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Do we really own our digital possessions?

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  Do we really own our digital possessions? "Alasdair Allan" <posthamster@x-static.demon.co.uk> - 2019-04-15 21:11 +0000
    Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Filip454 <filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com> - 2019-04-16 00:01 +0200
      Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) - 2019-04-16 17:20 -0500
    Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> - 2019-04-16 16:12 +1000
      Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Filip454 <filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com> - 2019-04-16 11:31 +0200
        Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) - 2019-04-16 17:22 -0500
        Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> - 2019-04-17 12:39 +1000
      Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2019-04-16 20:29 +0000
        Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-04-17 06:26 +0000
          Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-04-17 12:32 +0000
          Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2019-04-18 20:20 +0000
            Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-04-18 22:42 +0000
              Re: Do we really own our digital possessions? Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> - 2019-04-19 09:59 +1000

#17818 — Do we really own our digital possessions?

<https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>

Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.

Digital products such as eBooks and digital music are often seen to liberate consumers from the burdens of ownership. Some academics have heralded the "age of access", where ownership is no longer important to consumers and will soon become irrelevant.

Recent years have seen the emergence of an array of access-based models in the digital realm. For Spotify and Netflix users, owning films and music has become unimportant as these subscription based services provide greater convenience and increased choice. But while these platforms present themselves clearly as services, with the consumer under no illusion of ownership, for many digital goods this is not the case. So to what extent do we own the digital possessions that we "buy"?

*Fragmented ownership rights*

The popularity of access-based consumption has obscured the rise of a range of fragmented ownership configurations in the digital realm. These provide the customer with an illusion of ownership while restricting their ownership rights. Companies such as Microsoft and Apple present consumers with the option to "buy" digital products such as eBooks. Consumers often make the understandable assumption that they will have full ownership rights over the products that they pay for, just as they have full ownership rights over the physical books that they buy from their local bookstore.

However, many of these products are subject to end user licence agreements which set out a more complex distribution of ownership rights. These long legal agreements are rarely read by consumers when it comes to products and services online. And even if they do read them, they are unlikely to fully understand the terms.

When purchasing eBooks, the consumer often actually purchases a non-transferable licence to consume the eBook in restricted ways. For instance, they may not be permitted to pass the eBook on to a friend once they have finished reading, as they might do with a physical book. In addition, as we have seen in the case of Microsoft, the company retains the right to revoke access at a later date. These restrictions on consumer ownership are often encoded into digital goods themselves as automated forms of enforcement, meaning that access can be easily withdrawn or modified by the company.

This is not a one-off occurrence. There have been many similar instances that raise questions of ownership. Just last month, social media site MySpace admitted to losing all content uploaded before 2016. Blaming a faulty server migration, the loss includes many years' worth of music, photos and videos created by consumers.

Last year, after customers complained of films disappearing from Apple iTunes, the company revealed that the only way to guarantee continued access was to download a local copy – which, some opined, goes against the convenience of streaming. Amazon hit the headlines way back in 2009 for remotely erasing "illegally uploaded" copies of George Orwell's 1984 from consumers' Kindle e-reading devices, much to consumers' dismay and anger.

*Illusions of ownership*

My research has found that many consumers do not consider these possibilities, because they make sense of their digital possessions based on their previous experiences of possessing tangible, physical objects. If our local bookstore closed down, the owner wouldn't knock on our door demanding to remove previously purchased books from our shelves. So we do not anticipate this scenario in the context of our eBooks. Yet the digital realm presents new threats to ownership that our physical possessions haven't prepared us for.

Consumers need to become more sensitised to the restrictions on digital ownership. They must be made aware that the "full ownership" they have experienced over most of their physical possessions cannot be taken for granted when purchasing digital products. However, companies also have a responsibility to make these fragmented ownership forms more transparent.

Often there is a logical business reason for such restrictions. For instance, since digital objects are infinitely reproducible – they can be duplicated quickly and easily at negligible costs – restrictions on sharing are a means to protect the profits of both distribution companies (Microsoft or Apple, for example) and media producers (including the authors and publishers of an eBook). However, these restrictions must be stated clearly and in simple terms at the point of purchase, rather than hidden away in the complex legal jargon of end user licence agreements, obscured by the familiar terminology of "buying."

