I sometimes worry what will happen to my library on Steam if I ever get falsely banned. I have a lot more than $100 of content there.
Consumer protections in the US are a joke.
They've already sued MoviePass for the same kind of abusive shenanigans.
https://buckleyfirm.com/blog/2021-06-09/ftc-alleges-subscrip...
Sure there is the potential that this poster was innocent but Apple's fraud division certainly isn't missing all of its bans...
BTW you can thank credit card companies for these scorched earth policies. You can't accept credit cards unless you keep your fraud count below a certain threshold.
This was because Visa et al never developed anti fraud techniques in the pre-internet era and realized it was easier to just ban anyone with too much fraud.
Why not? If the license is revoked then it should be refunded. They are not forced to revoke licenses after all - they can very well ban further purchases from allegedly-fraudulent accounts while allowing them to consume whatever they've already successfully paid for (and that hasn't been charged back obviously) and then they wouldn't have to refund anything.
Additionally typically most of the value of the things people purchased is over when actions are taken. You can argue they are owed something but a complete refund is a stretch.
For instance at minimum any show can't be worth more than the delta between renting it the number of times you watched and what you paid.
If I buy e.g. a game from publisher Foo on Steam, then I should be able to then freely download that game not only from Steam, but from any digital distributor who chooses to carry that game — including distributors that weren't even in business yet at the time I bought the game. Being a distributor of digital good X for your own customers, should legally obligate you to be a distributor for digital good X more generally, for anyone who has an IP license for digital good X.
When I bought the game from publisher Foo on steam, I was really just paying Steam to go acquire for me an indefinite IP license from publisher Foo. Now that I have that license, I should be able to present it to any of these distributors to say "I have a license to consume this, so you have an obligation to deliver me a copy of it just as if I had bought it from you." Steam should not be able to hold that IP license hostage; it's not theirs, any more than a retail product I paid Amazon to ship to me is theirs. The IP license is now mine; I bought it; I own it. I don't own the work itself; but I do own the license itself. If I was a corporation, the license would be an asset on my balance sheet.
(And as well, acquiring this IP license should mean that I can also freely download the game from random websites/torrents. The distributor might not have a right to distribute the work, and so might get in trouble for sending it to me; but I shouldn't get in trouble for requesting or receiving it!)
You're into something. I like this.
The moment consumers understand it's not a real sale, they will pay more for the media they like.
You said it
Use "pay-once renting" or "lifetime rent" or whatever. "Buying" should be reserved for transactions where the other party cannot (not "must not". cannot!) take back what they sold without involving a third party like the state.
I have never seen an ebook product entry containing the word "license" in the name or description. And even if we assume that's fine, that still doesn't warrant taking away access to the product you bought. If you buy a DVD and stream the movie online you won't get raided and have all DVDs, CDs, vinyls and books taken away. Apple, Amazon etc are doing exactly that.
Imho it should at least say "buy license", or ideally: "rent for an unknown amount of time, do you feel lucky?"
And if that was a one-off sort of thing than I'd say "caveat emptor" but it's not a one-off, it's something we hear about all the time which makes me say "Holy shit sounds like fraud to me."
If so many people are walking away from a transaction with a complete misconception about what it is that they transacted I question whether or not we can call what went on as a 'meeting of the minds.'
Losing game saves is a moderate inconvenience, the games themselves are easy to pirate - I wouldn't feel guilty about doing so for titles I've previously purchased on Steam
Edit: I just realized it will be different for those who play lots of multiplayer games or have accumulated a collection of "digital assets" on Steam
..or transferred. Which should reasonably be available (and is absolutely technically feasible) in the redditor's scenario.
> I sometimes worry what will happen to my library on Steam
Well are you going to go to Colossal Order and demand refunds?
The people who did this for Star Citizen occasionally prevailed. It's complicated.
Last time I upgraded I forgot to sell the old one, so I still have one laptop that supports 32 bit games.
I'm about due for a new laptop, and I'm thinking of selling the newer one and keeping the older one for this reason.