12 ms·

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after the sale. This means that a company cannot "revoke" your access at a later time. Specifically for content that is DRM locked, if they decide to sunset that service (store, DRM server, whatever), no problem! just offer DRM free (or generally lock-free copies). I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership. (Multiplayer games that require server infrastructure are a bit more complex, and I'd leave aside for now). This should apply equally to video games, movies, books, music. Any digital content.

norome 2mo ago
I bought a bunch of games on google stadia when that was a thing, and when they closed the service down i was fully refunded on all games. pretty cool
- abustamam 2mo ago
  While I agree it is pretty cool, I think they probably did that to avoid a class action lawsuit. But that does also beg the question, if we do eventually regulate this better, do you own streamed products? IE with Google stadia (and I think Amazon Luna) you buy a game but the game data is streamed to your device. If they shut the service down (like Stadia did) then what happens to your game collection? It's a hypothetical, but interesting to think about nonetheless
- akimbostrawman 2mo ago
  >pretty cool Is it? It's the bare minimum and if you replace games with anything else it might not look so "pretty cool" anymore. My hairdresser forcefully bleached/uncut my hair but pretty cool that i got my money back. Ford forcefully impounded my car without my consent but pretty cool that i got my money back Realtor kicked me out of my house but pretty cool that i got my money back
hx8 2mo ago
I don't see this as "regulation". I see this as extending the same consumer protections that existed in the era of analog physical media to the digital age.
- Fargren 2mo ago
  Customer protection absolutely is regulation. Saying otherwise is a No True Scotsman. Good regulation is good. Bad regulation is bad. Being anti-regulation is dogmatic.
  - hx8 2mo ago
    Consumer protection is a type of regulation, but if you can brand a rule as "Consumer protection" it will poll better than "regulation" because that's how marketing works.
    - wsve 2mo ago
      Maybe, but regularly reframing regulations that people like (consumer protections, OSHA, lemon laws, etc.) as regulations will hopefully remind/reinforce that the whole "pro/anti regulations" framing is a childish mindset.
RHSeeger 2mo ago
> I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership. I worry about shenanigans where you "buy" the game from a shell company and that shell company "folds" and doesn't uphold it's promises. Same is true for a smaller, but not shell, company. If the non-DRM version isn't already created and held in trust, then it's not trustworthy.
- maccard 2mo ago
  This is absolutely what the SKG movement would have fast tracked - combined with all the Hollywood accounting that comes with it.
- autoexec 2mo ago
  We should require companies to submit a DRM-free version of their product to the US copyright office in order to get copyright protection. If the company goes under, or the copyright term expires, the US Copyright office should then provide those files to the people free of charge.
  - Terr_ 2mo ago
    If the Copyright Office doesn't have enough funding/infrastructure, a compromise would be that the company regularly provides encrypted copies into the public domain in advance, and the decryption key is in escrow.
- account42 2mo ago
  "Current copyright holder is ultimately liable for making all buyers whole." Problem solved.
- oldsecondhand 2mo ago
  Yep, putting a DRM free version in escrow should be a legal requirement.
sph 2mo ago
All they have to do then is say that they license you a game, and you're not buying anything, despite paying for it. They already do that with online games.
- eszed 2mo ago
  At least that would be honest....
  - swat535 2mo ago
    It should just say "Rent" instead of "Buy"
    - Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
      Except you don't rent, you buy a license with no expiry date, but which can be revoked one-sidedly. It's all covered by the legalese, else we would've had the major lawsuits and consequent legislation changes back when the first generation of digitally bought / DRM'd music was no longer available. (iirc this was also Sony, ironically. Fake edit, I looked it up; it was Sony that put a rootkit in its CDs, they were sued and settled out of court https://boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html https://boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html). Microsoft, Yahoo and Wal-Mart changed their services in such a way that music was no longer playable in 2008 (https://opensource.com/life/11/11/drm-graveyard-brief-history-digital-rights-management-music https://opensource.com/life/11/11/drm-graveyard-brief-histor...), with Yahoo even encouraging users to burn their music to CDs to keep it. In 2011 Rhapsody recommended to back up their older DRM'd RAX files to another format so they remain listenablle.
- jvuygbbkuurx 2mo ago
  That is literally what most online digital goods already do, like steam.
  - demaga 2mo ago
    Sure, but UI needs to reflect that too. I just opened Steam to verify - it definitely says 'Buy {game_name} - Add to Cart'
eldaisfish 2mo ago
i am curious - why are you not in favour of adding regulation? The point of most good regulation is to avoid consumer-hostile situations like this.
al_borland 2mo ago
