Then a company can decide if they're in the business of licencing or selling, and make their decisions accordingly. it could also help establish a line between ownership of the device vs of the license.
Unfortunately the first part of the copyright bargain is implicit, not part of the law. With DRM, rightsholders get to have their cake -- our cake -- and eat it too. Not only is the protection granted by copyright now effectively perpetual, but they've purchased additional legislation such as the DMCA and endless copyright term extensions that punish people who are trying to claim their half of the bargain.
IMHO copyright should not apply to anything with DRM. Rightsholders should be forced to decide whether they want a temporary legal monopoly with no technical protection, or a permanent technical monopoly with no legal protection.
> These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print—and the responsibility to censor—literary works.
> Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act 1662. [Your quote about the Stationers' Company]. The censorship administered under the Licensing Act led to public protest; as the act had to be renewed at two-year intervals, authors and others sought to prevent its reauthorisation. In 1694, Parliament refused to renew the Licensing Act, ending the Stationers' monopoly and press restrictions. Over the next 10 years the Stationers repeatedly advocated bills to re-authorize the old licensing system, but Parliament declined to enact them. Faced with this failure, the Stationers decided to emphasise the benefits of licensing to authors rather than publishers, and the Stationers succeeded in getting Parliament to consider a new bill.
Which means that your quote is quite out-of-context. The Stationers' Company lost their monopoly over printing rights due to public outcry, and they failed to get a new law passed until they made a change to it that emphasised the protection of authors. That law was called the Statute of Anne.
Even earlier on, copyright "law" was used as a tool of censorship by the Queen of England (who was Mary at the time). Effectively, a publisher would ask the monarch for the exclusive right to publish a particular book, and a guild of printers (the Stationers' Company) was formed later that then enforced their own version of Copyright under these monopolies they were given.
The Statute of Anne was the first time copyright was actually a public law, that anyone could enforce -- and it was the first time that something you could call a "copyright system" was intended to protect _authors_.
DRM? Then you have to provide clients, including bugfixes and security upgrades for all paying customers on all platforms.
No DRM: Oh, you just sold a file? The customer can then run it in whatever SW they want.
An example: If I’m Apple and I’m supply constrained on fancy new FaceID sensors I’m not going to want to loose an iPhoneX sale because I have to make a sensor available to a repair depot (internal or external). And the customer that was supposed to get that sensor is not going to like waiting even longer for their phone.
The bare minimum would be to require an infinite warranty. So free, and with compensation to the customer for the repair time.
Don't want to deal with that? Get rid of the damn locks already.
I think we would both agree that iPhone 7 is DRM laden. However iFixit, who is quoted in the parent article and gives iPhone a repairability score of 7 of 10, seems to think there are some things which are repairable at the component level on an iPhone 7 even to a layman at home. https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_7
How does one interpret this? No glue allowed at all in any product or subassembly? Do you seriously believe any iPhone engineer would say a connector or screw was there "for the hell of it"? You claim a software check prevents a device from working. I'm sure their software engineer would claim the check ensures it works as advertised (or safely or whatever) because they don't know what you just did to it.
Your reply very clearly shows you have not thought through the consequences of your request.
See this item: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14175771
If they feel like including DRM in this hypothetical law situation, require the warranty be twice as long as otherwise.
Them: "You dropped it in water didn't you?"
Me: "No, I didn't"
Them: "Yes, you did"
Me: "Nope"
Them: "Yep"
Me: "Nope" .......
"....but I shouldn't have to pay these exorbitant fees - I didnt drop it in water...."
"Yes you did"
Owners of $1000 phones don't go near water or need cases. They never make mistakes.
</sarcasm>
For one, still not all $1000 phones are waterproof, and second, this can apply to all kind of other devices, like laptops, who can't be or is very difficult to make waterproof without major compromises (e.g. heat dissipation).
Put the phone in a rice bag for 2 days, charged and it's working fine :)
If? In what world they don't, and compared to which alternative?
Conformal coating introduces problems too and, moreover, makes repair intractable.
I don't know if conformal coating even works properly with the very fine pitch BGA's that cover much of the surface area of the PCB in an iPhone.
How about at a rate of $parts + $labor? If the device was defective and broke then it would still be the manufacturer's responsibility to fix it. But if it breaks due to wear and tear, accidental damage, or intentional damage then the user should reasonably foot but bill (either out of pocket or with insurance).
That should absolutely include wear and tear as well as accidental damage. Intentional damage is an issue, but there shouldn't be much motivation for it under such a system.
As for intentional damage, I think that should not be handled based on costs at all, but simply based on depreciation. Based on normal durability of the device, if you damage the device, you have to pay the remaining value in order to get a new device.
I think I'm not understanding your proposal here.
It seems that under such a scheme I could take a $1000 phone that is reasonably expected to last 3 years, intentionally destroy it on day 1, and pay less than a dollar [1/(3*365)] to get a new device. How would manufacturers not be bled dry under such a system?
Breakage on day 1 would mean replacement at $999...