Everything! That’s right boys and girls, because of the way many products are being sold in today’s fast paced digital age, not only do you not own several things that you think you do, but as time goes forward you won’t own more and more of it. Whose to blame you might ask? Why, it’s Congress, who would have guessed.
This rant comes on the heals of Friday’s decision by the 9th District Court of Appeals (Ahhh 9th district how we love you so, so many kooky rulings over the years). Due to the nature of the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act (Or “The way Congress really screwed over the consumer” to those of you who haven’t read it) the 9th circuit court of appeals overturned a ruling whereby a man was trying to sell software on ebay. The software company decided that, due to the nature of the license it had provided the user with, that it hadn’t actually sold the user the product, but only the right to use the product. Hence the user had no right to sell the product on ebay.
Kind of like the user was paying rent on the software. Kind of like the rent you might pay to use your TiVo or similar DVR device. If you think I’m crazy go grab any software you might have purchased in the last few years and actually read the Terms and Conditions Agreement that we all just cavalierly click through. Embedded in that long list of Do’s and Don’ts for the software is something that says “Oh by the way you don’t actually own this since you are signing this thing.” It’s actually at the very top under “License to Use”. You see, you aren’t signing a License to Own. You are signing a License to Use. You are signing a Lease. You don’t own that software. You’re just paying a one time fee to lease it from the company that made it and they will come after you if you violate the terms of the lease, just like a landlord.
So where does this leave things? Well it’s pretty precarious actually, and potentially really crappy. You see, given the option, no company in its right mind would ever sell you a permanent product if it can instead lease the product to you and force you to follow it’s use rules (*cough cough Apple cough Bastards cough cough*. And since the software companies get to lease everything instead of sell it, why can’t every other company? Physical impossibility used to be the answer. It used to be impossible to track every book, piece of art, appliance, or piece of furniture, but not anymore. Not thanks to the internet. Now, as long as you hook something up to the internet, a company can track it.
“Well I just won’t hook it up to the internet then!” I hear you say. Well too f*&king bad. The lease requires you to register the product online to activate it. Now your fridge won’t run unless it’s been linked online to the manufacturer. Same thing with your TV, vacuum cleaner, and personal massage wand. Granted your average table and couch won’t be much affected by this, but anything electronic and that you have to interact with will be. That is unless Congress gets off it’s fat, lazy, stupid, old, bastard ass and changes the really stupid law it put in effect.
Please VOTE THIS YEAR!
