WEBVTT - The Weaponization of EULAs 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.639 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey thereon 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.000 Welcome to Tech Stuff, I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.560 an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the tech 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:22.760 are you? So? Not that long ago, I talked about 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.000 a story about Roku and how the company made a 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:30.720 change to its end User License Agreement or EULA, and 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.160 it raised quite a few eyebrows, even though there's been 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.960 precedent for this. So the new terms included language regarding 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.800 how to resolve disputes with the company. If you're a 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.160 customer and you have a dispute with Roku and you've 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.559 agreed to their ULA, this is how it works. So essentially, 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.560 Roku would require customers to agree to an informal dispute 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.880 resolution clause. Now, this would mean that a user would 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.040 have to agree to bring any legal complaints directly to 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.640 Roku lawyers first before going any further, and at that point, 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.000 the lawyer would presumably present a resolution to the consumer. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.200 And even beyond that, there's a forced arbitration clause that 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.520 essentially says a Roku customer signs away their rights to 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:20.280 bring lawsuits or to join class action lawsuits brought against Roku. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.840 This in itself is not unprecedented. It's not the only 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.560 time a company has said, Hey, in order for you 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.360 to use this stuff, you have to agree that you 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.600 won't sue us if you have a problem with it. 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:36.479 Other companies have included forced arbitration clauses in their EULA statements. 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.120 And those are those things that nobody ever reads, right, 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:41.959 And when I say nobody, I don't really mean no one, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.880 but like, there have been various pieces I've read that 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:50.080 have suggested that only one tenth of one percent of 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.200 all people who agree to a ULA have bothered to 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.120 read any of it, let alone the whole thing. These 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:00.560 agreements are designed to protect companies from liability. They're also 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:05.320 meant to extend copyright protections for stuff that isn't typically 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:09.120 covered under traditional copyright law, or to fill in gaps, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.760 and generally speaking, they tend to hold up in court, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.400 at least they do if they're not poorly constructed. We'll 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.240 talk more about a couple of court cases later in 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.440 this episode to kind of illustrate that. But things get 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.440 worse from here, right, So Roku says, Hey, if you 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.680 agree to this, it means you can't sue US if 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:31.800 something were to happen and you had a dispute, well 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.000 they also had it where if you had a device 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.200 that uses Roku services, like a television with Roku built 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.440 into it, or a Roku streaming device, whatever it may be, 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.200 then you would get prompted to agree to these new 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.480 changes with a big old agree button. So there'd be 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.280 like one option to agree. There was no other option. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.840 You couldn't choose no, I do not agree. So in 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.440 order to opt out of this ula, you would actually 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.880 have to track down the information so that you could 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:04.919 send a handwritten or type letter through the old postal service, Yeah, 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:09.640 good old fashioned US mail. And even then you could 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:11.720 only do it if you had opted out within thirty 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.880 days of the new terms applying to you. Now, these 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.040 terms went into effect on February twenty, twenty twenty four, 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.520 so that time is already up. The deadline has passed. 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.320 Not that I think most people would have taken that effort, 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.040 you know, to write in and opt out of these terms, 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.880 Like it's the sort of thing that a company does 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.720 knowing that practically no one out there is going to 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.320 take the effort to opt out, Like you can opt 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:40.960 in very easily just click that little button, but to 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.600 opt out. You know, it reminds me of a passage 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.920 in a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where you had 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.360 to find the terms of the agreement by going into 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:55.200 a very dark and dangerous basement of a building and 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.720 find it in a disused lavatory that had a sign 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.040 on it saying beware of the leopard. Akin to that, 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.840 and even writing in didn't cut it, like you had 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.240 to do more than that. Customers would have to include 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.960 a lot of information. They had to include their own 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.040 personal information, of course, like their name and their contact info, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.920 but they also had to list whichever Roku products they 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.800 were concerned about, so presumably all the Roku products that 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:24.240 they actually owned and used, and then preferably they were 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.520 to include a copy of the receipt for those items, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.440 although that was also said to be quote unquote optional, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.440 but it was listed as one of the things you 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.520 were supposed to send in was a copy of your receipt. 