I saw something earlier today that showed the Sony agreement specifies you’re only licensing the games, even if you buy it on a disc. So the fine print means no one ever “buys” a game for the PS5. They are buying a license to use the game for some indefinite period of time that Sony, or some other rights holder, will determine at a later date. This is why things really need to be DRM free from the start, and portable (have the ability to back them up, move them, etc). It’s the only way to ensure they can’t pull that kind of stuff.
- cyanydeez 2mo ago
  enforcement of legality is on the victim in the grift economy.
- Negitivefrags 2mo ago
  This has been the case for software since the very beginning. And people have been complaining about it since the beginning. See the Free Software Foundation.
  - pocksuppet 2mo ago
    No matter what they wrote in the document, the fact was always that you had the game on a disc and nothing would stop you playing it in violation of the words in the document.
    - Grombobulous 2mo ago
      The only reason for that is because the physical disc has the right of first sale attached by being physical item, and there’s no practical/acceptable mechanism to prevent transfer of the license to someone else. Traditionally the whole industry has been fine with it as long as direct media copying was too hard for the layperson, especially since lending games around was like word of mouth advertising. Digital platforms change a whole bunch of these things.
      - account42 2mo ago
NDlurker 2mo ago
This looks like a job for NFTs
- shapefrog 2mo ago
  Need to smear some A1 on those NFTs to get the job done properly.
- Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
  Nah, licenses are already a thing - just because you have a license (or an NFT) does not guarantee you can do the thing that the license applies to. It's a job for piracy.
atoav 2mo ago
Then it shouldn't be allowed to call it "buy" they should be forced to call it "rent".
feoren 2mo ago
You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
- vanviegen 2mo ago
  Though your point may have some value, your comment comes across as meanspirited and ad hominem. Also, regulation is not universally supported by knowledgeable consumers. Often quite the opposite, in fact.
  - nfw2 2mo ago
    Mean spirited sure, ad hominem, no. It's satirizing the argument, not personal traits unrelated to the argument
    - vanviegen 2mo ago
      I stand corrected.
    - kybernetikos 2mo ago
      It's definitely a bad argument worthy of some sort of label. It seems to go "you believe this thing, which I won't engage with at all, but I'll assume that because of the way you said it, you also believe all this other stuff that I disagree with".
      - nfw2 2mo ago
        The term you are looking for is straw man
    - zahlman 2mo ago
      No, satire would involve an attempt to pretend to make the same argument while exposing flaws. This was just a bunch of uncharitable strawmen.
nfw2 2mo ago
> Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This is obviously absurd as a universal rule. If I "buy" a night in a hotel room, I should own the hotel room? If I order a taxi, I should own the taxi? If I ride a bikeshare e-bike across town, I should own the bike? Whether rent is appropriate or exploitative for a certain product or industry is a fair question, but to say renting should not exist as a concept at all for anything just doesn't work.
- Groxx 2mo ago
  Digital sales overwhelmingly use "buy" as the term in their UI, not "rent". Rental is a separate thing, and I don't think roughly anyone is saying rentals should not exist in any form.
  - mkozlows 2mo ago
    These days, they mostly don't. California passed a law that required clarity (good), and now most things accurately say "license" instead of "buy." (Not universally, but in many cases.)
    - meh2frdf 2mo ago
      This I think is fair, consumers generally have a very poor understanding of licensing. Too many still think in the old days of buying physical goods, you 'buy' a tin of beans, they are now in all sense my beans. I'm all for helping people distinguish, when something is a straight forward property transaction, or an agreement based on permisions, constraints and obligations ... a license.
  - nfw2 2mo ago
    This is just pedantry, and incorrect pedantry at that. BUY does not always mean you gain ownership. You can BUY a license or a haircut and you don't own anything. Are consumers confused in practice by what happens when they click "Buy" on the playstation store? Does anyone really thing Buy here means they will be able to download the game onto their computer and play it there? Fine, pass a regulation that makes online stores change the word to license or whatever. Will that relieve your sense of persecution? Or would just you find another way to cast game publishers as the conniving evil empire (market control, collusion to reduce consumer options, etc.) because they aren't giving you what you want?
fasterik 2mo ago
There's already a good solution to buying and owning digital media: you pay money to download files that are playable offline. When you pay for content locked to a platform, you're not buying an asset, you're paying for a service. The platforms grow around not only providing a convenient service to the end user, but also to the content creators, who publish on them with the expectation that their content is protected by DRM. Creators are free to choose where they publish, and end users are free to choose which services they use. I don't think it makes sense for the government to define what it means to own a digital asset or to force every service platform to become a retailer and ownership-tracker. Where there's demand for DRM-free downloads or physical media, the market will respond.
