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.
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.
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.