IMO they should just forbid taking away access. You can't terminate the account. If someone does a chargeback, you can terminate access to what they charged back. You can forbid them to write any additional data in the future. You can decline to sell them anything more. You can sue them for any monies they owe you. But if you're providing property-like digital goods, you must give indefinite read-only access to those goods, even if the account is otherwise banned from interacting with your service.

This is how things should be and I really hope we arrive at this in the future.

I like to call this "ownership light" and it would remove unilateral unaccountable suspension decisions from the equation.

The service provider is not burdened beyond reason and there is still a distinction made between this and "physical ownership" (e.g. no right to inherit / sell the content).

> there is still a distinction made between this and "physical ownership" (e.g. no right to inherit / sell the content).

Are you saying this like it's a good thing?

Yes, that is what I'm thinking.

I recently changed my mind on this and used to believe that digital goods should be treated identical to physical ones.

Fundamentally the nature of things make them different and we should recognize this when discussing what rights which party should get.

Whether the two facts I stated make sense is certainly up for debate, but I don't believe we can move forward insisting that rules imposed by the physicalness ( is this a word) are the same as rules imposed by human society.

The goal must be to find a set of rules that is fair to all participants and I'm certain this it is possible to do this.

If I buy a movie on a DVD, should I be allowed to sell it when I'm done with it? If so, what's the difference between that and selling a digital copy when I'm done with it from the copyright owner's perspective?

> They should just force all these vendors to relabel those buttons to "Rent" or equivalent.

Yeah. That will be a little less misleading. Also with an expiration date "Rent for 5 years". So people know what they are exactly paying for.

Change it to “rent” or give the option to download. You can’t have a contract where the terms change at any time for any reason (apples account termination policy)

They already have a rent option, so Rent (As long as your account is in good standing) and Rent (for a few hours) would be even more confusing.

> They already have a rent option, so Rent (As long as your account is in good standing) and Rent (for a few hours) would be even more confusing.

Perhaps they should make a less confusing service if they do not want their customers to be confused.

Why? You can rent a car for a day or lease it for years.

I'm just saying the term rent is already used in the system.

Even employment contracts work this way in a lot of US states. "At Will" employees can be terminated instantly without notice.

Yeah, but employment termination only applies going forward. The employer can't retroactively take back all of your previous pay. Apple here is keeping his money and also keeping the things he purchased with it.

Then that's a positive change, and it will change the customers' perception when they "buy" something they don't own.

Then I expect to pay considerably less though.