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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday July 01 2020, @02:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the gone-with-the-wind dept.

https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/06/30/do-we-really-own-our-digital-possessions/

During 2019, Microsoft 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.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:29AM (1 child)

    by ledow (5567) on Thursday July 02 2020, @07:29AM (#1015308) Homepage

    I don't even own the house I live in, owning (or not) an eBook that I read once and would be refunded for when it goes is the least of my worries.

    P.S. Have good job, have perfect record, have "owned" (via mortgage) houses in the past. Can literally only get a mortgage for a tiny, crap, 1-bed or studio flat in a bad area, no parking, anywhere within an acceptable driving range of my job.

    Ironically, I pay twice as much in rent (for a two-bed huge two-level apartment with private parking 10 minutes from my job) as I would be allowed to "get into debt" for as a monthly payment for a mortgage. The mortgage is literally limited to a strict (and pathetic) multiple of my income, whoever I go to, no matter what, despite no other significant expenditure whatsoever (even my car is paid off). I'd just have to save until I can buy over half-a-house in one hit.

    I'm over 40 and I can't get a place to live that I can't be thrown out of with only a month's notice, basically.

    Ownership of digital goods is literally something that I've never worried about. I have a Steam account. It's "worth", if you were to try to repurchase it all at non-sale prices, about £1000, and is 16 years old. If it disappeared tomorrow with no refund, I've had way more than that amount of money out of it.

    Sorry, but in the current climate the next generation aren't going to "own" anything - their own art, TV, film, computers, operating systems, property, vehicles, phones, their own data, anything. An ebook store closing *and refunding* their money is the least of their worries.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @02:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @02:33PM (#1015403)

    Well, you could note that failure to pay property taxes could result in an involuntary delinquency sale of the property, so you could ask if you ever really owned the house at all even after the mortgage is paid off. The state owns it, you pay the rent to them in taxes. Now if failure to pay taxes only resulted in a lien against inheritance or future sale of the property, you might own it. And I say that as someone in the process of buying a home after having rented for 15 years.

    I think the majority of the next generation may not be allowed to tie themselves down in one location if they want to advance themselves, anyway. Data may be one of the very few things that one has a pathway to owning. Who knows.