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.440 And a big old nod to Devin cold Away of 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.680 tech Crunch for writing the article Roku disables TVs and 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.440 streaming devices until users consent to new terms, because that 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.960 really is what inspired this episode. And kind of gave 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.960 me the launching point for it. Anyway, that Roku example, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.720 while seeming to be pretty egregious, is really just one 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.520 in which companies have created lengthy, complicated, and and sometimes 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.479 downright shady terms that they expect customers to agree to, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.040 and most of the time customers do agree to them, 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.520 because again, no one's bothered to read the actual agreement, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.000 and you know, it's hard to fault customers to do this. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.440 I want to tell you I am not the person 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.479 who reads ayula. I don't read all of these EULAs 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.719 all the way through. I might scan one once in 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.400 a blue moon, but that is the exception, not the rule. 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.840 So I am not putting myself above anyone else here, 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:34.920 because who has time to read them? Some EULAs get 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.839 insanely long. Jason Cohen of PC Magazine has an article 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.880 titled it would take seventeen hours to read the terms 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.159 and conditions of the thirteen most popular apps. This was 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.080 written back in twenty twenty, so who knows, it may 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.479 be even more in twenty twenty four. So I think 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.719 folks can be forgiven for skipping reading sessions in order 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.200 to use whatever it was they wanted to use. I've 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.599 seen lots of different summaries of how long some of 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.200 these EULAs are. Like Microsoft had one that was more 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.600 than eighteen thousand words long. Some of them are topping 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:15.880 above twenty thousand words. That's a lot of material. This episode, 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.480 the script I've written out is less than four thousand words, 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.599 and as I'm going through it, you guys know, it 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.560 takes me like more than half an hour to get 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.520 through these episodes. So that's just speaking it out to you. 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.039 These are really long agreements. So today I wanted to 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.200 talk a little bit about why EULAs exist in the 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.599 first place, and to cover what their purpose happens to be. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.800 Some examples maybe that have been a little bit on 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.880 the extreme side, maybe a little bit about the legal cases. 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.680 So let's just jump right in now. To understand the 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.520 humble eula. One thing we need to do is understand 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.960 how digital products are different from physical ones beyond the 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.520 obvious that is. So, for example, let's say you went 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.360 out to a local music's or to purchase an album 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.400 from your favorite artist or group. This album happens to 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.640 be on vinyl, So you're buying a vinyl long playing 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.680 record album, and you bring your purchase home, and then 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.360 you do whatever you want with it. You can listen 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.480 to it. You can listen to it as many times 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.520 as you like. It doesn't matter if you've just listened 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.480 to it one hundred times. You can listen to it 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.080 for one hundred and one. You can trade it with 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.680 a friend for something else. You could gift it to someone. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.000 You could just give it away. You could even sell 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.080 it if you suddenly remembered that you don't own a turntable, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:33.800 so there's nothing else you could do with it. If 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.080 you wanted. You could even just shatter the vinyl in 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.520 a display of unbridled passion. The physical object of that 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:45.080 album is yours. You own that physical object, but it 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.680 is not your intellectual property right. Buying the album obviously 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.560 does not give you ownership of the music that's on 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.280 that album. That seems obvious. If I went out and 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.280 bought a copy of all of the Beatles albums, I 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.040 wouldn't suddenly own the rights to the Beatles discography. That 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.600 would be a chaotic world if it were otherwise. So 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.920 you wouldn't have the right to make endless copies of 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.360 this album to give away to friends. You couldn't do 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.520 that because you don't own the music. Here in the 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.280 United States, you could make a backup copy for yourself. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.280 That is allowed under fair use. So if you bought 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.280 an album, you could make a backup of it. If 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.240 you bought it on vinyl and you thought, I want 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:27.880 to make sure I can listen to this even if 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.920 something happens to this vinyl album, then you could copy 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.440 it to like cassette or even a digital file. But 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.280 that's about the extent of your rights. As far as 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.120 that goes. With a digital copy, things are clearly different. 