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We Don't Really Own the Digital Possessions That We Buy Online

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

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @01:20PM (#1015378)

    For cars in particular, my mechanic can replace any of the un-computerized parts. But for anything involving the system computer, he needs to use special software to interface with it and the software varies for each major manufacturer. For some of the manufacturers, third party products that are reverse engineered versions of the manufacturer software are available. Very few of the manufacturers make the software available for free. Without it, you can't fix certain classes of problems. Every few years some of the automakers try to lock third parties out of accessing their vehicle software at all in some states, and independent repair shops in the US actually have a lobbying body that works with state legislatures to protect right-to-repair.

    There is the relatively famous case of John Deere tractors, and John Deere's attempts to make it illegal to repair them unless you're an authorized repair service. See https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware [vice.com]

    And I think the biggest example of planned obsolescence is smart phones. Eight years ago lots of smart phones were getting high ratings for ease-of-repair by third parties. Now most of them are getting low ratings. For the phones and tablets my wife and I have tried to repair ourselves, we've had a decent success rate with the tablets and a terrible one with the phones. If the Fairphone products supported the LTE bands in the US we would get one.