Web Excursions 2021-09-09
Apple's Planned App Store Changes Will Barely Affect the Company's Bottom Line, Says Analyst
App Store revenue from the top 10 “reader” apps accounts for less than 8% of overall App Store revenue,
suggesting the financial risk to Apple from these developers circumventing the in-app purchase system is “fairly small.”
Assuming a worst case scenario
in which Apple stopped collecting economics from all of the top 20 reader apps translates to
downside risk of 4% of Services revenue,
1% of total company revenue, and
about 2% of FY22 EPS forecast
Spotify and Netflix already disabled the ability for new users to subscribe to their services through Apple’s in-app purchase system
since 2016 and 2018 respectively,
meaning Apple hasn’t collected a commission on new subscriptions to either app for at least three years.
Who Lost the Sex Wars?
The women’s-liberation movement in the United States, from its beginning in the late sixties, had been characterized by tensions between
socialist feminists (or “politicos”)
who saw class subordination as the root cause of women’s oppression and
feminists who thought of “male supremacy” as an autonomous structure of social and political life.
At the same time, there had been growing tensions between
feminists (like Ti-Grace Atkinson and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz)
who embraced separatism
and, sometimes, political lesbianism as the only acceptable responses to male supremacy, and
feminists (like the “pro-woman” members of the group Redstockings, founded by Shulamith Firestone and Ellen Willis, in 1969)
who rejected such “personal solutionism”
for its rebuke of heterosexual desire and
its tendency to alienate “non-movement” women.
Today’s trans-exclusionary feminists typically claim that
they seek to dismantle a gender system that oppresses girls and women.
Yet they tend to reinforce the dominant view that certain bodies must present in particular ways.
there are feminists who are critical of trans women’s claims to womanhood
because of an ideological commitment to what they consider radical-feminist principles.
In particular, the view that gender is a “social construction”—
that, in Simone de Beauvoir’s phrase,
one is “not born, but becomes, a woman”—
has been taken by some feminists to imply that trans women who have not undergone “female socialization” cannot be women.
Antiporn feminists saw in pornography the ideological training ground of male supremacy.
(“Pornography is the theory, and rape the practice,” Robin Morgan declared in 1974.)
Their feminist opponents saw the antiporn crusade as a reinforcement of a patriarchal world view
that denied women sexual agency
But my women students quickly discover, as an earlier generation did, that there is no monolithic “women’s experience”:
that their experiences are inflected
by distinctions in class, race, and nationality,
by whether they are trans or cis, gay or straight, and also
by the less classifiable distinctions of political instinct—
their feelings about authority, hierarchy, technology, community, freedom, risk, love.
My students soon find, in turn, that the vast body of feminist theory is riddled with disagreement.
It is possible to show them that working through these “wars” can be intellectually productive, even thrilling.
But I sense that some small disappointment remains.
In “The Transgender Issue,” Faye,
who cites Andrea Long Chu’s description of gender dysphoria as “feeling like heartbreak,”
follows the conventional line that “gender dysphoria is a rare experience in society as a whole . . . which can make it hard to explain to the vast majority of people.”
It is true that a very small percentage of human beings feel sufficient distress about their bodies to need hormonal or surgical intervention.
It is also true that many non-trans women know something of the heartbreak caused by a body that betrays—
that weighs you down with unwanted breasts and hips;
that transforms you from an agent of action into an object of male desire;
that is, in some mortifying sense, not a reflection of who you really are.
That’s not to say that the precise character, intensity, or longevity of such distress is the same for trans people and non-trans women.
But what might a conversation between women, trans and non, look like
if it started from a recognition of such continuities of experience?
These days, it can seem that, because feminism is so pervasive, so much on the best-seller lists and the syllabi and Twitter, we already know all about it.
But there is, unsurprisingly, still much to learn.
French Appeal Court affirms decision that copyright claims on GPL are invalid; must be enforced via contractual dispute
Brief of the case of Entr’Ouvert vs Orange on a GPL copyright violation.
Entr’Ouvert, a small software company, was developing a GPL authentication library called Lasso since 2003 (an SAML authentication library).
Orange Business Service used the library when developing a nationwide authentication service for France since 2005 (mon service public).