pocksuppet 2mo ago
They did this in California, now online stores in California only let you rent games for an indefinite term. Exactly the same as before but the button says "rent"
- zulban 2mo ago
  You're implying that's the same but it's obviously better. Nothing wrong with renting when you're told you're renting.
  - scared_together 2mo ago
    The problem of false advertising is resolved but the problem of consumer freedom remains. If all digital marketplaces for a particular art only offer rents, without any option to buy or any physical media to serve as an alternative, that would still be a problem even if the rents were presented honestly.
    - matwood 2mo ago
      > consumer freedom remains Not really. As long as it's clear that everything is a rental, consumers are free to go along or not. Physical media offering near-permanent storage is also relatively new. 8-tracks, cassettes, and even CDs would wear out over time. Yes, I could hold a cassette in my hand, but I also knew it would wear out over time and I'd have to buy another one - and I did. We need to change our language around buying something so it's clear that it's not permanent ownership, unless it really is. I suspect we would see services/media start to come to market that offer true ownership if the demand was there.
- tikhonj 2mo ago
  Which online stores? I don't see that in Steam.
- ForHackernews 2mo ago
  Good. At least they're honest about what you're paying for.
- 2mo ago
dlcarrier 2mo ago
Copyright protection is regulation. Limiting it ins't increasing regulation; it's decreasing regulation.
amelius 2mo ago
Most importantly you should be able to use it even if you break all ties with the vendor.
CommanderData 2mo ago
Has self regulation ever worked in the tech world when it comes to consumer/user rights.
- Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
  Yes, up until it didn't.
limagnolia 2mo ago
I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.
- an0malous 2mo ago
  Exactly, this is just application of property rights and enforcing existing consumer protection rights. You can’t tell someone they’re “buying” something if they don’t own it. Imagine someone doing that with house rentals or car leases, it would obviously be considered fraud.
  - autoexec 2mo ago
    Screw fraud, it should be considered theft punishable by time behind bars the same way it would if some junkie broke into my house and stole my games or movies off my bookshelf.
- thfuran 2mo ago
  I would argue that it is likely fraudulent to sell with the intent to later reappropriate but separately illegal to actually do so. It’s some manner of theft or destruction of property.
- zahlman 2mo ago
  Which is exactly why Sony claims not to "sell" you the game but only to license it.
  - limagnolia 2mo ago
    Are you sure? I'm pretty sure the button says 'buy' or something similiar, not 'rent'.
Obscurity4340 2mo ago
Especially one-time purchase apps, zero control from the user and they can enforce any number of unreasonable control mechanisms over you even once you've paid for the damn thing.
tonyhart7 2mo ago
"Anything that you BUY needs to be your property." do you own the film when you buy ticket to cinema ????
- meh2frdf 2mo ago
  Yeah the OP doesn't understand licensing, seems to only think of purchase in terms of physical goods, and is trying to poorly apply their reasoning based on that.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2mo ago
  No but you don’t expect the cinema to stop the movie half way through without giving you a refund, and would expect that you could legally resell a purchased ticket to your friend if you can’t attend the screening.
  - Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
    But that's not what's happening here - Sony can't take physical disks you own away from you. As for resale, interesting you bring up tickets as scalping / reselling them is a major issue, which is also hostile to consumers as they can pay multiples of the original selling price for high profile concerts and events, which has led to legislation and / or industry rules that prevent resale or at least prevent it through 3rd party services so that they can manage the resale price (and take their share a second time).
    - zchrykng 2mo ago
      Scalping is not a serious risk with digital goods. When the company can sell an infinite number of licenses, there is zero risk of a third party coming in and buying up a significant fraction of the capacity and overcharging people.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 2mo ago
      No, we were talking about cinemas, not live shows. Stop moving the goal posts.
- 2mo ago
jdboyd 2mo ago
> I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. >Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This could also be fixed by removing regulation.
kombookcha 2mo ago
It's really cocky of them to do this immediately after deleting everyone's purchased movies from their accounts. Nobody should have any illusions about what "buying" a game means when they can do this at will. https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/ https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/
m000 2mo ago
