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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

It's totally ridiculous. Imagine Walmart tried to do the same thing with physical goods; say any shoplifter Walmart catches immediately gets all their Walmart purchases taken back. We'd never allow it. Even if they were conflicted of theft, we wouldn't say "oh, sure, Walmart can come in and take your desk".

Why have we allowed it with digital goods?

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More accurate comparison: you return a purchase to Walmart for a refund - which, unlike shoplifting, is entirely legal - and they then seize all your previous Walmart purchases and ban you from the premises.

After all, disputing a charge on your credit card isn't some shady underhanded process; it's a right you have under law [1]. The real issue here is that, under digital distribution models, you have no real ownership of things you've purchased; in some sense, you're just renting or licensing them.

Merchant wants to ban your account for issuing a chargeback? Fine, but they should be required to preserve your access to purchased digital goods, or to otherwise compensate you for those goods. Consumer protection laws need to catch up to reality, and fast.

[1] https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/using-credit-cards-disputi...

This needs to be law for what you paid for. Even the homeless setting up camp cannot have their proper removed from public places without lots of red tape.

Walmart does do this with physical goods. They treat customers like criminals when they're exiting the store with their paid for property and expect to be able to inspect your belongings.

I highly encourage anyone who feels comfortable enough to not participate in this ruse. When I get asked to please see my receipt, I say "no thank you" and keep walking. I understand it comes from a place of privilege to feel safe in doing that, and I would never want someone who doesn't feel safe to do it, but we've got to put a stop to this idea that a business has any right to "inspect" your goods after a legitimate transaction is completed.

The comment here is addressing that, in this scenario, Wallmart would be able to come to your home and "claw back" physical goods like a table or couch that was paid for legitimately IN THE PAST due to THE LATER theft.

It all comes down to DRM. The media you get to download cannot work on it's own, so you're forever tied to the store that provided it to you. Otherwise you could just store it on your own.

Meanwhile the pirates still always find their way around it, so it's the paying customers who deal with the fallout.

I don’t think that many people would complain if shoplifters were forced to return legitimately purchased wares. After all, we fine people for shoplifting. Money is fungible. So the effect is similar.

> we fine people for shoplifting

Walmart fines people for shoplifting? Of course not. That is a job of a government.

Companies should not be a judge, jury and executioner.

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