I feel its fair to give content providers a few options, but they must be forced into it by our government by choosing one of:
1. Provide an unencumbered, fungible export of the content purchased, either at the time of the customer's choosing or once upon account termination (for any reason whatsoever).
2. Provide a full refund of purchased content at the time of content-provider initiated account termination (for any reason whatsoever).
3. Replace the language on these types of purchases with the word "Rent", with an associated rental timeframe of exactly these words: "Indefinitely, until {ContentProvider} permanently revokes your access with no warning, reason, or recourse."
"That's a lot of words to fit on a one-click checkout button" -> Yeah, that's the problem. These companies have spent years lying to their customers about digital content availability, driving growth and dominance by hiding the truth and making it easy. All of that text needs to be upfront, right where the customer sees it; not hidden behind a popup dialog with a cute little question mark next to it.
"That text is kinda scary, and doesn't properly represent the average consumer's experience" -> Well, that's weird, because that's almost exactly how most of these providers word the terms of these purchases in their terms of service. You know, those documents no one reads.
The fact that content providers can, at a moment's notice, revoke anyone's access to potentially thousands of dollars of purchased content, for any reason, with no recourse, is absolutely insane. Its one of the biggest mockeries of our digital age. It should never have been allowed; its a pattern that only gained market traction because no average, reasonable, typical customer realizes or considers that these service providers can take away their content.
To be clear: There is a ton of digital content which needs to be classified under this banner; its not just movies.
* Movies & TV (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play).
* Books (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play). Some of these providers are nearly compliant, offering decently accessible exports in oftentimes DRM-encumbered formats. DRM has to go to be compliant with (1); if that's not an option, well, there are other ways.
* Music (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Bandcamp). Almost everyone here is already compliant thanks to MP3/AAC/FLAC/etc exports. Awesome!
* App Store Apps & In-App Purchases (Apple, Google). Attaining compliance with (1) here is almost impossible (though a point-in-time, downloadable and independently installable application package may work! the gall to consider offering that!)
* Digital Video Games (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Epic, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna). At least some of these providers are so close; just strip the DRM and you can be compliant with (1). I mean jeeze, offering a refund would suck wouldn't it; wouldn't it just be better to be friendly to your past customers?
* Video Game Digital Content (Epic/Fortnite, EA/Apex Legends, Activision/Call of Duty, etc). Many of these games sell in-game cosmetic and/or gameplay-altering items; some of them sell in-game lottery cards that will give you these items. These games are actually the worst offenders of the whole list, because they all run anti-cheat systems that are horribly inaccurate in-terms of false-negatives and false-positives. People just get banned, for literally no reason except "they got reported a lot and were running some RGB software for their keyboard" every single day. Everyone banned by these systems is marked a dirty cheater; they'll ignore your support requests, and sometimes even hardware-id your computer and share those hardware-id lists with other game companies. Compliance with (1) is impossible. They need to offer refunds or be honest about what you're buying; this may tangentially add a direct profit incentive to building good, accurate anti-cheat, which is something nearly none of them care about.
1. Provide an unencumbered, fungible export of the content purchased, either at the time of the customer's choosing or once upon account termination (for any reason whatsoever).
2. Provide a full refund of purchased content at the time of content-provider initiated account termination (for any reason whatsoever).
3. Replace the language on these types of purchases with the word "Rent", with an associated rental timeframe of exactly these words: "Indefinitely, until {ContentProvider} permanently revokes your access with no warning, reason, or recourse."
"That's a lot of words to fit on a one-click checkout button" -> Yeah, that's the problem. These companies have spent years lying to their customers about digital content availability, driving growth and dominance by hiding the truth and making it easy. All of that text needs to be upfront, right where the customer sees it; not hidden behind a popup dialog with a cute little question mark next to it.
"That text is kinda scary, and doesn't properly represent the average consumer's experience" -> Well, that's weird, because that's almost exactly how most of these providers word the terms of these purchases in their terms of service. You know, those documents no one reads.
The fact that content providers can, at a moment's notice, revoke anyone's access to potentially thousands of dollars of purchased content, for any reason, with no recourse, is absolutely insane. Its one of the biggest mockeries of our digital age. It should never have been allowed; its a pattern that only gained market traction because no average, reasonable, typical customer realizes or considers that these service providers can take away their content.
To be clear: There is a ton of digital content which needs to be classified under this banner; its not just movies.
* Movies & TV (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play).
* Books (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play). Some of these providers are nearly compliant, offering decently accessible exports in oftentimes DRM-encumbered formats. DRM has to go to be compliant with (1); if that's not an option, well, there are other ways.
* Music (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Bandcamp). Almost everyone here is already compliant thanks to MP3/AAC/FLAC/etc exports. Awesome!
* App Store Apps & In-App Purchases (Apple, Google). Attaining compliance with (1) here is almost impossible (though a point-in-time, downloadable and independently installable application package may work! the gall to consider offering that!)
* Digital Video Games (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, Epic, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna). At least some of these providers are so close; just strip the DRM and you can be compliant with (1). I mean jeeze, offering a refund would suck wouldn't it; wouldn't it just be better to be friendly to your past customers?
* Video Game Digital Content (Epic/Fortnite, EA/Apex Legends, Activision/Call of Duty, etc). Many of these games sell in-game cosmetic and/or gameplay-altering items; some of them sell in-game lottery cards that will give you these items. These games are actually the worst offenders of the whole list, because they all run anti-cheat systems that are horribly inaccurate in-terms of false-negatives and false-positives. People just get banned, for literally no reason except "they got reported a lot and were running some RGB software for their keyboard" every single day. Everyone banned by these systems is marked a dirty cheater; they'll ignore your support requests, and sometimes even hardware-id your computer and share those hardware-id lists with other game companies. Compliance with (1) is impossible. They need to offer refunds or be honest about what you're buying; this may tangentially add a direct profit incentive to building good, accurate anti-cheat, which is something nearly none of them care about.