> I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership. I'm pretty sure that Sony and others would work their way around such legislation. E.g. spin-off shell "studios" that would be the legal game sellers, and when the time comes to sunset a batch of games, these "studios" would magically go bankrupt and cease to exist. Then the onus would again put on the commuinity to break any encryption or otherwise reverse-engineer and preserve the games so they remain playable for legal owners. And the top-level companies would still be able to salvage and own the game franchise rights, so they would still be able to harass the game preservation community. I don't think there's any workaround to stop this kind of cheating, other than mandating that (a) all DRM-protected or service-bound content needs to be submitted to an escrow organization (Library of Congress?) in a form that can be used to reproduce it locally, and (b) all submitted content is released to the public after X years.
- Schlagbohrer 2mo ago
  Loopholes like this can be closed with government regulation.
  - m000 2mo ago
    Governments have failed to patch much more important loopholes that directly affect them. E.g. loopholes for corporate tax avoidance. I doubt they will put any effort at all for fixing loopholes related to dodging game preservation obligations. The best way to not have loopholes is to put some effort in not creating them in the first place, not patching them later.
    - Schlagbohrer 2mo ago
      Can you come up with a theory off the top of your head why governments might have "accidentally" failed to patch a huge hole that their wealthy backers benefit from? I have news for you, in a democracy in which bribery is illegal, these loopholes can be closed by politicans who actually want to.
- 2mo ago
saidnooneever 2mo ago
this definition is already flawed which should indicate its difficult to put good regulations in writing. a service you pay for is not your property. and the licenses for games could be seen as a service rather than goods since they are now digital. ofc this is not nice or good, but its possible to do it to skirt ownership rules regarding 'goods'. for PS5 the problem might be this. you can sell a license and enable download for games but how many games can you realistically fit inside of a ps5 without some weird storage array in there... games are huge these days and wont get smaller. for PC customers, storage is their own responsibility. for ps5 im not sure it could work the same, how extensible is the storage etc. i would expect such things to come with a subscription, so u can access all games u want anytime while the subscription is active and install/download on demand. the subscription cost being low vs game prices would offset the ownership problem for a lot of people. i know many people who have subscription to platforms who do this today on PC in order to access many games they cant afford to all buy. (they buy ones maybe if they end up played a lot). the problem now with these platforms for PC is still they only offer a selection of games, to encourage purchases (because the platforms are more independent from PC and game makers than say PS5 and sony are..)
- beenBoutIT 2mo ago
  Looking through a shelf of well organized CDs, game disks or movie disks will always be far more satisfying than typing letters into a search box and wading through large numbers of titles on a TV or monitor.
gblargg 2mo ago
We have this problem due to government regulation. Without it, every game would be cracked and downloadable without any restrictions on use. The server requirements would be reverse-engineered and neutered.
_heimdall 2mo ago
Regulations that protect your rights are very different from those that limit them. In this case it would be the former, and no less it would be reinforcing a pretty fundamental right in our system, the right to own property.
silvestrov 2mo ago
The KISS version of regulation would be that stores are not allowed to use the word "buy" when you don't get full ownership and must use the word "license" instead. Also it should be marked clearly that the company can rescind the license at any moment without giving any reason why.
- Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
  I'm sure in the various services' Ts&Cs they explain that what you buy is a license to the game, not the game itself.
  - gosub100 2mo ago
    That's not relevant though. What is being demanded is that a new term that means "less than purchase" be used, making it overtly clear that you are only renting. A pointer indirection to the real word doesn't count.
- throw10920 2mo ago
  I would love to see something like the Nutrition Facts label that states IN BLACK AND WHITE ALL CAPS THAT THE COMPANY CAN (NOT) RESCIND THE LICENSE AT ANY TIME. If the fact is very blatantly shown on the marketing/packaging instead of being relegated to tiny fine print, buyers will pay a lot more attention.
- CodesInChaos 2mo ago
  That would be pointless, since a consumer always buys a license, not the software itself.
mdemare 2mo ago
Companies will keep doing what they're doing now - they'll just use another verb than "buy" or "purchase". Which would be a small improvement, I guess...
shapefrog 2mo ago
> I am generally not in favor of adding regulation Then let the market decide.
flyingshelf 2mo ago
This makes no sense. You can't force them to sell you the game. They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it. The regulation can't even be retroactive
- matwood 2mo ago
  > They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it. And that's ok since everyone will understand the deal going in. Consumers can decide if it's worth paying the price for a 5 year rental or not.

