With the end of physical PlayStation games looming, the need for clear digital ownership rights is more pressing than ever.
For its part, Sony believes your rights are very clear: you do not own your digital games, and it’s unlikely you’re stupid enough to believe otherwise. At least, that’s roughly the argument the company’s lawyers are presenting in response to a proposed class-action lawsuit.
Sony argues that its current customer-facing disclosures ensure that “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into believing they actually own their digital games. That’s according to a Game File report (paid article link) citing an August 21 filing Sony’s lawyers made in California’s Northern District.
if only one person can buy GTA 6, how can more than one person rent GTA 6?
The answer is always the human centipede
Patient gaming in a nutshell.
Son it’s time we talked about fractional reserve banking
Oh really? Then it’s not a store, and it’s not a sale. It’s a leasing office and a lease.
If buying isn’t owning, then pirating isn’t theft.
Exactly
Good point. Don’t say we’re buying it. They use the terminology of ownership when you’re paying money.
Actually this is an alright solution.
They should be forced to change the name of their platform if they want to keep using it. They should be barred from using the term “store”.
They can either continue their business model as is, (as “PlayStation Leasing”) or they can change their policy to include full ownership of games and the right to transfer the games they own to other accounts.
But they don’t get to call it a “store” or use words like “buy” or “sale” if that’s not what they’re actually offering.
They should be barred from using the term “store”.
While I agree with the intent, this would definitely be a losing legal argument, since “store” has a long and common history of usage for rental outlets (“hey, let’s go to the video store tonight and rent a movie”). I think that not allowing them to use the terms “buy” and “sale” could stand as a legal argument, since I don’t believe that there are any examples of people using them when they mean to rent something.
(“hey, let’s go to the video store tonight and rent a movie”)
Well that’s interesting. I’ve never actually heard someone call it that. I mean, I get your point, but actually, if anything I think people tended to call it the rental shop.
But then, even at video rental places they at least did also sell things, movies and candy. So even if they did call themselves a store, those rental places would actually qualify more as a store than a digital content distributor would.
I understand that it was likely not the same in every English-speaking place (rental shop makes it sound like you may be in the UK?), but it was very common usage in the US. It was also used this way even for video rental places that pretty much did nothing else other than rent videos. I don’t know what the origin of this usage was though.
The point that I’m making is that in the eyes of a theoretical jury or judge, this example would be an easy way to demonstrate that “store” didn’t imply that you were actually buying the items in it. Like I said, I agree with the intent, but just don’t think it would fly legally. But who knows, I’m not a lawyer!
I do sincerely hope that if it were to come to the point where a court agrees that consumers are not actually “buying” the items, that they will force the vendors to stop using the terms “buy”, “sale”, and “purchase”. But who am I kidding, that probably won’t happen.
Oh no, I’m from the US, East Coast. I’ve literally never heard anyone say rental store. But that’s fine, doesn’t really matter.
You could still be right, it would probably be possible to convince a judge that this is just common usage. That said, it might be worth trying anyway. You never get any change if you don’t try. And we have the slight advantage of being right.
I see, it could be a West vs. East Coast US thing. Although the example I was talking about was “video store”, used very casually between friends and relatives, etc.
Thanks a good point. Worth trying it anyway!
Absolutely
They dont need to keep trying to convice me to never buy another Sony/ Rockstar product. They keep giving more reasons though.
Sony convinced me that years ago when they sold me an expensive af dvd camcorder and then they hobbled it so it was unusable unless you edited in their crappy software and exported it through their expensive dongles.
They lost me when they removed basic functionality from the PS3 by update. They lost my dad with betamax.
Also can’t forget when they installed a rootkit on your computer for DRM purposes. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that.
I’d say, its your OS fault allowing this.
I always knew but it got confirmed for me about 20 years ago when I bought a 60$ dvd player that could play XviD discs and burned discs with no issues at all, my friend’s 300$ brand new Sony DVD player would not even play some legit DVD’s and refused any burned discs.
If that’s so obvious, then why not state it clearly on the packaging?
Following that logic, pirating software is quite all right, no one is stupid enough to believe someone loses if they make a copy.
