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Comment by gmjoe | Hacker News Reader

Online accounts (even free ones) increasingly seem like they should be viewed as property, that stealing an account like this should be considered theft, and that a company administering accounts (Sony in this case) should be held to a standard of due process.

I wonder if this is something there's been any pressure on legislation for, and I also wonder if it's something tech companies would fight against.

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I think digital asset law is a hugely under-explored issue. I think one of the biggest fights that currently is hugely emblematic of the overall problem and going to surprise a lot of people in the near-ish future: inheritance. Can you inherit your parents accounts if they pass? Could you play their PSN games and watch their Movies Anywhere movies?

Right now there's no protection for that. None of the major digital services directly support transferal of licenses and most of them directly forbid it in their terms of services.

GDPR got some pressure from some of the EU members to explore the issue and GDPR itself wound up punting the ball back to individual countries for now rather than wade into digital asset protections/inheritance.

It'd be lovely to see a return of the first sale doctrine, as well. We gave up the right to own a movie when we went to streaming. I want to be able to sell my stuff again. More importantly, I want Netflix to be able to offer streaming of everything they have the DVDs for.

>I want Netflix to be able to offer streaming of everything they have the DVDs for.

That is why it will never happen.

Could you explain?

The people who own streaming rights would go from having something that is worth money to something that is completely worthless.

Netflix is one of those companies so even they wouldn’t fight for it.

Netflix has a right to rent physical discs, but streaming is different than lending. I would love for movies to have compulsory licensing like music does though.

> Netflix has a right to rent physical discs, but streaming is different than lending.

I’m curious about this. I mean it’s different in terms of implementation and law, but conceptually it’s pretty similar.

Side-note-thought-experiment: in places where it is legal to “pirate” content you own, could Netflix get around this by renting a DVD to you (but holding in in escrow for you at their location) then providing you streaming access to that DVD?

Streaming in my mind is more like asking your friend to come over to watch a movie, than lending them the movie to watch themselves.

Exhibition rights are significantly different than private viewing rights.

At the end of the day, the results are roughly the same, one more person has seen the film. But there's a lot of subtlety in how that happens.

No they got shutdown https://www.wired.com/2011/08/zediva-preliminary-injunction/

You can't own the stream, but you can still buy the DVD, and first sale still applies there.

This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. Tech companies have conducted a sustained campaign to water down the notion of ownership to the point where it is meaningless and it’s impossible to truly own a digital good. You don’t own “your” software, you license it and that license can be revoked. You don’t own “your” Netflix account, your access to it is at Netflix’s pleasure. Most of you don’t even own “your” Email address, you are one account suspension away from losing it. Even self-hosters are dependent on the mercy of their domain name registrar ultimately.

I don’t know what the solution is. The free market obviously has no incentive to fix this. Users won’t vote with their wallet until they get burned and then it’s too late.

This is part of why I bought my own NAS. All my movies and TV are downloaded to the NAS before I view them. Once Lidarr has support for Spotify imports I’ll be hosting all of my own music too.

I can stream all this content too - the experience is not much different from Netflix or Spotify and the content is usually much higher quality (lossless audio and higher bitrate video). The experience is more private too - no analytics on what you watch, no one harvesting you for ads.

I feel so much secure truly “owning” my content than having it bound to some service that can disappear at any time, along with the content on it. I’ve lost countless songs and videos due to Netflix or a music service’a contract ending.

For data resilience and redundancy, just perform encrypted backups to your cloud service of choice.

> All my movies and TV are downloaded to the NAS before I view them

> I feel so much secure truly “owning” my content

Do you actually purchase the content? If so, where do you buy it from? Is it even possible to purchase DRM-free content from major studios online?

For music, I can purchase music DRM-free from the iTunes Store or Bandcamp and actually own it, which is awesome.

I just rip my Blu-Rays and stream them through Plex.

considering nearly all commercial blu-rays are protected with AACS (which you have to bypass to rip), what you're doing violates the DMCA. also, there's a growing amount of content from streaming services (netfilx/prime originals) that's not available on blu-ray and is not trivial to rip.

However, many regions allow format shifting, which can overrule that particular part of the DMCA. Though the rules are, again, regional.

Who cares if it violates the dmca? And honestly it is simply easier to just pirate the content vs ripping it, there are literally no consequences. And yes it is trivial to rip from streaming services.

Be kind, rip and share where possible. The Dmca only applies in the US. The 2600 campaign against dmca feels like it was yesterday.

Netflix let's you download a lot of content. Great for when you aren't connected.

Even in the US, the dmca is irrelevant to individuals for the most part. You can outright throw the notices in the garbage without consequence. I've been doing that since it was passed. Some were legitimate violations, some were not. Either way the company wasted printing and postage.

Hell you can ignore DHS letters in some cases.

Rip, yes, but share? Really?

Disclaimer: not a lawyer.

In some countries there are exceptions to copyright for non-software that allow making copies for use of friends.

Which countries are those?

E.g. Poland

Reference: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/faqs-o...