norome 2mo ago

I bought a bunch of games on google stadia when that was a thing, and when they closed the service down i was fully refunded on all games. pretty cool

abustamam 2mo ago
While I agree it is pretty cool, I think they probably did that to avoid a class action lawsuit. But that does also beg the question, if we do eventually regulate this better, do you own streamed products? IE with Google stadia (and I think Amazon Luna) you buy a game but the game data is streamed to your device. If they shut the service down (like Stadia did) then what happens to your game collection? It's a hypothetical, but interesting to think about nonetheless
akimbostrawman 2mo ago
>pretty cool Is it? It's the bare minimum and if you replace games with anything else it might not look so "pretty cool" anymore. My hairdresser forcefully bleached/uncut my hair but pretty cool that i got my money back. Ford forcefully impounded my car without my consent but pretty cool that i got my money back Realtor kicked me out of my house but pretty cool that i got my money back

hx8 2mo ago

I don't see this as "regulation". I see this as extending the same consumer protections that existed in the era of analog physical media to the digital age.

Fargren 2mo ago
Customer protection absolutely is regulation. Saying otherwise is a No True Scotsman. Good regulation is good. Bad regulation is bad. Being anti-regulation is dogmatic.
- hx8 2mo ago
  Consumer protection is a type of regulation, but if you can brand a rule as "Consumer protection" it will poll better than "regulation" because that's how marketing works.
  - wsve 2mo ago
    Maybe, but regularly reframing regulations that people like (consumer protections, OSHA, lemon laws, etc.) as regulations will hopefully remind/reinforce that the whole "pro/anti regulations" framing is a childish mindset.

RHSeeger 2mo ago

> I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership. I worry about shenanigans where you "buy" the game from a shell company and that shell company "folds" and doesn't uphold it's promises. Same is true for a smaller, but not shell, company. If the non-DRM version isn't already created and held in trust, then it's not trustworthy.

maccard 2mo ago
This is absolutely what the SKG movement would have fast tracked - combined with all the Hollywood accounting that comes with it.
autoexec 2mo ago
We should require companies to submit a DRM-free version of their product to the US copyright office in order to get copyright protection. If the company goes under, or the copyright term expires, the US Copyright office should then provide those files to the people free of charge.
- Terr_ 2mo ago
  If the Copyright Office doesn't have enough funding/infrastructure, a compromise would be that the company regularly provides encrypted copies into the public domain in advance, and the decryption key is in escrow.
account42 2mo ago
"Current copyright holder is ultimately liable for making all buyers whole." Problem solved.
oldsecondhand 2mo ago
Yep, putting a DRM free version in escrow should be a legal requirement.

sph 2mo ago

All they have to do then is say that they license you a game, and you're not buying anything, despite paying for it. They already do that with online games.

eszed 2mo ago
At least that would be honest....
- swat535 2mo ago
  It should just say "Rent" instead of "Buy"
  - Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
    Except you don't rent, you buy a license with no expiry date, but which can be revoked one-sidedly. It's all covered by the legalese, else we would've had the major lawsuits and consequent legislation changes back when the first generation of digitally bought / DRM'd music was no longer available. (iirc this was also Sony, ironically. Fake edit, I looked it up; it was Sony that put a rootkit in its CDs, they were sued and settled out of court https://boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html https://boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony-anticustomer-te.html). Microsoft, Yahoo and Wal-Mart changed their services in such a way that music was no longer playable in 2008 (https://opensource.com/life/11/11/drm-graveyard-brief-history-digital-rights-management-music https://opensource.com/life/11/11/drm-graveyard-brief-histor...), with Yahoo even encouraging users to burn their music to CDs to keep it. In 2011 Rhapsody recommended to back up their older DRM'd RAX files to another format so they remain listenablle.
jvuygbbkuurx 2mo ago
That is literally what most online digital goods already do, like steam.
- demaga 2mo ago
  Sure, but UI needs to reflect that too. I just opened Steam to verify - it definitely says 'Buy {game_name} - Add to Cart'

eldaisfish 2mo ago

i am curious - why are you not in favour of adding regulation? The point of most good regulation is to avoid consumer-hostile situations like this.