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#17819

W dniu 2019-04-15 o 23:11, Alasdair Allan pisze:
> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
> 
> Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.
> 
> Digital products such as eBooks and digital music are often seen to liberate consumers from the burdens of ownership. Some academics have heralded the "age of access", where ownership is no longer important to consumers and will soon become irrelevant.
> 
> Recent years have seen the emergence of an array of access-based models in the digital realm. For Spotify and Netflix users, owning films and music has become unimportant as these subscription based services provide greater convenience and increased choice. But while these platforms present themselves clearly as services, with the consumer under no illusion of ownership, for many digital goods this is not the case. So to what extent do we own the digital possessions that we "buy"?
> 
> *Fragmented ownership rights*
> 
> The popularity of access-based consumption has obscured the rise of a range of fragmented ownership configurations in the digital realm. These provide the customer with an illusion of ownership while restricting their ownership rights. Companies such as Microsoft and Apple present consumers with the option to "buy" digital products such as eBooks. Consumers often make the understandable assumption that they will have full ownership rights over the products that they pay for, just as they have full ownership rights over the physical books that they buy from their local bookstore.
> 
> However, many of these products are subject to end user licence agreements which set out a more complex distribution of ownership rights. These long legal agreements are rarely read by consumers when it comes to products and services online. And even if they do read them, they are unlikely to fully understand the terms.
> 
> When purchasing eBooks, the consumer often actually purchases a non-transferable licence to consume the eBook in restricted ways. For instance, they may not be permitted to pass the eBook on to a friend once they have finished reading, as they might do with a physical book. In addition, as we have seen in the case of Microsoft, the company retains the right to revoke access at a later date. These restrictions on consumer ownership are often encoded into digital goods themselves as automated forms of enforcement, meaning that access can be easily withdrawn or modified by the company.
> 
> This is not a one-off occurrence. There have been many similar instances that raise questions of ownership. Just last month, social media site MySpace admitted to losing all content uploaded before 2016. Blaming a faulty server migration, the loss includes many years' worth of music, photos and videos created by consumers.
> 
> Last year, after customers complained of films disappearing from Apple iTunes, the company revealed that the only way to guarantee continued access was to download a local copy – which, some opined, goes against the convenience of streaming. Amazon hit the headlines way back in 2009 for remotely erasing "illegally uploaded" copies of George Orwell's 1984 from consumers' Kindle e-reading devices, much to consumers' dismay and anger.
> 
> *Illusions of ownership*
> 
> My research has found that many consumers do not consider these possibilities, because they make sense of their digital possessions based on their previous experiences of possessing tangible, physical objects. If our local bookstore closed down, the owner wouldn't knock on our door demanding to remove previously purchased books from our shelves. So we do not anticipate this scenario in the context of our eBooks. Yet the digital realm presents new threats to ownership that our physical possessions haven't prepared us for.
> 
> Consumers need to become more sensitised to the restrictions on digital ownership. They must be made aware that the "full ownership" they have experienced over most of their physical possessions cannot be taken for granted when purchasing digital products. However, companies also have a responsibility to make these fragmented ownership forms more transparent.
> 
> Often there is a logical business reason for such restrictions. For instance, since digital objects are infinitely reproducible – they can be duplicated quickly and easily at negligible costs – restrictions on sharing are a means to protect the profits of both distribution companies (Microsoft or Apple, for example) and media producers (including the authors and publishers of an eBook). However, these restrictions must be stated clearly and in simple terms at the point of purchase, rather than hidden away in the complex legal jargon of end user licence agreements, obscured by the familiar terminology of "buying."
> 

In general, all digital products are very prone to be taken from the owner.

It's the nature of the "virtual ownership" of digitalized goods.

You know, digital stores like Steam might fail 20 years later and all 
your games/applications will be unavailable and that is why I will 
always prefer physical items (BOXed versions of software with data 
inside) instead of virtual items.

