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.
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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?
Oh, right, so it’s all just one copy that we’re all sharing, then? Here’s an idea in that case: let’s cut out the middleman, and I’ll share my copy of it with all of you for an agreed price.
Free is my first, best and final offer.Wish people could actually have the willpower to effectively boycott anything enough to later. Happens with iPhone every year, they bitch and moan about it being the hand phone, then go buy one.
I boycott a lot, but its a lonely road. Boycotted Amazon for 5 years, makes Bezos the richest man in the world. Give me the feeling that my decisions absolutely changes nothing. But i do it anyway.
Until they change every storefront to say rent instead of buy/purchase/etc I will believe it.
If I can’t own the game, then you’re not getting my money. Piracy is the only way to actually own it.
That’s the nice thing in digital; i own a lossless copy of it. Without your DRM, btw.
I’m 37 I won’t challenge that, I don’t buy digital games until they’re at least 50% off. Most of the time I only buy digital games when they’re 75-90% off.
Now Sony, Nintendo and Steam (mostly Sony/Nintendo) are misunderstanding me. I’ve got so many games to play, so many physical games. I don’t need the latest EA trash, I don’t need the newest boring uninspired PlayStation exclusive.
I’ve got games for many many months to play. I’ve got so many SNES, PS1 and PS2 games to play.
And when I run out I’ve got so many books to read.
American Sony can chortle my balls. I miss PS1, PS2 and PS3 Japanese Sony
I just made a batocera machine for this, it’s great!
This makes my choice to stop at the ps3 a very good choice.
A digital file is a physical object and you can make copies for individuals to use. I don’t believe the Sony lawyers are stupid enough to believe otherwise.
Sounds like they went to the Donald Trump school of logic.
If we don’t own games then we should just rent them for a small fee and then when done, cancel service
Sony said click “Agree” when downloading.
Sadly, they’re not wrong.
if only one person can buy GTA 6, how can more than one person rent GTA 6?
The answer is always the human centipede
It’s not Lupus.
Patient gaming in a nutshell.
Son it’s time we talked about fractional reserve banking
So lets say one person owns it then through the magic of technology everybody else is playing their shared version
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.
Jesus pirated a bunch of bread and fish.
Exactly
Piracy has never been theft
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
Somehow, Blockbuster returned.