al_borland 2mo ago

I saw something earlier today that showed the Sony agreement specifies you’re only licensing the games, even if you buy it on a disc. So the fine print means no one ever “buys” a game for the PS5. They are buying a license to use the game for some indefinite period of time that Sony, or some other rights holder, will determine at a later date. This is why things really need to be DRM free from the start, and portable (have the ability to back them up, move them, etc). It’s the only way to ensure they can’t pull that kind of stuff.

cyanydeez 2mo ago
enforcement of legality is on the victim in the grift economy.
Negitivefrags 2mo ago
This has been the case for software since the very beginning. And people have been complaining about it since the beginning. See the Free Software Foundation.
- pocksuppet 2mo ago
  No matter what they wrote in the document, the fact was always that you had the game on a disc and nothing would stop you playing it in violation of the words in the document.
  - Grombobulous 2mo ago
    The only reason for that is because the physical disc has the right of first sale attached by being physical item, and there’s no practical/acceptable mechanism to prevent transfer of the license to someone else. Traditionally the whole industry has been fine with it as long as direct media copying was too hard for the layperson, especially since lending games around was like word of mouth advertising. Digital platforms change a whole bunch of these things.
    - account42 2mo ago

NDlurker 2mo ago

This looks like a job for NFTs

shapefrog 2mo ago
Need to smear some A1 on those NFTs to get the job done properly.
Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
Nah, licenses are already a thing - just because you have a license (or an NFT) does not guarantee you can do the thing that the license applies to. It's a job for piracy.

atoav 2mo ago

Then it shouldn't be allowed to call it "buy" they should be forced to call it "rent".

feoren 2mo ago

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

vanviegen 2mo ago
Though your point may have some value, your comment comes across as meanspirited and ad hominem. Also, regulation is not universally supported by knowledgeable consumers. Often quite the opposite, in fact.
- nfw2 2mo ago
  Mean spirited sure, ad hominem, no. It's satirizing the argument, not personal traits unrelated to the argument
  - vanviegen 2mo ago
    I stand corrected.
  - kybernetikos 2mo ago
    It's definitely a bad argument worthy of some sort of label. It seems to go "you believe this thing, which I won't engage with at all, but I'll assume that because of the way you said it, you also believe all this other stuff that I disagree with".
    - nfw2 2mo ago
      The term you are looking for is straw man
  - zahlman 2mo ago
    No, satire would involve an attempt to pretend to make the same argument while exposing flaws. This was just a bunch of uncharitable strawmen.

nfw2 2mo ago

> Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This is obviously absurd as a universal rule. If I "buy" a night in a hotel room, I should own the hotel room? If I order a taxi, I should own the taxi? If I ride a bikeshare e-bike across town, I should own the bike? Whether rent is appropriate or exploitative for a certain product or industry is a fair question, but to say renting should not exist as a concept at all for anything just doesn't work.

Groxx 2mo ago
Digital sales overwhelmingly use "buy" as the term in their UI, not "rent". Rental is a separate thing, and I don't think roughly anyone is saying rentals should not exist in any form.
- mkozlows 2mo ago
  These days, they mostly don't. California passed a law that required clarity (good), and now most things accurately say "license" instead of "buy." (Not universally, but in many cases.)
  - meh2frdf 2mo ago
    This I think is fair, consumers generally have a very poor understanding of licensing. Too many still think in the old days of buying physical goods, you 'buy' a tin of beans, they are now in all sense my beans. I'm all for helping people distinguish, when something is a straight forward property transaction, or an agreement based on permisions, constraints and obligations ... a license.
- nfw2 2mo ago
  This is just pedantry, and incorrect pedantry at that. BUY does not always mean you gain ownership. You can BUY a license or a haircut and you don't own anything. Are consumers confused in practice by what happens when they click "Buy" on the playstation store? Does anyone really thing Buy here means they will be able to download the game onto their computer and play it there? Fine, pass a regulation that makes online stores change the word to license or whatever. Will that relieve your sense of persecution? Or would just you find another way to cast game publishers as the conniving evil empire (market control, collusion to reduce consumer options, etc.) because they aren't giving you what you want?