-- 
Filip454
[filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com]

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#17827

In comp.misc Filip454 <filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> In general, all digital products are very prone to be taken from the owner.

> It's the nature of the "virtual ownership" of digitalized goods.

> You know, digital stores like Steam might fail 20 years later and all 
> your games/applications will be unavailable and that is why I will 
> always prefer physical items (BOXed versions of software with data 
> inside) instead of virtual items.

Yes, but not with those annoying online DRMs stuff. :(
-- 
Quote of the Week: "Is this stuff any good for ants?" "No, it kills them." --unknown
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#17821

On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
> 
> Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.

It goes beyond purely the purely digital realm.

There are physical products on the market that cannot function properly 
without access to a network server that could conceivably cease to exist 
at some time in the future, either because the vendor doesn't want to 
support the product any more, or because they've gone into liquidation.

While the person clearly owns the physical device, that's not much 
consolation if it can not be used any more.

Sylvia.

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#17823

W dniu 2019-04-16 o 08:12, Sylvia Else pisze:
> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
>>
>> Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its 
>> digital store. While other software and apps will still be available 
>> via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, 
>> the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook 
>> libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those 
>> bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. 
>> While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook 
>> purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.
> 
> It goes beyond purely the purely digital realm.
> 
> There are physical products on the market that cannot function properly 
> without access to a network server that could conceivably cease to exist 
> at some time in the future, either because the vendor doesn't want to 
> support the product any more, or because they've gone into liquidation.
> 
> While the person clearly owns the physical device, that's not much 
> consolation if it can not be used any more.
> 
> Sylvia.

Well, for me, the biggest problem is with all those physical copies of 
games and software which still demand the connection to the main server.

Nowadays it is a plague - more and more applications cannot function 
offline properly.

So you are right. For me it is sick.

For example: games like Hexen II (1997) or Jane's Combat Simulations 
(1996) still work without any problems (even on Windows 10), while some 
games from 2007 will not work because the Games For Windows LIVE service 
is already down.

-- 
Filip454
[filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com]

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#17828

In comp.misc Filip454 <filip454.newsgroups@gmail.com> wrote:
...
> Well, for me, the biggest problem is with all those physical copies of 
> games and software which still demand the connection to the main server.

> Nowadays it is a plague - more and more applications cannot function 
> offline properly.

> So you are right. For me it is sick.

> For example: games like Hexen II (1997) or Jane's Combat Simulations 
> (1996) still work without any problems (even on Windows 10), while some 
> games from 2007 will not work because the Games For Windows LIVE service 
> is already down.

Ditto. I always test non-Internet software trials without Internet in VMs. If 
they fail, I don't want them.

-- 
Quote of the Week: "Is this stuff any good for ants?" "No, it kills them." --unknown
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
  /\___/\   Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
 / /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o   o| |
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    ( )

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#17832

On 16/04/2019 7:31 pm, Filip454 wrote:
> W dniu 2019-04-16 o 08:12, Sylvia Else pisze:
>> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
>>>
>>> Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its 
>>> digital store. While other software and apps will still be available 
>>> via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, 
>>> the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook 
>>> libraries. Any digital books bought through the service – even those 
>>> bought many years ago – will no longer be readable after July 2019. 
>>> While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook 
>>> purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.
>>
>> It goes beyond purely the purely digital realm.
>>
>> There are physical products on the market that cannot function 
>> properly without access to a network server that could conceivably 
>> cease to exist at some time in the future, either because the vendor 
>> doesn't want to support the product any more, or because they've gone 
>> into liquidation.
>>
>> While the person clearly owns the physical device, that's not much 
>> consolation if it can not be used any more.
>>
>> Sylvia.
> 
> Well, for me, the biggest problem is with all those physical copies of 
> games and software which still demand the connection to the main server.
> 
> Nowadays it is a plague - more and more applications cannot function 
> offline properly.
> 
> So you are right. For me it is sick.
> 
> For example: games like Hexen II (1997) or Jane's Combat Simulations 
> (1996) still work without any problems (even on Windows 10), while some 
> games from 2007 will not work because the Games For Windows LIVE service 
> is already down.
> 

The Tesla Powerwall's only documented (by Tesla) way of controlling it 
is via an ap, that depends on a server. There are however some 
undocumented ways of controlling it even if the server goes away.