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.480 There's no physical medium to speak of. There's a file, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.520 and that just consists of zeros and ones arranged in 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.520 such a way that, when processed by the proper program, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.640 is gonna play back a piece of music. You can 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.600 buy such a file, but because that file isn't imprisoned 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.480 in some physical form, the copyright owners want to have 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.880 a way to keep a reasonable or sometimes unreasonable amount 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.640 of control over the distribution of that file. After all, 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.600 if your livelihood depends upon selling digital content, you don't 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.680 want to make a single sale and then see your 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.040 customer go on to make an infinite number of copies 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.040 of that work and then distribute it for less money 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.280 or even for free, because you would be out of 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.200 a job and all of your hard work would be 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.280 out of your control. This very obvious distinction between physical 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.079 media and digital media, which extends beyond just music into 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.000 lots of other realms, creates a bit of a challenge 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.000 for the entities that produce the media in question. We're 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.599 able to treat physical media as personal property. Typically, the 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.080 challenges of making endless copies of physical media are such 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.560 that there isn't that much of a threat to the 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.720 powers that be once you get your grubby little hands 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.880 on that vinyl album. That doesn't mean that the powers 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.760 that be are always cool with advancements in physical media. 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.719 Film and TV studio companies and music studios notoriously have 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.480 been wary of this. Film and TV studios fought against 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.959 the Humble VCR when it became commercially available, and the 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.160 music industry wasn't really keen on the concept of recordable 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.080 cassette tapes or writeable compact discs. But generally speaking, the 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.439 realities and limitations of making physical copies are such that 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.720 any opposition to the technology fades away over time, because 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.320 it turns out the trouble you have to go to 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.240 in order to make a significant number of copies of 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.160 physical media is such that very few people will actually 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.760 bother with it. Right, Like, there are devices out there 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.320 that would allow you to do things like transfer a 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.280 recording from one medium to a whole bunch of copies 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:48.720 at once, but even then it was limited because you're 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:50.880 talking about physical media. So you might have something where 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.360 you can make one master copy and then create ten 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.080 copies at a time, but that's still ten. It's not 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:03.000 you know, thousands or million. So eventually a lot of 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.560 these companies kind of backed off, but a quick side 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.280 on the VCR issue, that one was one that would 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.960 make its way all the way to the US Supreme Court, 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:16.239 namely the Sony Corporation of America versus Universal City Studios, Incorporated. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.600 So this was in nineteen eighty four. So in the 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.760 nineteen seventies, when Sony introduced the Betamax machine, a few 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.440 studios got very upset at what they viewed as a 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.160 device that was just designed for copyright infringement. So Universal 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.040 sued and alleged that Sony should be held liable for 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:35.560 each and every instance of copyright infringement that resulted from 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.880 customers using Betamax in this way, and the case went 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.240 back and forth in the court system. Sony would win 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.520 one case, then Universal would get the decision reversed on appeal, 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.800 and then ultimately Sony submitted the case to the Supreme Court. 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.920 During that case, the court ruled that using a device 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.160 like a VCR for the purposes of time shifting, that is, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.760 being able to watch media on your schedule, not on 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.000 a channel schedule. Because remember this is at a time 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.959 time where you were just watching broadcast television or cable TV, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:06.959 and it was just TV schedules. There was no other 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.560 way to watch. There was no on demand watching. So 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.360 to use a VCR to record a program so that 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.400 you could watch it when you were actually home, the 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.720 court decided that was under fair use. They also found 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.120 that the argument that the Beta Max and devices like 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.559 it were made expressly for the purposes of copyright infringement 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.160 were false. That Beta Max could make copies, but it 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.960 could also just playback tapes that were sold in stores. 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.920 And one other interesting element of this case. One of 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.480 the people who provided testimony in support of VCR technology 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.680 was mister Rogers, as in Fred Rogers, the creator and 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.080 host of the Public television program mister Rogers neighborhood. He 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.520 liked VCRs just the way they were. Okay, we're going 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.440 to talk more about ULA's and the differences between digital 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.120 and physical media, but first let's take a quick break 0:12:55.160 --> 0:13:07.880 to thank our sponsors. We're back. So before I was 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.520 talking about physical media. But digital media is different from 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.240 physical media, and there's no getting around it. It can 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.920 be incredibly easy to make copies of digital media, and 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.559 it isn't governed by the same set of physical restrictions 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.160 and limitations that we get with the physical stuff we buy. However, 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:30.480 there's also often a need to copy digital media legitimately. So, 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.640 for example, if you want to save a file to 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.440 your hard drive, that is copying, and you might have 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.280 to save something to a hard drive in order to 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.880 be able to use the thing you purchase, like some software. 