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Comment by robin_reala | Hacker News Reader

Obviously media permanence is the best solution, but in the absence of that we just need laws that say that if the purchase isn’t time limited to something a reasonable user would consider a rental (48hrs? a week?) then companies that withdraw access rights need to refund in full the purchase cost.

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There are services like Movies Anywhere and UltraViolet (now defunct) that store a licence when the user purchases one from an in-network licensor. Then the user can access the content via any supported platform.

The problem is that these are not legally mandated, so they can shut down (as UltraViolet did). If the ability to move the licence to another platform is mandated by law as a condition of continued copyright protection, this problem would largely disappear.

Let's add inflation to that. Or charge interest for the loan.

> need to refund in full the purchase cost.

In practical terms, the logistics of many-years-later refunds would be unwieldy at best. Do the purchase records still exist? What if I no longer have that credit card or email address? How can you prove you're the heir of the deceased? What if I now live in a country where the "deletion" status is different? And how could you stop all the scammers who smelled free money?

Alternative: The gov't randomly picks 24 citizens from a pool of applicants who reasonably prove that they were harmed by the deletion. Those 24 are given legal authority to fiat-revoke all copyright protection on a "reasonable and proportional" number of the deleting corporation's currently copyrighted works. Or upstream of them, as "appropriate".

Doesn't matter. It should be up to the corporation to figure it out or else it's illegal and they get fined 300% of their total yearly revenue for each affected person.

Boom! Big and tough enforcement, I like it.

Similarly, we should put in a law to force consumers who post bad reviews to prove they actually transacted with the business. If they can't, they have to go to every person who saw the review and personally retract it.

Can't figure out who saw it? Tough. It's up to you to figure out, or else it's illegal and they get 5000 years in prison for every view it got.

If both of these were implemented, I think the companies would come out behind. You'd just have no more online reviews without proof and that would be not a very big loss. The law is already like you say in Germany.

They clearly must have the records if they have the ability to retroactively revoke access to it, as they must know who had the access to revoke. Perhaps the user needs to update their payment method to get the refund, or like everyone else who deals in other people's money, you apply the existing laws around unclaimed funds if you're truly unable to process the refund.

I think the laws we aren't worried enough about needing yet are digital estate laws, too. If I build a massive library in the real world there's no question it's a part of my estate plan for a will and is inheritable by family (or other persons I choose). I've got a massive Steam library. What happens when I pass? Steam's EULA implies that there are not necessarily survivorship rights, the account is mine personally and may shut down or disappear when I pass away. Almost every digital service EULA has and must have logic of that sort to protect itself/simplify account ownership as a concept.

We've got pragmatic answers of password sharing and Steam is one of the better example in the current moment because among other things it has some Family Sharing support. But I can't go to my lawyer and ask for a list of passwords (and device PINs and passkey details etc) to be attached to my will with the explicit idea of divvying up parts of my digital library to different relatives. Lawyers don't really want to discuss detailed digital estate planning today because it isn't allowed by these service EULAs and because they don't want to have to fine tooth comb every single possible service EULA. It's a catch-22 that probably needs real legislation or very expensive very public court cases or both to help push it to the forefront of people's minds (and make it enough of a priority that service EULAs have to adapt).

People owning their own media was always a pain to these companies. They tried to make disposable DVDs at one point!

The most frustrating thing about all of this is that if I'd published a game on PlayStation and then told Sony to rip it out of people's libraries, they'd tell me to pound sand. The contracts you sign to ship games on PlayStation specifically include redownload rights. So Sony knows this is a problem, and yet for whatever reason decided NOT to secure the rights they'd need for the digital purchases to actually work like a purchase.

This is nothing new and the reason I went from being the biggest media collector to collecting nothing now.

To put it in perspective, I bought Get Him to the Greek on Prime video shortly after it came out.

A month later, the "exclusive broadcast rights" changed, and I was no longer able to access it.

What a fun balance sheet that will create. Seems easier to just exit the business.

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