But it allows remote updates to its firmware, and the only way to 
prevent them is to block its access to the servers it uses for those, 
which compromises the warranty.

The transactions are encrypted, and use a certificate issued by an 
internal Tesla certificate authority. It seems likely that that's the 
only CA that the firmware will accept. It certainly didn't accept the CA 
I created.

So if Tesla Motors went down the tubes, taking the Powerwall business 
with it, a disgruntled employee could distribute a non-functioning 
firmware, and leave owners with Powerwalls that no longer work, with 
nothing they can do about it, and no one to sue.

Sylvia.

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#17824

In comp.misc Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:
> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
>> 
>> Microsoft has announced that it will close the books category of its digital store. While other software and apps will still be available via the virtual shop front, and on purchasers' consoles and devices, the closure of the eBook store takes with it customers' eBook libraries. Any digital books bought through the service ? even those bought many years ago ? will no longer be readable after July 2019. While the company has promised to provide a full refund for all eBook purchases, this decision raises important questions of ownership.
> 
> It goes beyond purely the purely digital realm.
> 
> There are physical products on the market that cannot function properly 
> without access to a network server that could conceivably cease to exist 
> at some time in the future, either because the vendor doesn't want to 
> support the product any more, or because they've gone into liquidation.
> 
> While the person clearly owns the physical device, that's not much 
> consolation if it can not be used any more.
> 
> Sylvia.

Hasn't that already happened? I seem to recall that certain home
automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the
company went under & its servers were shut down. Don't remember the
details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud that
required access to an external server.

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#17833

On 2019-04-16, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
> In comp.misc Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:
>> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>

> Hasn't that already happened? I seem to recall that certain home
> automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the
> company went under & its servers were shut down. Don't remember the
> details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud that
> required access to an external server.

Yes, I remember that too - a clear warning against any product whose
ability to function requires existence of the company and its servers on
a minute-by-minute basis.

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#17837

In comp.misc RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2019-04-16, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>> In comp.misc Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>>>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
> 
>> Hasn't that already happened?  I seem to recall that certain home 
>> automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the 
>> company went under & its servers were shut down.  Don't remember the 
>> details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud 
>> that required access to an external server.
> 
> Yes, I remember that too - a clear warning against any product whose 
> ability to function requires existence of the company and its servers 
> on a minute-by-minute basis.

At the start of the last heating season here, my old digital thermostat 
decided it no longer wanted to turn on the furnace to warm the house.

So I went looking for a replacement.  Honeywell had a 'wi-fi enabled' 
variant, for a not too outrageous price, that would have allowed remote 
access for adjusting settings as well as some minimal logging.

Then, I dug into the pdf of the owners guide (knowing what I was 
looking for).  And I discovered that their 'wi-fi' thermostat was not 
simply "connects to wifi, exposes a http server from which I could 
adjust/monitor things" but instead was "connects to wifi, has to 
connect back to their master servers, then a phone app connets to their 
master servers to access the thing".

And, well, that was the end of the road for that model.  I moved down 
the price scale to the next lower model, no wifi, fully functional 
without 'master C&C servers' running, and bought it instead.

But I also somewhat 'get' why the makers go this route.  For every one 
of me, who can use a local http server on the thermostats local 
internal IP to access it remotely (even from my phone), there are 1,000 
or 10,000 folks who have not the slightest clue how.  And the makers 
are aiming their 'iot' junk at those 1,000 or 10,000 clueless folks.  
And in order to make sure, in this day of every comcast/fios home 
'router' also running NAT for the internal network, the only reliable 
way to make a phone app work (for these clueless folks), while not at 
home on the local network, is to go the C&C server route, with the 
thermostat maintaining a heartbeat connect to the C&C so the phone app 
can then phone home to the C&C to connect to the termostat via the C&C 
servers.