fasterik 2mo ago

There's already a good solution to buying and owning digital media: you pay money to download files that are playable offline. When you pay for content locked to a platform, you're not buying an asset, you're paying for a service. The platforms grow around not only providing a convenient service to the end user, but also to the content creators, who publish on them with the expectation that their content is protected by DRM. Creators are free to choose where they publish, and end users are free to choose which services they use. I don't think it makes sense for the government to define what it means to own a digital asset or to force every service platform to become a retailer and ownership-tracker. Where there's demand for DRM-free downloads or physical media, the market will respond.

pocksuppet 2mo ago

They did this in California, now online stores in California only let you rent games for an indefinite term. Exactly the same as before but the button says "rent"

zulban 2mo ago
You're implying that's the same but it's obviously better. Nothing wrong with renting when you're told you're renting.
- scared_together 2mo ago
  The problem of false advertising is resolved but the problem of consumer freedom remains. If all digital marketplaces for a particular art only offer rents, without any option to buy or any physical media to serve as an alternative, that would still be a problem even if the rents were presented honestly.
  - matwood 2mo ago
    > consumer freedom remains Not really. As long as it's clear that everything is a rental, consumers are free to go along or not. Physical media offering near-permanent storage is also relatively new. 8-tracks, cassettes, and even CDs would wear out over time. Yes, I could hold a cassette in my hand, but I also knew it would wear out over time and I'd have to buy another one - and I did. We need to change our language around buying something so it's clear that it's not permanent ownership, unless it really is. I suspect we would see services/media start to come to market that offer true ownership if the demand was there.
tikhonj 2mo ago
Which online stores? I don't see that in Steam.
ForHackernews 2mo ago
Good. At least they're honest about what you're paying for.
2mo ago

dlcarrier 2mo ago

amelius 2mo ago

Most importantly you should be able to use it even if you break all ties with the vendor.

CommanderData 2mo ago

Has self regulation ever worked in the tech world when it comes to consumer/user rights.

Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
Yes, up until it didn't.

limagnolia 2mo ago

I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.

an0malous 2mo ago
Exactly, this is just application of property rights and enforcing existing consumer protection rights. You can’t tell someone they’re “buying” something if they don’t own it. Imagine someone doing that with house rentals or car leases, it would obviously be considered fraud.
- autoexec 2mo ago
  Screw fraud, it should be considered theft punishable by time behind bars the same way it would if some junkie broke into my house and stole my games or movies off my bookshelf.
thfuran 2mo ago
I would argue that it is likely fraudulent to sell with the intent to later reappropriate but separately illegal to actually do so. It’s some manner of theft or destruction of property.
zahlman 2mo ago
Which is exactly why Sony claims not to "sell" you the game but only to license it.
- limagnolia 2mo ago
  Are you sure? I'm pretty sure the button says 'buy' or something similiar, not 'rent'.

Obscurity4340 2mo ago

Especially one-time purchase apps, zero control from the user and they can enforce any number of unreasonable control mechanisms over you even once you've paid for the damn thing.

tonyhart7 2mo ago

"Anything that you BUY needs to be your property." do you own the film when you buy ticket to cinema ????

meh2frdf 2mo ago
Yeah the OP doesn't understand licensing, seems to only think of purchase in terms of physical goods, and is trying to poorly apply their reasoning based on that.
hsbauauvhabzb 2mo ago
No but you don’t expect the cinema to stop the movie half way through without giving you a refund, and would expect that you could legally resell a purchased ticket to your friend if you can’t attend the screening.
- Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
  But that's not what's happening here - Sony can't take physical disks you own away from you. As for resale, interesting you bring up tickets as scalping / reselling them is a major issue, which is also hostile to consumers as they can pay multiples of the original selling price for high profile concerts and events, which has led to legislation and / or industry rules that prevent resale or at least prevent it through 3rd party services so that they can manage the resale price (and take their share a second time).
  - zchrykng 2mo ago
    Scalping is not a serious risk with digital goods. When the company can sell an infinite number of licenses, there is zero risk of a third party coming in and buying up a significant fraction of the capacity and overcharging people.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 2mo ago
    No, we were talking about cinemas, not live shows. Stop moving the goal posts.
2mo ago

jdboyd 2mo ago

> I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. >Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This could also be fixed by removing regulation.

kombookcha 2mo ago

It's really cocky of them to do this immediately after deleting everyone's purchased movies from their accounts. Nobody should have any illusions about what "buying" a game means when they can do this at will. https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/ https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/psvideocontent/

m000 2mo ago

> I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership. I'm pretty sure that Sony and others would work their way around such legislation. E.g. spin-off shell "studios" that would be the legal game sellers, and when the time comes to sunset a batch of games, these "studios" would magically go bankrupt and cease to exist. Then the onus would again put on the commuinity to break any encryption or otherwise reverse-engineer and preserve the games so they remain playable for legal owners. And the top-level companies would still be able to salvage and own the game franchise rights, so they would still be able to harass the game preservation community. I don't think there's any workaround to stop this kind of cheating, other than mandating that (a) all DRM-protected or service-bound content needs to be submitted to an escrow organization (Library of Congress?) in a form that can be used to reproduce it locally, and (b) all submitted content is released to the public after X years.

