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Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

I doubt this is a controversial point, at least not in this crowd, but I'd love to see some good legislation around what it means to sell digital products, and how they are allowed to change or not allowed to change over time, whether they can be retracted, etc.

We see companies retracting licences for content regularly now (probably because we're 10+ years into these services being popular and contracts once deemed "long" are starting to expire), and we see unreasonable requirements being put on consumers after purchase. While all cases I've seen so far have been well within the terms of sale/service, they clearly go against user expectations, and consumers are clearly not accounting for these possibilities when purchasing (rightly so in my opinion). Just saying "that's the contract" isn't working, it's time for governments to step in and lay down some ground rules.

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It would certainly take legislation (because companies have chosen that customer hostile, one sided contracts are currently in their interest), but I think extending something like first sale doctrine to “digital goods” would almost immediately open markets for format and resale.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter that there isn’t a fool proof way to prevent copies because companies have burned their goodwill and destroyed any post-sale value. Customers don’t understand that they are “licensing” content when the buttons they click on literally say “buy the digital version” (Nintendo), Buy (Xbox), Purchase (Steam), “Buy Now” (PlayStation), “Rent or Buy” (Amazon). They also have been burned over and over again through no fault of their own (except believing companies wouldn’t screw them over ) going all the way back to at least 2003 with PlaysForSure™ when Walmart decided to shut down their license servers and anything anyone had bought was no longer playable.

Likewise, if license servers need to be shuttered, customers must get the right to remove DRM encumbrance. Companies that sell DRMd content should be required to put unlock methods in escrow in case of bankruptcy.

So I agree. Long past time. Balance needs to be restored toward the public interest.

While I don’t like current copyright terms, if customer right to resell, format shift, etc. are restored, I feel like that at least brings us back to the state of the world 25 years ago. It wouldn’t make pirated copies any more legal than they are today (or selling a copy while keeping a “backup”), but all of that can be dealt with separately.

This has been brought up by a collective, in response to Ubisoft removing an online-only racing game from players libraries after purchase when they shut it down.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

UK government has commented on this in a bit of a non-answer compared to other petitions: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071. However, it seems like there is legislation around intentionally omitting material information at the time of sale where there are plans to break or worsen the quality of a game later. It is prohibited by UK law.

There is now a movement called “Stop Killing Games” which seeks to clarify what the laws are for these sorts of scenarios worldwide, and to establish at least a weak precedent for a publisher being penalized for such behaviour.

Not only technical challenges, e.g. disabling some feature for the sake of security which will lock out some players... But what about content updates?

What if one is really unpopular?

Don't take me for a troll, I mean, what is a good update? Objectively!?

Because there would be this giant loop hole if you say "every content update is fine", that a studio wanting to kill off a game, they could just create a shitty update that most players hate and say "creative freedom"

What is really needed imo, is having technical updates distinct from content updates as much as possible and the ability to choose the content version for players... And self hosting servers etc.

You're right, this is absolutely something that needs to be figured out. People buy apps, get an update, and dislike the re-design.

I think this is a place where legislation should probably be explicitly hands-off, I could see something in legislating differently between access and usability, i.e. allowing apps to change pretty much however they like as long as users are fundamentally able to access the same product as before. Users wouldn't like this, but it would protect companies in some way.

Good in spirit, but I don't really see how you'd get a government to care unless the company is dumb and makes a false advertisement ("we guarantee 10 years of service!" cancelled after 6 months). It'd be hard to enforce a company to make them keep a service they don't want to maintain up.

And then there are simply some borderline content that isn't technically out of service. e.g. You may have bought a digital version of Final Fantasy VII on the PS3 (and PSP/PSV), but it didn't entitle the user to own the PS4, nor PS5 version of FF7 (Which IIRC, each are separate releases you need to pay for). It's sucky, but your PS3 version is still downloadable, and playable on those older platforms. And based on history, it should still be downloadable for an extended period even when the PS3 store shuts down.

It is not controversial here, but I don't think it have been thought thoroughly here.

You are asking for legislation forbidding hostile (or unexpected) updates.

But how about exemption for (or even mandating) "good" (e.g. security) updates? We all know that the botnet from IoT device is a real problem.

What about the nuisance from the "security best practice"? Like, disabling SSL1.0 for the best of security and break compatibility?

I see your point, I wasn't trying to say that all updates should be prevented, but more that I think legislation is needed to categorise different types of updates, and then set requirements around each.

For example, I think it could define a "security update" and require security updates for the reasonable lifetime of the software/device (the EU already requires warranty repairs for reasonable device lifetime). It could define "content" and make clear the expectations around removing access to content when licences expire or how companies must communicate timelines to buyers. I imagine it would explicitly not cover all updates though as for almost any update there will be some category of users who perceive it to be "hostile" because they don't like it, but I think that's just how software evolves and not something worth changing.

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