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Comment by lathiat | Hacker News Reader

It's not clearly stated in the original tweets, but I'm glad this article covered it. The Movie was not "physically" deleted from their library.

They didn't have a downloaded copy of it, and the ability to re-download (or stream) a new copy from iTunes no longer exists.

This is an understandable frustration since the workflows for iCloud, Apple Music, etc are pushing the cloud downloadability to be a first class feature and you would expect your purchases to stay there. That's sadly not always the case.

But I think this is an important distinction

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It's the same with Apple store apps - I've bought Rayman 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 on my iPod touch years ago, and while these games are in my purchase history, there is no way to download them - there is no download button. So I've paid money for something that I can't get anymore. However, if I still had that iPod I'm sure they would still work.

Can you sync the iPod touch with a PC or Mac, then you would at least have a local copy of the actual app binary/executable. Then you may be able to persuade iTunes to sync it to another device.

Seems like the perfect (legal) use case for torrenting.

The DMCA (section 117) allows creation of archival copies from the original media that you legally own.

It does not allow you to obtain a copy from another entity, either by archiving theirs, downloading it from a torrent, or whatever other means. The copyright they had can't be transferred to your copy.

Even if the bits are completely identical between you backing up a copy yourself and you downloading it from the internet, only the former is legal.

Please don't claim something is legal when it is not.

Fuck that. Ill just pirate to begin with then, if I'm going to be a "criminal" either way.

And then Ill save my money for hardware and/or donations to the FSF.

> The DMCA (section 117) allows creation of archival copies from the original media that you legally own. It does not allow you to obtain a copy from another entity, either by archiving theirs, downloading it from a torrent, or whatever other means. The copyright they had can't be transferred to your copy.

Sequences of bits are fungible. If you have a license to possess the work, you have a license to possess the work.

(disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.)

There’s no such thing as a license to possess a work. Your license is to possess a copy of the work and you can back-up that copy. But you have no license to make a fresh copy of the work from elsewhere.

While the bits may be fungible, their origin is not - and that is what matters.

Yes but the DMCA section mentioned explicitly allows you to make copies for archive (or even for resale!), if you own the right to a copy already.

"legal media that you already own" is not mentioned anywhere in that DMCA section.

Classic post on the provenance of files being important for legal reasons: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

Your DMCA (section 117) [1] specifies allowing the creation of copies if you "own" a copy. You own a copy (you have own the rights to a copy), and by torrenting, you are making a digital copy. I don't see any difference between, say, a transfer of bits from CD-ROM to your HDD, and back to another CD-ROM, vs transferring the bits over the internet from some copy on another computer. Nowhere does it say "original media". You seemed to have inserted that verbiage yourself, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

   (a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
   (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
   (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

The next section allows for selling/transferring that copy (if you, for example, burned Microsoft XP onto a CD-R) if you have authorization from the copyright holder (whatever that means). By torrenting, you are not engaging in the act of transferring the license, so it doesn't seem to apply here. Maybe the seeder is violating something, but I can't see the downloader (who already owns the license) running afoul of anything.

   (b)Lease, Sale, or Other Transfer of Additional Copy or Adaptation.—

Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

> The next section allows for selling/transferring that copy

Not quite, it says:

> only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program

Aka you can sell your copy, but only if you also sell your right to use it which means you must give them the original, or the original must not function any longer.

You cannot sell said copies unless you have either the permission of the copyright holder (aka you're the record label) or you're giving away all of your copies, and your ability to create more, and your ability to use the work in any way (which is effectively what means by 'transfer of all rights').

Since the torrent is not by an authorized reseller / copyright holder, they are in fact not transferring a license, which is what makes it illegal.

Furthermore, "owning a license" to the work does not give you permission to download additional copies. It only allows you to create archival copies from your existing copy you have the license to. Since you do not have the license to the source of the piece you're downloading, you cannot download it.

Again, just because the uploader has the same bits you do doesn't mean you have a license to their bits.

Yes but my point is that the seeder may be doing something illegal, but I'm just making a copy, by way of the torrent. I'm authorized to make copies.

To quote what I wrote above:

> Furthermore, "owning a license" to the work does not give you permission to download additional copies. It only allows you to create archival copies from your existing copy you have the license to. Since you do not have the license to the source of the piece you're downloading, you cannot download it.

You can only make a copy by way of the internet if the copy is of your exact physical thing. It's not, even if it's bit-for-bit identical, so you are not authorized to make a copy of that one.

The law there is admittedly vague about making the copy, but it does not say how the copy must be made. I also don’t understand what you mean by “...if the copy is of your exact physical thing. It’s not...”

If it’s bit for bit identical, and a copy is made over the internet, wouldn’t they have to explicitly forbid the act of copying over the internet?

