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.
You must log in or register to comment.
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.
Sounds like they went to the Donald Trump school of logic.
Until they change every storefront to say rent instead of buy/purchase/etc I will believe it.
Sony said click “Agree” when downloading.
Sadly, they’re not wrong.
Sony has been going to shit at LEAST ever since their fucking 2011 hack and online shutdown. Endless stupid decisions one after another. Trash.
There is credible evidence to believe that after Sony JP fumbled the PS3 launch, and was losing market share to the Xbox 360, Sony US stepped in and took the reins after righting the ship in the latter half of that console generation.
This is what I predominantly blame for the myriad of bad (anti-consumer) decisions made from the PS4 onwards.
This makes my choice to stop at the ps3 a very good choice.
Right, like, how “owning” a car means that you need to purchase the entire means of production required to produce said car, including all patents and trademarks.
This guy is somehow multi-rail drifting his pseudo-capitalist argument with like, a cartoon version of communism. It’s like he dropped acid and decided to become Frankenstein’s Economist.
Or if you buy a print copy of a famous art work you some how don’t own it because it’s a copy?
Or a book is a good analogue. I can own a copy of a book, a reprint. It’s mine.
sony’s even considered a game publisher… ya know, just like random house is a book publisher.
Do they want piracy? Because that’s how you make it morally legitimate.
Just do it.
That’s not what ownership of digital copies means, fuckshits.
Sony argues that its current customer-facing disclosures ensure that “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into believing they actually own their digital games.
They can make that argument, but I think they’ll have a hard time finding evidence to support it. Judges aren’t stupid, but they can be corrupt, however.
SOME judges are stupid. Just look up the name of ±any trump appointed judge in the news.
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.
So nobody actually owns books as they are copies of a digital master.
Not true.
Some are copies of a physical master. 😌
It really puts into perspective how they actually think about it though… nobody actually thinks that way…
Nobody buying a game sits there and says oh I’m going to go buy gta6… and thinks they are buying the single master… no most people say im going to go pick up my copy of gta6… the one they want to own…
The fact they want to argue that people don’t think the thing they spent money on to own gives them some absurd right to the master single version of the game is just…
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
You made this?
…
I made this.
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.
If there’s a new game, we gotta buy it. I want fifa 2027, it will bring me so much satisfaction over fifa 2026.
Ohhh new ps6 pro? Which is better than my 1000 bucks brand new ps6? We gotta buy it.
/s
Sure, we have to enjoy something and spend some money but I can’t fathom how people keep spending like that.
I think I never purchased any new new device or game less than 4 years before my last purchase of an older device or game of the same type. And some have lasted 10 years, or even more, for an e-reader.
I may be wrong about games but can’t think of one atm.
I think part of the blame is Google’s, even before they turned evil: our average attention span is fucking low, and we only want instant gratification now. We used to need to read, to explore in games, to fail and try again before beating the game, before knowing the answer to something, and then suddenly we could magically get the answers we seeked in a matter of seconds.
It feels to me like speedrunners and challenge-runners of retro games show us how things can be enjoyed way more than just the first playthrough or the second.
They’re enjoying the hell out of a good game, even if old, while most others are seeking the dopamine of new and mostly ephemeral shit.
I am not part of either group, but I want to be part of the first, in some ways, and never the second.
80 or 100. You were way off
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
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.
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
… 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.
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 don’t think one can just say license without specifying how long it is valid, not sure though. Anyways you are protected by consumer laws, like in my country stuff you buy should work for 5 years - if not, money back. But whatever, I guess the big capitalistic corps get to use the most deceptive form anyways. Tragic how some users even defend the way they try to deceive. Better to GOG and 🏴☠️🏴☠️ what isn’t available there 😊
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.
I think it should be broader than that: “purchase limited license” or “purchase restricted license”.
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.
And, you know, English.
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.
“You can’t, like, own a digital title, man. Like, if you, like, play a game it doesn’t make it your game, you know, it’s God’s game, man! It’s God’s game!”
