Research for app purchases

[Peter Dolding]

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