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.
So by that logic, I am the only owner of a 2016 Subaru Impreza in the entire world.
I think the reasoning is that there’s only 1 master, and everything else is a copy. But that’s still pretty stupid reasoning.
But at the same time… It’s also technically true. Only 1 entity owns the game and that’s the entity that made it.
There were final prototypes of the 2016 Subaru Impreza and all the others are copies off of that.
Just admit it: I am Mr. Subaru now! /s
The solution seems easy enough, don’t buy or rent anything from Sony until the issue is resolved.
This is fixable if consumers band together. Nobody needs to game on a PlayStation (or play GTA on PC/PlayStation), we need water, food, shelter not GTA6
The solution seems easy enough, don’t buy or rent anything from Sony until the issue is resolved.
This will never work in America. I know people who already bought a PS5 just for this and pre-ordered (!) the game at $1000000 or whatever they’re charging.
People are too inundated with what the newest Thing™ is to actually give a shit about living conditions, it seems like. Deep rooted and normalized conservatism about how things are seems to be most people’s modus operandi.
80 or 100. You were way off
Nobody needs to game on a PlayStation (or play GTA on PC/PlayStation), we need water, food, shelter not GTA6
At face value this seems true, but I’m not so sure it’s that simple. I know, it sounds crazy, but let me explain.
In life, we obviously need water, food, and shelter. However, we can’t spend our entire lives only drinking, eating, and sleeping. There has to be more to life than that, otherwise it will result in increased suffering.
Without hobbies (yes, gaming is of course a hobby), life would be a lot more dull, and many people would feel it’s less worth living. Decreased leisure time/recreational activities time (like time spent gaming) has been linked to increased rates of depression and increased levels of stress. Both of these things can have a profound negative impact on your health and can even result in death.
So while it seems true, I can’t help but think it’s also a little bit reductionist. It does seem to downplay the essential nature of having hobbies, of having something you actually enjoy doing in life.
Then again, you could argue that you don’t need a PlayStation or GTA on PC/PlayStation to accomplish this since there’s so many other games to play, which is fair. I understand that companies like Sony and Rockstar need to be held accountable for the awful things that they do. I just thought I should point out that leisure, and yes hobbies like gaming, are actually pretty essential in a way, and shouldn’t be downplayed in importance.
I get that this is probably an unpopular take, but I don’t think that makes it untrue either.
don’t buy or rent anything from Sony until the issue is resolved.
Way ahead of you. And I don’t see a point in buying anything from them even if there is a resolution. You don’t own the hardware, the software is a moot point.
yeah I wish people understood the blackout only works if you keep doing it. a company like Sony isn’t gonna panic if people stop playing their games for a week. happy to state I was never interested in their stuff in the first place so I’ve haven’t been giving em money ever. I do wish we could get a bloodborne pc port tho
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…
… 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.
One thing I’ve noticed is that, while they call it a store, they’ve gone out of their way to not use the word buy. It says “add to cart”, and that there are “purchases”, and that you can “check out”. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an actual buy button in any App Store I think they’ve seen this coming for a minute.
Purchase time limited license
No, it would just be license. The verb “license”; fulfill contractual agreement for limited use of intellectual property (in this case, monetary payment).
You’ve never purchased software in your life, even if it was delivered to you on a physical medium. (Ok well perhaps some of you own businesses and merged or purchased IP entirely but that’s an exception. I’m talking consumers here)
I’ve seen this argument before; that we don’t own our media, just a license to use them because otherwise that would undermine intellectual property. With respect, I can’t see how that is anything but nonsense.
I mean, if you take it to it’s logical conclusion, then I don’t own my paper book laying next to me and that’s ridiculous. Sure I don’t own the IP to it, but it’s my book. I own it. I can do whatever I want to do with it, as long as I don’t violate copyright and other IP rights like trying to sell copies. But I could still do many things, even modify it, sell it on or make a personal copy to replace the old and damaged book.
When I buy a game, it’s my game and I have the right to do all of those same things with it without infringing on the IP rights of the authors/developers/publishers etc…
Trying to equate owning a copy with owning the IP is nonsensical.
On a related note, the only reason we can’t sell our digital games second hand today, is not for legal reasons, but because every store owner is completely incentivized against it and the regulators have not been incentivized enough to demand it.
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.
if only one person can buy GTA 6, how can more than one person rent GTA 6?
So lets say one person owns it then through the magic of technology everybody else is playing their shared version
Son it’s time we talked about fractional reserve banking
The answer is always the human centipede
Patient gaming in a nutshell.
I own a copy of the game…
the fucking mental gymnastics needed here are absurd.
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.
Most people don’t want their desktop to act like an iPhone.
Following that logic, pirating software is quite all right, no one is stupid enough to believe someone loses if they make a copy.
Not just software. Anything digital that is protected by copyright. Sony has massive media holdings in the television, movie, and music industries. Here’s Wikipedia’s list of assets owned by Sony.
Sony can’t speak for everybody who owns a copyright, but it does seem like they’re making the sort of argument where the logical end result is that they’re giving everybody permission to copy any Sony media without paying.
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.
The price point was the stupidest decision too. Because back in, what, the early 2000s I fucking hated the fact that a digital book was the same price or more expensive than the physical book. People kept saying, “Books are super cheap and you’re paying for the author and publishing, etc.”
No, I’m not. I’m paying for the right to have a book. Once the book is in my hands, I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. If I decide to cut the words out to then put together my own smut, then the publisher can lick my taint.
I do not have the same right to resell a digital book. It better cost me LESS as a result and not give me the bullshit that “I’m paying for publishing…”
I’ve made the argument that what you’re really paying for is a license for the material which is understandable, even in physical form. But no publisher can remove my right to resell the book. Today, publishers can fully yank your “license” to your digital media for any reason or no reason AND FUCKING KEEP YOUR MONEY!
The reason we have this problem is because Congress sucks the cocks of Amazon and other publishers and refuses to regulate the business.
So feel free to pirate because at least you know what you’re getting.
I am kind of surprised people thought they owned the game at all. ~~I agree with Sony on this one, ~~people are stupid. (I guess I actually disagree from that title, people ARE stupid enough to believe they own they game).
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.
Its nice to see the downvotes. I never liked reddit for that, but at least in this instance it affirms my postion. Most people are stupid. Most people are downvoting me. Everything is aligned in the universe.
Think about what I wrote, Sony owns that machine. Your fun little piece of plastic means nothing.
Oh really? Then it’s not a store, and it’s not a sale. It’s a leasing office and a lease.
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.
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.
Somehow, Blockbuster returned.
If that’s so obvious, then why not state it clearly on the packaging?
And this is why I’ve shelved my PS5 until the hacking community catches up to my firmware and lets me modify my console as I want. Please hurry guys. I’d help with the task but sadly I’m useless at coding and software.
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.
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.
A book … which you have an eternal, irrevocable and transferrable license to use.
Bezos in 1994: “And I took that personally”
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.
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.
