'licensed, not sold, to you'

As I’ve blogged about a couple of times recently, I’m currently reading R. Sikoryak’s Terms and Conditions, a graphic novel adaptation of the 2015 iTunes Terms and Conditions document, which no one ever reads.

I was struck (if not surprised) by something stated explicitly in the document, which appears on p. 59 of Sikoryak’s volume:

The software products made available through the Mac App Store and App Store (collectively, the “App Store Products”) are licensed, not sold, to you.

I’ve often thought and talked about this in the context of Kindle ebooks. I built up a fairly large collection before I started trying to avoid Amazon (and still add to it when there’s not a good alternative), and I know that despite all the money I’ve spent on that collection, Amazon could revoke my license at any point. I haven’t thought about that as much in terms of Apple purchases, so this was a chilling reminder.

• Apple
• R. Sikoryak
• Terms and Conditions (comic)
• terms of service
• alienation of ownership
• Amazon
• Kindle