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.760 Let's just talk about software in the good old days 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.840 of physical media, stuff like optical discs, you know, like 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.640 a CD. So let's say you've gone out to a 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.640 physical brick and mortar store because back in the day, 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.520 and you buy a copy of some software that you 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.440 want to use, and you purchase it legally, right, you've 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.280 spent your money on this in a legal retail establishment. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.400 You come back, the software is on a compact disc, 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:10.640 and in order to use it, you actually need to 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.960 transfer the file from the compact disc to your hard 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:16.719 drive and then you're going to be able to use 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:21.360 the software. Except you're not actually pulling the file off 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.240 of the CD, like removing it from the CD and 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.280 then poorting it over to your computer. You're copying the 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.120 file from your CD to your computer. The file information 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.600 is still on the CD, right, it's in two places. Now, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.520 it's on your computer and it's on the CD. But 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:38.200 you've had to do this in order to run the 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.240 software properly, rather than relying on your optical drive the 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.840 whole time. So here's a case where copying the file 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.320 is part of the process in order to use the 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.040 product as it was intended. So this is an allowable 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.160 use case. But making infinite copies of the file that's 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.440 on that CD and then distributing it to everyone you know, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.560 obviously that's not a legitimate use case. So how does 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:07.240 the file's producer distinguish between these two scenarios. They do 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.000 it by creating a licensing agreement. So in this case, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.840 the agreement would grant the licensee the customer, in other words, 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.160 the right to make a copy of the file for 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.280 the purposes of saving the information to their hard drive. 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.800 But this agreement would also spell out that this is 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.200 really the only acceptable instance for making a copy, with 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.480 maybe an exception for making a backup for the interest 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.960 of fair use. That's a possible other clause that could 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.360 be there. So the license agreement defines how the customer 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.360 can use the software legally, and the customer has to 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.360 acknowledge and agree to the license before they make use 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.840 of the software. Sometimes all they have to do is 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.200 just make use of the software, and that ends up 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.720 being an acknowledgment an agreement to the EULA right like 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.320 they may not have to actually click on a button 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.000 or anything. It may be that the EULA spells out 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.640 that by using the software, it intrinsically means the customer 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.360 has agreed to the terms, and the concept is that 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.440 all parties are aware of and agreed to these terms 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:10.000 of use, and then things can go on their own 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.520 merry way. One thing to keep in mind is that 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.280 because of the license issue, what we're talking about is 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:20.920 not ownership, right, it's access. That's what the license grants 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.720 the licensee. It grants them access to whatever it is 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:28.320 that's licensed, but they don't own it. The person that 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.640 or entity that sold it owns it. So even if 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.360 you have a copy sitting on your computer, you don't 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.800 own that copy. You're just licensed to access it. That's 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.240 the foundational idea behind a ULAP. It protects the producer 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.560 and holds customers accountable for accessing the licensed material in 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.760 a very specific and approved way. That's a real kicker, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.760 isn't it, Because being able to access material means that 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.400 the producer can actually define the rules that favor them. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.080 I mean, they're the only party that's making up these rules. 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.360 This is not a negociation. It's not a process where 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:07.840 collaboratively buyer and seller come together and they heckle and 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.679 they come to an agreement. This is where the seller 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.000 gets to dictate all the terms, and they can redefine 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.840 the rules with little to no warning. They can change 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:21.879 the rules after people have already agreed to a different 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.920 set of rules. That's how we get situations like what's 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.760 happening with Roku that you as a customer, maybe you've 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.760 read the whole eula top to bottom, and maybe you're like, 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.119 there's some stuff in here I don't really like, but 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.080 overall I can agree to this, and you move forward, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.640 and then they change the rules of the agreement on you, 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.280 and the next thing, you know, because of the nature 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.000 of you las, you are stuck with an agreement that 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:54.080 you no longer really like or or feel is warranted. 