The New Law that Reveals: We Don’t Own Digital Games
In the modern era, digital media has revolutionized how we consume entertainment. The shift towards streaming music and movies has made physical products less common. The same trend is now affecting video games, with over 90% of games sold in the UK being digital.
While digital media offers convenience—like instant access without the need to visit a physical store or manage multiple discs—it also comes with hidden terms and conditions. Digital storefronts are now required by California’s new law (AB 2426) to disclose that buyers do not hold unrestricted ownership over their digitally purchased content.
Key Points:
- Disclosure Requirement: Californian sellers must clearly state they are providing a license, not selling digital goods outright.
- Limited Ownership Rights: While this does not preclude the right to access your purchases temporarily, it highlights the transient nature of licensed media.
- Permanent Exclusions: The law does not apply when products can be permanently downloaded and is not applicable in situations where buyers are notified of terms clearly.
Implications:
This new law adds awareness that digital games, as well as other digital content, do not confer long-term ownership. It also brings to light the challenges of preserving retro or modern games through permanent downloads or physical media.
In the age of digital content, do you think it’s more important to own a permanent copy or have accessible licensed rights?
There needs to be a law that requires a physical copy of anything offered digitally. This law does nothing. People don’t read the terms as it is adding this won’t encourage anyone since it’ll be smothered into a bunch if legal nonsense the average person won’t even understand.
The bill text is concise and surprisingly readable.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426#99INT
They will either need “affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser” of their rights or provide a “clear and conspicuous statement” clarifying the buying a digital good is a licence situation.
They provide this definition:
“Clear and conspicuous” means in a manner that clearly calls attention to the language, such as in larger type than the surrounding text, or in contrasting type, font, or color to the surrounding text of the same size, or set off from the surrounding text of the same size by symbols or other marks.
For “affirmative acknowledgment” my guess is something like PlayStation does currently might become common. Every time I checkout their purchase button is disabled until I tick a checkbox with this statement:
I request immediate access to my purchase and acknowledge that I will not be able to cancel my purchase once I start downloading or streaming the content.
Both of these scenarios should be displayed as part of the checkout flow, not hidden away in the ToS/EULA.
Or just don’t spend your money on anything non-physical, you don’t need half that shit anyway put it in an EFT fund let em die :D
Another problem is that physical is a red herring. You don’t own modern physical games any more than you own digital ones, as the famous The Crew shitshow has demonstrated. It doesn’t matter if you still have the fancy disc, if you can’t even go past the main menu when the publisher decides to shut down the game. In the end DRM is the only deciding factor, not if the game is digital or physical.
You mean The Crew, the online-only racing game?
“It doesn’t apply to an online game, therefore it doesn’t apply to any situation.”
But I agree that it’s best to purchase DRM-free copies.
It doesn’t apply to any situation with these kinds of aggressive DRM, like other games such as the latest Gran Turismo. Or games that don’t come full on disc, the OG release of the Spyro trilogy comes to mind (thankfully that’s been fixed).
In any case my point was for people to check each case before assuming physical is safe from publisher meddling. Since in many cases you don’t own much more than a fancy installer in a pretty box.
