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.
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.