Apple Hit With $5 Billion Class Action Lawsuit Over eBooks Availability

[MallardDuck]

So they're going after kindle and nook too, right?

And every other place that sells digital media?

Class-action trolls are as bad as patent trolls.

 

[hagar]

How much more money does the EU want from US companies? This is unacceptable.

Oh wait…

 

[mpuk]

If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing.

That sounds like fighting talk. I like it.

 

[mpuk]

This is how most digital content works. What should have been done before digital downloads took over was sane government guidelines for access.

...what should have happened before sane government guidelines was sane government.

 

[Timo_Existencia]

Completely irrelevant, please stop bringing up your obsession with Apple pulling out of markets rather than be required to comply with the law.

No, to the sarcastic point you were trying to make, it makes all the difference in the world. Government action is not the same as a lawyer fishing in the courts for a finding against Apple. Perhaps you don't understand the distinction.

 

[@Brett]

Read the T&Cs. Recently I bought tv shows from Apple. It advised that if I download them that no one including Apple can take them away. But other companies have had to admit recently that you are basically not buying anything you a buying the license to the content.

 

[spazzcat]

Just because a multi-trillion dollar corporation sneaks a clause allowing them to steal from you into an bunch of garbage deliberately written to not be understandable by humans, that doesn't make it right.

Apple isn't the owner of the content, the content creators require this not Apple.

 

[ignatius345]

Apple isn't the owner of the content, the content creators require this not Apple.

Which matters to me 0% if something I paid for disappears.

 

[ignatius345]

So they're going after kindle and nook too, right?

And every other place that sells digital media?

Hope so! Nothing special about Apple here. Digital property rights need to be reformed and you gotta start somewhere.

Class-action trolls are as bad as patent trolls.

Won't somone please think of these these poor, poor corporations?

 

[mrochester]

Which matters to me 0% if something I paid for disappears.

It matters to you 100% since it’s the reason it’s disappeared.

 

[arc of the universe]

in the future, we will own nothing.

to use a term currently understood, we will be "leasing" everything.
books.
personal cars.
toys.
cookware.
land (the property your house is on).

apple may be at fault this time since it may have not made the terms of "sale" completely clear in an (easy) way for people to understand.

in the future, ownership will not be banned outright.
but the price of something, if you do decide to "buy" (own) it, will be so high that only the top 1 or 2 % will be able to actually own that thing.

for most people, it will be impossible to pass on any generational wealth.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

The whole practice of media that one has purchased and just disappears when the seller is no longer licensed should only apply to new sales. If Apple loses their license to sell a movie or a book, the movie or book company has an obligation to keep providing the product that was purchased! Just like any company that sells something, you have an obligation to support and provide service and parts even if you stop making the product.

Just because it's in the T&C doesn't make it legal. What's in the T&C has to be legal to begin with.

 

[Nermal]

Is it even possible to backup DRM protected books and then restore them to a new device, or a device that has been restored from scratch?

The other question I have is around how to tell whether or not the book is DRM-protected before you buy it. The first few I bought were DRM-free so I assumed they all were, then I "bought" another and found that it was protected. Where is this shown?

I've had a DRM-free book disappear out of my library but I was able to manually copy the file back in again.

 

[revfife]

This is why physical copies (books, music, videos) will never go away.

Ownership of media vs rental of media.

 

[nottorp]

The only digital media that you own is the one you torrented yourself - and only if you have a good back up strategy.

Interesting enough though, for games, on the likes of Steam and GoG, you don't lose access to whatever you "bought" if it's removed from sale. It vanishes from the store but not from your library.

I bet it's not the same for games from the Apple app store ...

Is it even possible to backup DRM protected books and then restore them to a new device, or a device that has been restored from scratch?

Yes, if you get the cracked version from one of the well known sources after buying the DRM version and ignoring it

 

[turbineseaplane]

I bet it's not the same for games from the Apple app store ...

It's a disaster on this front ... so so so many great 32 bit early era iOS games have been lost forever already.

It's so sad.

I'd still be playing Motion X Poker Dice if I could be.

 

[Nekronos]

I was ripped off by this situation. I was able to recover a book because it was physically on my Mac and I could install onto my iPad by connecting the two with a cable. However, it took an hour on the phone to Apple to figure this out. I since copy all ebooks I buy from Apple to PDF.

is there a free way to convert ebooks whether its from apple or kindle to PDF??

 

[mevans7]

This is why I read digital books on Libby through the library. Free. I don't have to store them. I don't care about licenses.

 

[MNGR]

There needs to be a change in the law so consumers can fully own the digital content they purchase.

Content providers like Apple and Amazon should not be allowed to legally remove purchased content including ebooks, music and video.

Apple does not own the content . They can provide a license to read/watchl/listen.
The creator owns them.
Which is clear from the T&Cs

 

[MNGR]

Am I missing something? People are talking about the customer not really owning the books, but the terms appear to say you can download and back up the books to another device or drive, which is even different from how Apple handles licensed music. Seems users could always have downloaded and kept the books, but just didn't know and never thought to move them from the Books app.

Amazon just changed there policies to prevent transfer

 

[MNGR]

My goodness, download the books and move the epub elsewhere, save them in calibre and sync it back into books by opening it in Finder.

It is not an epub

 

[KnowsHowItWorks]

At this point im not even sure what is worse. Concept of “license to read a book” or it’s revokabily… Thats a f. Book! A bunch of damn letters.

 

[Rafagon]

It's ironic that the law firm that sued them has Siri in their name.

Siri turned on Apple. Got tired of its lies, became intelligent on her own, and sued their ass.

 

[goobot]

Everyone saying the tos completely forget that many TOS’s are thrown out because they have illegal terms in them.

 

[mannyvel]

Everyone saying the tos completely forget that many TOS’s are thrown out because they have illegal terms in them.

And everyone saying "no TOS" doesn't understand that clickthrough licenses are enforceable and severable.