You continue to not understand what I'm trying to convey.

They explicitly allow you to make a copy of the one you have a valid license to. You do not have a valid license to the copy over the internet.

You do have a valid license to the one you purchased.

If you purchase a game, put it in your cd drive at home, and then dd it over ssh to your laptop in a starbucks, that's fine. You made a copy over the internet of the disk you purchased and thus have a license to use.

If you do the exact same thing above with your friend's machine and their copy of the same game, you no longer are copying from a source you have a license to copy.

It is their copy, they can make an archive, but they can't share the archive with anyone else.

The important thing here is that this is about an item you have a license to. You do not have a license to the pattern of bits. You have a license to a single copy of the pattern of bits on a specific medium that you own by some means.

The law is not talking about a sequence of bits. It's talking about a license. That's why it doesn't need to forbid copying the things you're talking about, or talk about "exact physical thing"... It's talking about the license, which is even more specific than the exact physical thing in some ways.

Does that mean that once you make a copy from a source you have the right to copy from, then you cannot make another copy from that copied source? It doesn't seem like the wording of the law is saying that though...

  ...all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

This part seems to imply that your rights to the copy are actually independent from the original copy or physical media. It implies that i can have as many archival copies as long as I have the rights, so I can't see why I can't download a copy as long as I don't cease to be rightful in doing so.

Most likely those apps don't run on current versions of the OS. There's no sense downloading an app to a device where it can't run.

Other than to use that device as a long-term backup, or to use it to transfer files onto another device that can play the files, or to run them in a legal emulator.

Hmm, shouldn't it more be:

There's no sense upgrading an OS without maintaining backwards compatibility?

iOS is only 10 years old...

Backwards compatibility isn't free.

In this case, the root cause is probably the CPUs changing from 32-bit to 64-bit. There are costs of having 2 versions of all of the system libraries - maintenance dev time, RAM usage, battery life, etc.

Yes, I've had to delete my most played IOS game, Wurdle. It doesn't run on IOS 11 and the developer has never updated it. It was a remarkably simple game, finding as many paths on a 5x5 grid of letters that formed words in two minutes.

It was the perfect way to pass the time while standing in line, and with practice some people (like my wife) could get almost supernaturally fast at finding words (I could never beat her). Sadly, there is nothing quite like it on the current App Store.

To be fair, it was an inexpensive game and I got a lot of use out of it.

I bet there is a business in porting remakes of old iTouch games.

You may still have it on your Linux machine under /use/games or similar paths (if you have Linux machine, actually). It's part of the classical Bsdgames collection and it's called 'boggle'. Man page here: https://www.mankier.com/6/boggle

I recently bumped into it by accident!

Edit due to bad auto correction:

/usr/games

(Sorry for the double comment, but I cannot edit my comments via the app I'm using on my mobile)

That sounds an awful lot like the classic game of Boggle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggle

Is this similar to Boggle?

Is it possible to avoid local deletion if you need to reinstall the OS or move to a new computer? (I don't know how this works.)

The video files are DRM encrypted - I don’t know how long iTunes or macOS retains local decryption key caches (especially if it uses Apple’s TPM equivalent) but based on my experiences with the iOS App Store provided you retain the actual video file then Apple will still grant you a decryption key. iOS App Store apps that have been removed from the store can still be installed on a new iPhone if you still have the IPA file. (Unfortunately newer versions of iTunes don’t let you backup and restore IPA files anymore and even “iPhone backups” don’t include apps themselves anymore, only your app’s user data.)

>Unfortunately newer versions of iTunes don’t let you backup and restore IPA files anymore and even “iPhone backups” don’t include apps themselves anymore, only your app’s user data.

This was a real bummer, and feels mostly borne (like many modern big tech company moves recently) not so much out of any sort of monetization strategy or whatever as a basic but irritating bubble: a bunch of tech workers who simply can't comprehend being on a "broadband" connection of the 5/1 ADSL sort (or worse) that much of the world, including America, is still stuck on. It's not a security or DRM issue, the old backup system still signed/encrypted everything and still required calls into the mothership and the like. It's mainly sucked just because it makes it enormously slower to restore a phone for people with poor connections. I wish Apple had seen a chance to differentiate themselves there with more local support (presumably which could be leverage into hardware product sales) since unlike Google they are not dependent on ad/cloud revenue, but perhaps it was inevitable as they lost track of all SoHo efforts with the Mac. As a startup org structure it's just hard for Apple to multi-task as well for better and for worse.

I see, thanks!

Yes, you can save the files to a separate hard drive. Also, they would be backed up via Time Machine, if you use it.

Thanks!

Your comment is correct and really should be at the top. The real issue is that many people don't know this can happen and should be warned.

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