should be called “License” or “Lease” to reflect the nature of the transaction or it is inherently deceptive and should be illegal.

[worthless-trash]

Pretty sure the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is going to have a field day with this.

[scoofy]

It's very obviously false advertising. You can't say "free flight to europe" and then in the fine print say "no free flight to europe." It's just blatant false advertising to have a "rent" next to a "buy" button you click to acquire what is effectively a long term rental.

[soraminazuki]

Those T&Cs contain clauses that allow companies to 1. arbitrarily change its terms whenever they want and 2. forbid consumers from suing them. They make a complete mockery of justice, and they might as well just write "haha, screw you" to save all of us time.

[preg_match]

I believe generally contract law is not as hard-and-fast as people think. You can truly put anything in a contract. But... that doesn't necessarily mean it's God's word. Even if everyone read it and signed it. I can't take your first born even if you willingly agree. Well, I can in some instances - a company can't buy your first born I should say.

Also many contracts are just uncontested. Everyone is just hoping they work, but nobody is testing it out.

[vitally3643]

Incorrect. A lawsuit would have to prove Sony didn't abide by law, or that their actions are harmful or egregious enough to justify a new law.

T&C are not laws, and aren't even legally binding in most situations. They exist purely as an ass-covering maneuver and self-justification for customer abuse.

[semiquaver]

Terms and Conditions are contracts and have repeatedly been affirmed as such by the courts.

True, illegal contract provisions are not enforceable but there’s not actually an allegation that anything illegal has taken place.

It sounds like you are describing the world as you with it existed rather than as it actually does.

[StilesCrisis]

They even refunded the controller and Chromecast Ultra, which still work to this day (just not to play Stadia).

[rlpb]

> Revocation should come with full refunds.

That's not enough. If I purchase something, I expect to rely on being able to keep it. Its value to me could well be much higher than just the purchase price.

Revocation should come with consequential damages together with the cost of recovering them.

[protimewaster]

I agree. I honestly think it's strange that it's often viewed as "good enough" to get a refund.

If I paid $5 for a movie, I did that because I want the movie more than the $5. If I didn't, I would've kept the $5. You giving me $5 and taking the movie away is just replacing the thing I value more with the thing I value less.

The other issue is that, if I paid $5 for a movie 10 years ago, that's now more than $5 due to inflation. If you give me $5 back, you're short.

[vitally3643]

It should be refunded with interest.

[dev_l1x_be]

Also they would need to adjust the refund it with inflation.

[thfuran]

Plus interest

[chickenpotpie]

Plus interest makes no sense and is unnessary. Adjusting for inflation is so the person can buy the same movie at today's prices. At that point, the person is made more than whole already because they got to see the movie for free and they can chose to get it again.

[CTDOCodebases]

When people say inflation they normally mean CPI which is a poor indicator for inflation and considering it so ignores the time value of money.

Sellers should be forced to label DRM rentals with specific time frames and penalties for violating these time periods.

The way it is done currently assumes the buyer wouldn't have bought something else that would have gained value if they knew the full terms of the sale. Instead they "purchased" an indefinite rental. Imagine if these selling practices where adopted all across the economy. It would be a mess but somehow we tolerate it because the product is digital.

[nicce]

If they are able to prove it somehow transparently that movie was watched at least once, reduce the amount of renting it based on the time when it was bought. Is that fair? Return the rest with inflation adjustments.

[Nevermark]

When you buy an option, you don't deserve a refund for not exercising the option.

On the other side, a user that watched a movie 1000 times should not get less compensation.

All users are being impacted exactly the same way (loss of future access), so should be compensated the same way.

[hdgvhicv]

No it’s not fair.

They've stolen the property. It’s not “fair” if you replace it, let alone only replace it with a lesser than value as “it was second hand”.

[Nevermark]

The interest and inflation are the time value of money, which you pay, for the time value of access.

Original-price refund is both simple, and (by linking the time-value of money for both parties) fair.

[tripzilch]

And a hand written apology note

[maerF0x0]

A consumer friendly policy could be:

1. Proration for a "lifetime" access (87 years) denied. In many cases probably close to 90% refunded.

2. irrespective, a Full refund for those who had never viewed the purchase.

3. A refund equal to the purchase price on the streaming platform newly acquired. Or a lifetime access (87 years) of the monthly billed streaming platform.

[Skunkleton]

Or get this - you get a drm free copy and they let you redownload/stream it for and undefined (hopefully long) period of time. After that you can play your copy or use a copy from elsewhere.

[danlitt]

This presumes that it is reasonable for a seller to remove the capacity in principle to buy the digital good. They might refuse ever to sell a copy again, and only permit renting it. Since copyright grants a long monopoly this opens up scope for crazy market distortion - you could, for instance, delete the Beatles discography from the entire world until the price doubles. This tends not to happen, but there is nothing preventing it, and it seems inherently wrong.

[crest]

Revocation should include inflation compensation to make it always a loss for the revoking party. That they won’t have an incentive to cheat by „selling“ movies without having a perpetual license to sell to the buyer.

[raxxorraxor]

In my opinion an ethical and moral permission for piracy regardless of law and small prints. Although in case of the latter, these are not valid in many countries with basic consumer protection anyway (doesn't make piracy a lawful response, but still). And I think in these cases it would be worthwhile to remind Sony about necessary compensation.

Their licensing issues aren't the problem of the buyer.

[jjav]

> Revocation should come with full refunds.

If I buy, say, a shovel and the hardware store sends someone to break into my house and steal the shovel back, hopefully they'd get arrested for the crime.

We should not be treating digital purchases any different. If I bought it, I bought it. It's mine forever.

But the oligarchs will never let that happen. So, in practice, always buy either the physical media or at least a DRM-free digital copy in an open format that you can save in your hard drive and play forever just like you can with a physical copy.

If neither of those are available I'd recommend just not buying. Or rent it for a one-off viewing with the full understanding that it is a one-off rental, priced accordingly.

[mindslight]

Or just pirate. There is no need to buy into the corpos' model, especially for this topic. Do you know what doesn't just spontaneously disappear? An .mp4 sitting on zfs.

The only reason these parasites survive is that there is very little advertising money behind user-empowering software, so setting something up for yourself looks daunting. Meanwhile the proprietary solutions market themselves as being straightforward, easy, and ultimately trustable. But as this action and countless similar ones demonstrate, this is far from the truth.