I think this reference is partly inaccurate; I was under the impression that the legality of the original copy doesn't matter (and Polish Wikipedia seems to agree: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dozwolony_u%C5%BCytek_prywatny...)

Sharing is a form of advertising. If you want to promote a company or product there is no better way then sharing.

I remember seeing a video where a company exec said that they want to sell there product but they also wanted everyone to be using there pirated copy vs another company's application.

Most people won't pirate because it involves work. The people who do sometimes are the trend setters who can encourage others to buy.

DMCA only applies in the US, making copies of items you own for personal use is legal in the UK for example.

No it isn't.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/17/high-court-q...

And even when it was, you weren't allowed to break encryption to do so.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140328/07561926719/uk-fi...

Indeed, in some cases even importing (i.e downloading from a foreign server) software to do so is a criminal offence in the UK and carries a potential prison sentence.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/296ZB

I am trying to set up my own such NAS, currently using Plex to manage movies & TV and for streaming on my PS4. Haven't figured out a solution for music and just use Spotify. Any software you can advise to help me create a better setup?

I use a computer running FreeNAS with a shared NFS amount for the audio and video content. You can use SMB (Windows shares) too. I use a low powered set top box and a Mac Mini both running Kodi as clients. Works great.

Movies: I use Radarr. Radarr searches public movie databases for movies, and then talks to another piece of software I use called Jackett to actually initiate the download. Jackett searches for and obtains torrents from your favorite (completely legal of course) trackers.

The end UI is super simple. Search for a movie. Click Add. The software takes case of the rest. It automatically downloads the movie and replaces it with a higher quality version when one is available.

TV: Switch out Radarr for Sonarr above.

Music: Still working on this, but set up an MPD server on the NAS and listen using an MPD client on mobile. A good client seems to be Rigelian for iOS.

All super easy to set up. All the software is dockerized (check the linuxserver docker repo for most of this) and secure to access - set up a VPN server on your NAS and use a client like Tunnelblick on Mac or OpenVPN on iOS to access it.

So now I can have lunch with my coworkers, and if we're talking about a movie that sounds interesting, I open up Radarr on my phone (it has a nice mobile web interface), search and click download. It'll be ready for viewing in all its Blu-Ray HDR10 7.1 surround-sound glory by the time I get home.

Some Docker images you might find useful:

1. https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/sonarr/

2. https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/radarr/

3. https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/jackett/

4. https://hub.docker.com/r/haugene/transmission-openvpn/

I've been using Airsonic for music and podcasts, hosted on a headless Linux server. Supports caching, gapless playback,and more. DSub is a pretty solid client for android, with the Play Store version supporting Android auto and casting to chromecast. Everything's FOSS, too

I'm surprised at all the recommendations for Plex here considering its subscription model. It's a good product but I recently switched to Kodi and it offers all of the functionality I need and then some. It doesn't seem to randomly lose access to my NAS like Plex did either.

Why rent with Spotify? Amazon still has DRM-free MP3 sales (don't pay for a Music Subscription, buy albums), and Bandcamp, CD Baby, and Magnatune are even better places to shop.

Just a minor thing, but I’m pretty certain Plex are performing all sorts of analysis on your usage.

There are other opensource projects with no mothership

https://github.com/streamaserver/streama

If that's true then there's no need for legislation because the service contracts cover it. Law is only needed if the contracts are ambiguous.

Only if the public likes the way that service contracts are working.

> I don’t know what the solution is.

Decentralize all the things.

One reason this issue isn't explored much is that it doesn't have much in the way of practical implications. You don't need permission from Movies Anywhere to inherit your parents' Movies Anywhere account -- as long as you learn the password, you can just use the account without bothering to notify Movies Anywhere of anything.

Until they find out and kill your account.

Find out how?

Through ubiquitous tracking.

Right, but this isn't protected anywhere. It's a fragile practicality. If you inherit that shared password do you inherit the right to recover it if you lose it again? Movies Anywhere is locked to a certain number of devices, do you have the right to unlock/remove old devices of the original account holder?

At one point I debated trying to build a system to help escrow digital asset things like passwords in Trust for the purposes of wills/digital estate planning/inheritance, but quickly realized the first major flaw of that is that as soon as you try to systematize it you immediately get into a fight over how much it violates various terms of service agreements forbidding account and password sharing entirely.

You're right, but I would still bet that the sheer ease of working around the issue stunts the development of formal legal approaches to it.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather have established practice dictate the law than the other way around.

Isn’t it currently akin to a library membership ? Or at least that’s how I would put it if I was a service owner.

You also won’t get irl memberships transfered by inheritance, so the debate will be short if it goes this way.

I think this line of argument works for something like a Netflix or Spotify account where you have a monthly fee for unlimited access. The problem OP is referencing is when you buy a specific movie or album on iTunes or Prime for instance. That doesn't seem so clear cut because while the license says one thing the consumer expects that they now 'own' the item forever.

Yes, iTunes or Prime pages still show a 'buy' button which is confusing.

I think people understand it better nowadays though, as they get burned more and more with services that don't work on a specific device, or the service shuts down. Or more probably they cancel the monthly payment and all the stuff they 'owned' can't be watched anymore.