Schlagbohrer 2mo ago
Loopholes like this can be closed with government regulation.
- m000 2mo ago
  Governments have failed to patch much more important loopholes that directly affect them. E.g. loopholes for corporate tax avoidance. I doubt they will put any effort at all for fixing loopholes related to dodging game preservation obligations. The best way to not have loopholes is to put some effort in not creating them in the first place, not patching them later.
  - Schlagbohrer 2mo ago
    Can you come up with a theory off the top of your head why governments might have "accidentally" failed to patch a huge hole that their wealthy backers benefit from? I have news for you, in a democracy in which bribery is illegal, these loopholes can be closed by politicans who actually want to.
2mo ago

saidnooneever 2mo ago

this definition is already flawed which should indicate its difficult to put good regulations in writing. a service you pay for is not your property. and the licenses for games could be seen as a service rather than goods since they are now digital. ofc this is not nice or good, but its possible to do it to skirt ownership rules regarding 'goods'. for PS5 the problem might be this. you can sell a license and enable download for games but how many games can you realistically fit inside of a ps5 without some weird storage array in there... games are huge these days and wont get smaller. for PC customers, storage is their own responsibility. for ps5 im not sure it could work the same, how extensible is the storage etc. i would expect such things to come with a subscription, so u can access all games u want anytime while the subscription is active and install/download on demand. the subscription cost being low vs game prices would offset the ownership problem for a lot of people. i know many people who have subscription to platforms who do this today on PC in order to access many games they cant afford to all buy. (they buy ones maybe if they end up played a lot). the problem now with these platforms for PC is still they only offer a selection of games, to encourage purchases (because the platforms are more independent from PC and game makers than say PS5 and sony are..)

beenBoutIT 2mo ago
Looking through a shelf of well organized CDs, game disks or movie disks will always be far more satisfying than typing letters into a search box and wading through large numbers of titles on a TV or monitor.

gblargg 2mo ago

We have this problem due to government regulation. Without it, every game would be cracked and downloadable without any restrictions on use. The server requirements would be reverse-engineered and neutered.

_heimdall 2mo ago

Regulations that protect your rights are very different from those that limit them. In this case it would be the former, and no less it would be reinforcing a pretty fundamental right in our system, the right to own property.

silvestrov 2mo ago

The KISS version of regulation would be that stores are not allowed to use the word "buy" when you don't get full ownership and must use the word "license" instead. Also it should be marked clearly that the company can rescind the license at any moment without giving any reason why.

Cthulhu_ 2mo ago
I'm sure in the various services' Ts&Cs they explain that what you buy is a license to the game, not the game itself.
- gosub100 2mo ago
  That's not relevant though. What is being demanded is that a new term that means "less than purchase" be used, making it overtly clear that you are only renting. A pointer indirection to the real word doesn't count.
throw10920 2mo ago
I would love to see something like the Nutrition Facts label that states IN BLACK AND WHITE ALL CAPS THAT THE COMPANY CAN (NOT) RESCIND THE LICENSE AT ANY TIME. If the fact is very blatantly shown on the marketing/packaging instead of being relegated to tiny fine print, buyers will pay a lot more attention.
CodesInChaos 2mo ago
That would be pointless, since a consumer always buys a license, not the software itself.

mdemare 2mo ago

Companies will keep doing what they're doing now - they'll just use another verb than "buy" or "purchase". Which would be a small improvement, I guess...

shapefrog 2mo ago

> I am generally not in favor of adding regulation Then let the market decide.

flyingshelf 2mo ago

This makes no sense. You can't force them to sell you the game. They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it. The regulation can't even be retroactive

matwood 2mo ago
> They'll just say "this is a 5-year rental" and that'll be it. And that's ok since everyone will understand the deal going in. Consumers can decide if it's worth paying the price for a 5 year rental or not.