Research for app purchases

[Alexander Larsson]

Thanks a lot for this thorough discussion of Australian laws wrt
selling software. However, I think you might be overthinking some of
the wording in that document. This is an API for how we can (at a
technical level) handle the protection of content in the flatpak
system, not a description of a user-facing service. The listed use
cases are not a description of what flathub will do, but a list of
possible workflows that need to be taken into consideration when
designing the API and mechanisms, to ensure we're not accidentally
limiting us to something that someone might want to do. In fact, even
if something is not possible to do legally in Australia doesn't mean
we should not technically support it, as someone might  want to use it
elsewhere.

Of course, eventually we *do* want to make use of this for flathub,
and then all these legal complexities do come into play. And yes,
things will be different for each geography, so likely any support
will be limited initially and added to incrementally. Of course, even
the initial implementation should take into account things that may
affect other geographies to make it easier to later extend it, so all
kind of info like this is valuable. This stuff is in the future
though, we're just laying the technical foundation for it now, and
when we do look into it legal will be involved too.

On Sun, Dec 1, 2019 at 12:00 AM Peter Dolding <oiaohm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The basic plan here
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zE_QbB6mtdhjH5bsFdf9kPrYvjKAMBRl4uSRYDt-BqQ/edit#heading=h.4e7b49ri8p2g
>
> Need to go legal yesterday.   Particularly legal that understand the
> consumer law and rental for international provide of software.
>
> https://www.claytonutz.com/knowledge/2016/april/acl-reach-broadened-as-accc-wins-case-against-valve-corporation
>
> There is a ruling in Australia that any software installed on your
> machine is goods.   Goods cannot be subscription under Australian law.
>    Goods are rental under Australian law.
>
> We don't have ruling in the usa if software subscriptions for local
> software is in fact legal.     it might also be rental.   Do remember
> as part of the trade agreement between Australia and the USA is that
> we agree to obey each other consumer laws when we send product over
> the board.
>
> >>Not that much at the moment; it’s hard to see how we could enforce that. It should not be trivial through the supported/UI ways of sharing apps (LAN, USB, etc).
>
> This bit from the document need to be reconsidered very quickly.
>
> To start with the
> Subscription model bit need to be split cleanly in two.  Donation
> model and Patron model have kind of been overlapped and that need to
> be changed.
>
> I would split Subscription into Subscription and Rental.   I would
> also consider altering Donation and Patron defines as well.
>
> Everything Subscription under my model would be server side.   Like do
> you get access to updates from the server.   The server is a service
> so under Australian law legally subscription is possible.
>
> Then ownership of applications on your machine has only two legal
> forms here Australia.   That its outright or rented outright
> ownership.
>
> 1) free applications/content currently on flathub these are outright
> ownership and user should be able backup without problems.   Due to no
> fees being changes no consumer law issues or rental law issues.
>
> 2) Purchase model.  This is technically outright ownership and user
> should be able to backup this software no problems in fact the
> interface should make it easy.   Due to taking money has to obey
> consumer law.  Product provided has to be fit for purpose if it not
> end user should be able to get a refund.    So little bit extra
> complexity.   This does not include so called "software as a service
> stuff" where the application stop working due to some remote server
> being no more.
>
> 3)  Application with a nag screen that you have to pay to get rid of
> with a one time token you can back up and use as much as you like.
> This is outright ownership.   Consumer laws stuff still applies.  Does
> not matter if you call it donation or patron.... there are still legal
> requirements at times when you have to refund that money.   It might
> be smarter here to provide a custom extension to application for those
> who are patrons/donation.
>
> This first 3 are simple.     2 and 3 have to pass the fit for purpose
> test the true free applications don't.
>
> 4)  Application with nag screen that will come back because you cannot
> connect to some server.   This is in fact rented under Australian law.
> This comes under consumer and rental law at least here in Australia.
> There is a requirement to compensate if the servers are down.   You
> really don't want to do a one time payment to remove that nag screen
> either.  Rental one time payment is bond mean you are legally not
> allowed to spend it you only get to keep the interest if person wish
> to end their rental you have to return the money.   If you are
> shutdown servers for good you must either give 30 days notice directly
> to the person or 44 days by advertisement in locations the person
> using the server are likely to see it and be willing to return the
> last payment.  See the problem one time payment last payment is the
> complete payment.
>
> 5) software you cannot backup and reinstall simply.  This is rented
> software.  Yes all the requirements of consumer law + rental law.
>
> 6) What people call software as a service.   This is rented software.
> Yes all the requirements of consumer law + rental law.
>
> >> Subscriptions would ideally expire and stop people accessing content pretty rapidly (how rapidly?) after expiry, but this is not currently a requirement
>
> If subscriptions and rental are split line is not a problem but will
> have to be considered carefully.
>
> Subscription ending cutting off server access this is a service and
> can be very legal todo instantly as long as it does not break the
> function of rented software.
>
> Now if you are cutting off rented software things can get very
> horrible very quickly do note the 30-44 days notice requirement in
> rental laws there can be some quite big fines for not obeying this.
> So the servers like flathub providing software and the installed on
> person machine software do need to be treated differently at least for
> Australian customers.
>
> Yes you really need to be thinking what is rented and what is outright
> in the local installed software and how that effects what I am doing
> server side.
>
> Server side Donation and Patron that just unlocks you means to
> download more free applications/content on the server side no nag
> screens in applications and so on means not having to deal with
> consumer or rental laws.
>
> If a being donation or patron once means you can disable nag screen
> you have to obey consumer law but not rental laws.
>
> If you want application to put nag screen back if you don't keep
> paying your donation/patron fees this is now consumer laws and rental
> laws.  Yes the nag screen is fitting as lock and fitting a lock on a
> any form of rental required 30/44 days notice and the nag screen
> technically cannot be the notice because that is putting a lock on the
> goods.   Yes you should send out like a email 30/44 days in advance of
> nag screen coming back.
>
> Remember the app store access application could have a method for
> display one what you are paying donations on and what ones you have
> Patron on and what ones you are not paying on that you could be.
> This is not a nag screen it just displaying status information some of
> this status information for privacy you might store locally like the
> last time you paid a donation to a project and how much.
>
> Rental laws bring fun things to the table lot of nag screens put you
> under rental law.  Why is because is effective fitting a lock to the
> object so hindering means to use.
>
> Please note this is only from the Australian law stuff.   Not all the
> countries the USA has made trade agreements with agreeing to obey
> there countries consumer laws/rental laws when products are shipped to
> those countries and those countries agreed to the reverse when goods
> are shipped to the USA.   Yes dealing internationally gets complex.
> This is why the complete plan need to go though some detail
> international law legal review including the legal requirements to
> turn nag screens back on.   Some of this could be different country to
> country.   Basically how the services will have to act will depend on
> what country the software is going to.
>
> I would really recommend splitting the ideas of rental and
> subscription due to how many countries rule that software installed on
> computers is goods and goods cannot be subscription ever so Software
> in those countries installed on computers are always rental or
> outright ownership so pure black or white status no legal shades of
> grey here.   Keeping rental for what can be called goods in countries
> and subscription for what is truly server provided service makes
> taking on the problem a lot simpler.
>
> Peter Dolding
>


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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                Red Hat, Inc
       alexl at redhat.com         alexander.larsson at gmail.com