Or Steam.

All the games I have there should be inheritable. Also, I'd love to be able to put ones I don't play on sale. But that's obviously not going to happen.

None of the major digital services directly support transferal of licenses and most of them directly forbid it in their terms of services.

Considering the amount of money that people sink into digital services, I’m surprised this hasn’t already been through the courts in the case of divorces.

Anecdotally I've seen a lot of divorcees still using their ex's old Netflix account or similar. It probably hasn't made it yet to the list of things on the radar of Divorce Attorneys for the simple practical matter that it's currently easy enough to (continue to) share passwords, but yes I'm very surprised we've not yet seen a huge court battle over digital assets in a divorce or inheritance drama yet.

In an ideal world, but in reality companies have been pushing more and more for the opposite, where accounts and services are just being "borrowed" by us for a fee.

The T&C go into great detail to make sure we understand we have no rights to the account/service/product, and that they still own it at all times and can revoke it from us.

Most companies still don't even comprehend that an account to a service can be an important part of someones life. Google locking people out forever over some automated perceived issue, as though it's nothing special and not even worth a cursory glance. Meanwhile that email account could be the central point of that users entire life.

Game accounts can have a serious amount of money, time, love, and effort invested in them. I've been using the same PSN account since the service first launched. I have hundreds of digital games, DLCs, movies, etc. My entire life is also run from my email, tied to everything from paying my rent and bills to managing my kids school through their online services. In the former, I don't play online games on purpose, because I know of the risk of pissing off the wrong kid, and for the latter, I don't use a free email service and control the domain so I can redirect it. Still not perfect though.

We need to take this stuff more seriously.

This is why I advocate both 1. Not tying anything important to you to access to an online account that you don’t host yourself, and 2. Not spending money on digital goods that require further permission from a company to use.

People look at me like I’m wearing tin foil, yet these things keep happening where someone’s account gets suspended or they lose access to $1000 of “purchased” digital goods, and they act all surprised that this could happen!

If it’s not on your computer it’s not yours. And even if it is on your computer, but you need to activate it, it’s still not yours. Don’t complain when your access suddenly gets revoked—you should know better by now.

But it terrifies me that you say it like it's nothing and like this digital "purchasing" thing is something new (I am not disagreeing, on the contrary.)

I have avoided and have never bought anything digital for those reasons, but it really is depressing that these things have not been solved by now.

It should be terrifying! You’re handing your hard earned money to a company in exchange for access to something narrowly defined in a 100 page Terms of Service document, written by company lawyers, giving them tons of escape clauses, with no input from you. You’re smart to avoid the trap, but unless other people do also, in large numbers, nothing will change.

I agree. When Verizon sold off large portions of their FIOS network to Frontier, they took away several movies I had purchased. No refund, no apologies, they just took them away and refused to do anything. It wasn't enough money to motivate me enough to do more than call and complain 3 or 4 times. So they won. I did switch to another provider, but that meant I lost the rest of the movies. Sigh.

In general this is what class action suits are for. If a bunch of plaintiffs each suffer small losses they can join together to sue a defendant, whereas it wouldn't have been practical for any single plaintiff to sue individually.

In this particular case Verizon may well have put some weasel words in the contract you agreed to that allowed them to take away what you paid for.

And this is why I don't think those clauses should be valid. There's no way to negotiate with Verizon over that; it's take it or leave it. Either you accept that they can take things away without recourse, or you don't get anything.

Should? They are in all but legalistic terms. I had my Rockstar account stolen years ago shortly after their auth db was leaked, Rockstar support was of no help and I lost access to all my Rockstar games -- some of which are tied to third-party services (Steam) that don't permit repurchase (or otherwise generating a new serial code) and won't refund my current copy.

Piracy is the only way I can play my legally-purchased copy of GTA V or Max Payne III. (Most of their older titles did not have mandatory Rockstar DRM like the new ones, so they are OK)

How is an account not property?

Well its likely a license. Therefore you have civil legislation and contract law that you will never be able to use protecting you

I agree that they should be viewed as property.

What I don't get in this scenario is how can sony deny a bought game for this person? I mean he has the receipts and he can prove that he had paid for those games. How can they deny that product to him? I understand why they would have the rights to his account but what about the games which are actual products, digital or not they should provide them to him.

They use the "trick" that all game platforms use, that they only sell you a license that is attached to your account, and if you check the TOS you will find that it is stipulated that you will lose access to the games if you lose access to the account.

I say "trick" because when you purchase a game on those platforms, it clearly says "buy" or "purchase", it does not say "license", so it relies on fine-print in a long legal document of dubious legal value to redefine what you actually purchase.

I doubt they really care at the end of the day. My Instagram username is three letters and I (used to) get 4-5 reset emails a day prior to turning on 2FA. I also frequently get asked if I want to sell the name. I'm just worried someone will get in and take it.

If you use SMS for 2FA there are numerous vulnerabilities. The Google Authenticator app is safer, unless Instagram itself has some sort of vulnerability.

Hacking an online account may or may not be property, but I wager that it is a federal crime under the The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

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