As much as I want the court to decide that “buy” cannot mean anything less than “indefinite and irrevocable license” I’m expecting the judge to decide the case in Apple’s favour on the basis that consumer expectations have changed over the past 15 and that no “reasonable person” would expect a $15 impulse-buy of an intangible product to _last_. After all, you may have your VHS tapes from K-Mart you bought 30 years ago, but can you actually watch them? And you are “buying” a license to DRM’d content after-all and “buy” isn’t legally defined that way (Yes, I recognise it’s a terrible argument, just playing Devils’ advocate)
…or Apple will just change “Buy” to “Get” and it won’t make a difference to their bottom-line at all. I’ll bet that Apple’s profits - or even revenues - from purchases on iTMS for movies and TV shows are a rounding error compared to AppleTV+ subscriptions - and iPhone hardware sales, of course.
> After all, you may have your VHS tapes from K-Mart you bought 30 years ago, but can you actually watch them
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or just a bad example. Yes, you can still watch VHS tapes, since they're physical media that can be decoded by a VHS playback device. You might have trouble finding the hardware, but if you have the hardware, it will still run – it's not going to require a software update.
> I can't tell if this is sarcasm or just a bad example
A bad example given HN's audience - but I imagine of most normal-people, the majority of those with a VCR will have left it in the attic or basement and never bothered to connect it to their modern LCD TV. If it was a home-video camcorder vid then it's likely already converted to DVD if it's worth preserving.
My guess is that Apple will say: “You’re free to root it and do what you want, but we don’t cover that with a warranty.”
In that sense, you do own an Apple product. But if you want to stay in their nice little walled garden, that ownership is more like buying a house that comes with a benevolent dictatorship HSA.
Apple will never publicly admit to the possibility of rooting their devices, especially not to allow bypassing DRM: they'd lose all their friends in Hollywood overnight.
Yes, but a non-insignificant portion of their revenue comes from content from third-party media companies. They very much have an incentive to play ball with the likes of Disney & Sony, despite having the upper hand in terms of market cap.
As much as I want the court to decide that “buy” cannot mean anything less than “indefinite and irrevocable license” I’m expecting the judge to decide the case in Apple’s favour on the basis that consumer expectations have changed over the past 15 and that no “reasonable person” would expect a $15 impulse-buy of an intangible product to _last_. After all, you may have your VHS tapes from K-Mart you bought 30 years ago, but can you actually watch them? And you are “buying” a license to DRM’d content after-all and “buy” isn’t legally defined that way (Yes, I recognise it’s a terrible argument, just playing Devils’ advocate)
…or Apple will just change “Buy” to “Get” and it won’t make a difference to their bottom-line at all. I’ll bet that Apple’s profits - or even revenues - from purchases on iTMS for movies and TV shows are a rounding error compared to AppleTV+ subscriptions - and iPhone hardware sales, of course.