Orange Business Service is the contracting arms of Orange, the national French ISP (previously named France Telecom).
The case went to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in 2019 and
went to the Cour d’Appel recently in 2021,
with a referral to the European Court of Justice (CJUE) in between.
The case went to Appeal Court of Paris on 19 March 2021, after the decision of the CJUE in 2020.
ALL courts so far have dismissed all copyright claims, asserting that the GPL (and software license generally) is a contract and can only be pursued as a contractual dispute in contract court.
The decision of the courts is effectively preventing software authors from defending their authors’ rights in any case where there is an open-source license.
In first instance, the tribunal de grande instance de Paris
dismissed all the copyright/IP related claims,
stating that the GPL is a contract and can only be enforced via contact.
Entr’Ouvert lost the case, they had to pay damages and various fees to Orange.
Even though all the copyright claims were denied, Entr’Ouvert won and was awarded 150 000 euros in damages and various fees, for parasitis
In appeal, the appeal court maintained the decision to dismiss all copyright claims… with a twist about an anti-competition French law from the 1960s.
The Appeal Court decided to maintain the first decision, denying all counterfeiting/copyright/IP claims,
however they granted one claim of parasitism.
Orange lost the case and they had to pay 150 000 euros in damages plus various fees.
parasitism is a French law that goes back to the 1960s or so.
by which a business is trying to profit from the reputation or the investments from a competitor,
notably by spoofing their fame or they know-how and creating confusion in the mind of the customers.
To make a parallel with the US and the UK, this would be something related to antitrust, unfair or anti-competitive practices.
There’s two major ways to enforce copyright, or that’s what people thought before this case:
Under copyright/IP law, you can sue for counterfeiting.
It’s similar in both US law (Copyright) and French law (IP Law, article L335-2) and
under some European convention on intellectual property.
Under contract law, you can sue for breach of contract.
It’s similar in both US and French law.
The strategy that is well tried in the US is to go for counterfeiting/copyright, to seek the most damages. Copyright/IP law can carry significantly more damages, both in France and in the US, compared to a contractual dispute.
In French law, it’s only possible to pursue a single domain, be it contract-law or criminal-law or IP-law.
If a case spans multiple domains, it might be ruled on either depending on circumstances, and
as soon a claim is settled all claims are closed
Damages in each violation
For an IP violation, the court typically looks at the gain of the counterfeiter
For a contractual violation, the court typically looks at the loss of the victim. That may be some licensing fees and contracting fees for Entr’Ouvert.
Jurisdiction of each violation
counterfeiting case goes to the Tribunal de Grande Instance (High Court),
contractual case between two companies goes to the Tribunal De Commerce (Trade Court)
Entr’Ouvert followed the counterfeiting strategy, they sued for counterfeiting and got dismissed.
In EU, each country has its own legal system and laws.
When the European Union votes on some directives, each text they agree on will actually be adjusted and translated and
incorporated into each member’s state at their own discretion, eventually.
Only then it can be applied by each country.
There is no “European law”,
there are only directives and conventions whose power is limited.
The French court referred to the CJUE the below question and they replied on 18th December 2019
Does a software licensee’s non-compliance with the terms of a software licence agreement ([…]) constitute: –
an infringement (for the purposes of Directive [2004/48]) of a right of the author of the software that is reserved by Article 4 of Directive [2009/24] on the legal protection of computer programs, –
or may it comply with a separate system of legal rules, such as the system of rules on contractual liability under ordinary law?
In layman terms, the CJUE decided that IP can be enforced in any way by each individual member’s state.
It doesn’t matter “how” as long as it satisfies the guarantees of the directive
(there must be a procedure that’s fair and equitable and not too costly…).
There is an European Directive on Intellectual property, European Directive 2004/48/EC.
It’s supposed to give some minimal common grounds,
acknowledging the existence of intellectual properties in various forms
(notice it doesn’t say copyright but IP).
What happens next?
Entr’ouvert got 150 000 euros in damages.
They can leave it at that and take the money.
Or they can appeal to the cour de cassation to assert counterfeiting and we will find out what’s the result in a few years.
The cour de cassation doesn’t judge cases,
it judges whether the law is observed and interpreted as it should be by the courts.
In this case it will consider both the national law and the European directive and come up with something.