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.600 One example brought up in a book titled The End 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:02.400 of Ownership by Aaron Parson Now and Jason Schultz, which 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.760 I actually purchased for this episode. Great book, by the way, 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.400 I recommend checking it out. But one case is a 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:15.240 pretty infamous one with Amazon and George Orwell's nineteen eighty four. Now, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.200 the fact that it involves nineteen eighty four in particular 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.439 is coincidental, but it's still kind of ironic. So what 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.120 happened was that you had some people who purchased an 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.120 ebook copy of the classic dystopian novel nineteen eighty four 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.280 by George Orwell, which, among other things, warrens of the 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.400 dangers of authoritarian governments and mass surveillance and the control 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.480 of information. But then it turned out that the vendor 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.800 that was selling this ebook over at Amazon didn't actually 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.760 have legal permission to do that. So what did Amazon 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.440 do Well, it pulled the digital copy from the people 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.479 who purchased it, and it then issued a refund. So 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.040 it meant people would turn on an ebook reader like 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.240 a Kindle and then suddenly they see that the copy 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.320 of nineteen eighty four that they had purchased was gone. 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.800 And again, very ironic. It looks like the control of information. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.280 It looks like the thing you bought got reclaimed. And 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.840 when you think about it, that's pretty wild, right. I mean, 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.640 if you had bought a copy of a book from 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.480 a bookstore, like a physical book, you wouldn't expect someone 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.200 from that bookstore to show up at your home to say, hey, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.359 turns out the publisher of that book didn't have the 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.920 right to publish it, so I'm gonna have to take 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.159 it back. That would be crazy. And yet due to 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.720 the nature of digital distribution, this can and did happen 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.879 with Amazon and nineteen eighty four. So a lot of 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.040 news outlets really had a field day about this, and 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.760 I get it. I mean, it's very like poetic and ironic. 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.919 But Amazon was in a tough place because the vendor 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.200 did not have the right to sell the book, which 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.800 meant the rightful parties that could sell the book would 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:55.879 have a really good reason to go after Amazon for 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.879 allowing it to all happen if Amazon didn't do something 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.199 about it. As a modern eula can be structured to 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.600 allow for this kind of thing, where a company can 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.640 reclaim digital material even if you thought you owned it. 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.840 So another great example would be if you purchased a 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.600 digital title on a service like a platform. It's one 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.920 thing to be a subscriber to say Netflix, for example, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.560 it's another thing. Let's say that you are on Amazon 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:28.399 Prime and you've purchased a digital copy of a movie. 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:33.240 Could it be possible for Amazon to revoke that access 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.320 to that digital title in the future. Absolutely, that could happen. 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.359 You know, you could purchase a DVD of the movie, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.479 and you've got that DVD forever, right until the DVD 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:44.560 degrades to a point where you can't use it or 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.920 you don't have a player that can play it anymore. 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:49.159 They could still go obsolete that way, but otherwise you 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.840 still have access to it digitally. If something were to happen, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.280 Amazon could potentially just remove it from your library and 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.879 now you can't access it anymore. That's a possibilit So 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:06.280 the license always has conditions, and if you violate those conditions, 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.359 then you could lose access to the thing you thought 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.679 you had purchased. It can be taken away from you, 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.080 and those conditions can change pretty much at the whim 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.199 of the company that's behind the thing. And it's kind 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.080 of like what Darth Vader said to Lando Calrissian, I 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.000 am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:26.399 any further. This is really an issue with digital media 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.719 in general, not just because of ULA's So again, I 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.239 was talking about Netflix and licensing agreements. Well, there are 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.440 license agreements between Netflix and various studios out there, right, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.159 So you have no guarantee that a title that you 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.879 really like is going to remain on any given streaming service. 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.119 One day it might be there, and then the next 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.840 day it could be gone because of some agreement made 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.280 between the service and the company that owns the rights 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.439 to that title, and it expired and wasn't renewed. I 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.119 always think of that Mitchell and Web Look, which is 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.919 a British comedy sketch show with Rob Web and David Mitchell. 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.439 I found that on Netflix years ago and fell in 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.119 love with that series, loved it and one day the 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.679 series just disappeared. At one point, just the third season disappeared. 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.200 Seasons one, two, and four were still there, but three 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:17.280 went away, and then eventually all of them went away. 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.640 And then I looked to see where I could get 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.120 access to it, and I couldn't anywhere in America. There 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.320 were no legal ways to access the material. I eventually 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.679 had to purchase the English DVDs and get a region 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.320 free player so that I could watch the show because 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.639