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#17846

In comp.misc RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2019-04-16, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>> In comp.misc Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 16/04/2019 7:11 am, Alasdair Allan wrote:
>>>> <https://phys.org/news/2019-04-digital.html>
> 
>> Hasn't that already happened? I seem to recall that certain home
>> automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the
>> company went under & its servers were shut down. Don't remember the
>> details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud that
>> required access to an external server.
> 
> Yes, I remember that too - a clear warning against any product whose
> ability to function requires existence of the company and its servers on
> a minute-by-minute basis.

This is the one I remember:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/05/revolv-devices-bricked-google-nest-smar
t-home

Revolv devices bricked as Google's Nest shuts down smart home company
This article is more than 3 years old

Customers furious as Nest is set to turn off Revolv units in just over
a month

Also more recently:

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/alr36r/iris_shutting_down/
Iris shutting down
IRIS
Posted byu/DarkL1ghtn1ng
2 months ago

Got this email from Lowe's today. Shutting down soon!

"Dear Iris Customer:

As a valued customer, we wanted to provide an important update
regarding
Iris. We have decided to shut down the Iris smart home platform and
related services effective March 31, 2019. We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause and are committed to providing the
resources and support needed as you transition to comparable smart
home
products.

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#17848

In comp.misc Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
> In comp.misc RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2019-04-16, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hasn't that already happened? I seem to recall that certain home
>>> automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the
>>> company went under & its servers were shut down. Don't remember the
>>> details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud that
>>> required access to an external server.
>> 
>> Yes, I remember that too - a clear warning against any product whose
>> ability to function requires existence of the company and its servers on
>> a minute-by-minute basis.
> 
> This is the one I remember:
> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/05/revolv-devices-bricked-google-nest-smar
> t-home
> [snip]
> Also more recently:
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/alr36r/iris_shutting_down/
> Iris shutting down
> IRIS
> Posted byu/DarkL1ghtn1ng
> 2 months ago

Sounds like there'd be a business opportunity for someone to run
alternative servers for all the various devices which are shut down.

It might be complicated technically and legally if the original
companies are unwilling to licence their software for whatever reason
though.

Or the systems could be standardised so that the manufacturer and
"IOT Service Provider" could be separated. But fat chance of that
given the current state of the industry.

-- 
__          __
#_ < |\| |< _#

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#17850

On 19/04/2019 8:42 am, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> In comp.misc Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>> In comp.misc RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>>> On 2019-04-16, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hasn't that already happened? I seem to recall that certain home
>>>> automation stuff stopped functioning a year or two ago when the
>>>> company went under & its servers were shut down. Don't remember the
>>>> details, but it convinced me to not even look at any IOT/HA crud that
>>>> required access to an external server.
>>>
>>> Yes, I remember that too - a clear warning against any product whose
>>> ability to function requires existence of the company and its servers on
>>> a minute-by-minute basis.
>>
>> This is the one I remember:
>> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/05/revolv-devices-bricked-google-nest-smar
>> t-home
>> [snip]
>> Also more recently:
>>
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/alr36r/iris_shutting_down/
>> Iris shutting down
>> IRIS
>> Posted byu/DarkL1ghtn1ng
>> 2 months ago
> 
> Sounds like there'd be a business opportunity for someone to run
> alternative servers for all the various devices which are shut down.
> 

But next to impossible when the devices have used certificate pinning. 
Their firmware would need to be updated, which is not something typical 
end users would be able to do, and may also be impossible without a 
relevant signing key.

> Or the systems could be standardised so that the manufacturer and
> "IOT Service Provider" could be separated. But fat chance of that
> given the current state of the industry.
> 
Indeed.

Another approach would be a legal requirement to put a clear warning on 
the sales literature that the product will become unusable immediately 
if the company ceases to support it. Then watch how quickly vendors move 
to address the issue.

Sylvia.

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