Ah yes, because I own my pair of jeans, or my hoodie, I’m the only person in the world with a pair of jeans and a hoodie…
A book would be better example.
You might not own the IP, but you sure as hell own an object containing that IP, which you have an eternal, irrevocable and transferrable license to use.
This right here. The existence of carriers is what has always allowed people to own copies of things they themselves did not create.
Digital “sales” are using mediation to outright ignore that fact that ideas must be expressed in a physical manner for sale. And yes, digital files are physical as long as they continue to be written to storage media like hard drives and tape. Selling access licenses is what they are doing (and I’m okay with that when the companies doing it aren’t asshats about it.) but they also need to stop derailing the discourse with statements about how “we’ve never owned anything ever because we’re not the copyright holder!”
All of this just demonstrates how much IP law has lagged behind and how abusive corporate IP holders are when exploiting loopholes and faulty mental models.
You are also unable to thrift them or donate them because they are licensed to you. Also we maybe take them back when we discontinue the style.
… wait. That’s not obvious. If it was obvious, it wouldn’t be a “Buy now” it would be like a “Purchase License.”
Because thats literally how the rest of the software industry works.
Purchase time limited license
You don’t by Microsoft 365, you subscribe. But you do buy games. Oh wait…
Sony’s lawyers are dumb af
And they would add the dumb word “seat” to it.
I just checked with my wife, giving her no context other than checking out, having paid for a game. She doesn’t understand and said it’s a bunch of bullshit. She doesn’t even play games, she just gets them for someone else as a gift.
Apparently you can’t gift a game because it’s never yours to give.
I find it interesting that the article uses GTA 6 as the example when Sony uses Resident Evil Requiem as the example. It’s clickbait tactics and I hate it.
I was gonna buy a new PlayStation but now I’m not.
Did they teach this in business school? Repulsing customers for profit.
I’m really against the idea of buying any new consoles at this point.
Xbox had a good thing for casuals like me with gamepass. Its very rare I have the drive to replay a game unless it’s solely out of nostalgia…and I find it hard to get “into” a game, so gamepass was perfect for people like me…at the old price point.
Now? Hell nah.
Nintendo made having more than one Switch super fucking annoying if you have a lot of digital games. God forbid you ever want to take one of your portable systems out of the house to play a game, you have to make sure it’s released from the other system first.
And now this crap with Sony.
I feel especially burnt by Nintendo because I still want their exclusives damnit.
Emulation on older consoles is pretty sweet, I’m getting my fix that way
I bought a switch 2 on points because of duskbloods. I have 3 switch lites and a regular switch. I kinda stopped playing for a while and missed the whole virtual card thing until I fired up my new switch 2. So enraged I almost threw it at the window. Luckily 90% of my frames are physical though. But ya the proximity and having them online is bullshit. It’s the same problem I gave with Netflix. Driving somewhere with no WiFi or cell dead zones? Don’t assume those saved videos with play!
I own a copy of the game…
the fucking mental gymnastics needed here are absurd.
I don’t think anyone expects that they are buying the exclusive copyright license for reproduction. People just want to own their copies. You know like with books.
We want this for our games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
Exactly, a perpetual, transferable, non rescindable license
Yep so all the piracy that goes around isn’t illegal either right?
The problem with this argument was their short-sighted business model. They sold digital games for the same price as physical games.
If consumers are accustom to “owning” physical games, and then pay the same price for digital, of course they would assume they own those as well.
If instead you needed to buy a subscription to each game that came out, and they only charged $10/month for the latest AAA game, the “you don’t own it” argument would actually be reasonable.
I am kind of surprised people thought they owned the game at all. I agree with Sony on this one, people are stupid. They own a box. They own a disc. They have some art in their possession, but they don’t own the game and its obvious they will only get to play it if Sony lets them as they own/control the hardware.
The disc only was a way to copy the files to the machine, just like the internet so I fail to really see a difference.
So when we bought games on disc, who was the one person who owned the game? John Sony San, who lives at the top of Sony Tower in Sony Plaza?
Lol this weasel logic they’ll use to justify their petty greed is ridiculous…
