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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert ? what did you actually own ?

I get the feeling, but this whole outrage about what words mean is sterile if you don't actually engage with what is sold here, by who from who, what was the contract, how it was setup and why.

How do you feel about the right holders who also didn't bother providing simple "buy, download and it's forever yours" avenues to get that content ? Or are you just happy being outraged and will go back to your daily life afterwards ? (that's what I'll do, because I was already renting stuff when video tapes were a thing, and I see the current situation as a logical equilibrium, including what happens on the seven seas)

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> Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert ?

This comparison makes no sense. When you buy a ticket to a concert you fully expect to be allowed access to said concert. If it gets cancelled because this or that studio owns some random right you fully expect to be refunded.

> I was already renting stuff when video tapes were a thing

Good for you. These guys also propose rental with a rent button, and a purchase button for what you'd expect be purchasing the movie. Do you still not see what the issue is and why the debate on what word means is anything but sterile?

> Or are you just happy being outraged and will go back to your daily life afterwards ?

Wow, this is gratuitous and extremely belittling. I hope you feel good smelling your own farts.

> This comparison makes no sense. When you buy a ticket to a concert you fully expect to be allowed access to said concert. If it gets cancelled because this or that studio owns some random right you fully expect to be refunded.

You're explaining that while the ticket was a purchase, it had specific limitations and the vendor would follow a specific contract, with specific recourse for people in eligible cases.

That's exactly what's happening with Playstation.

Some people might not understand the contract, but we're decades into this now, it's time we're past "the button said 'buy'" discussions.

"Oh but they didn't read the fine prints so that's on them".

What a great argument.

To people, "buy" when in the context of a movie largely means owning the freaking thing.

> we're past "the button said 'buy'" discussions.

That's normalization of deviance. It's fine if you're fine with that scam, don't come onto people who aren't.

Thing is, changing what the button says doesn't change the fine prints nor the central issues.

A ton of stores just moved away from the "buy" language and replaced the buttons with "order", "add to cart", "pay" etc. Stores like Amazon kept the "buy" button while expliciting it's for a license. All the whining on the meaning of buying just went into word tweaking with no further effects.

We need to talk about digital licenses, it's complex and there's no simple answer, but IMHO we first need to get past what the button says.

> You're explaining that while the ticket was a purchase, it had specific limitations and the vendor would follow a specific contract, with specific recourse for people in eligible cases.

You bought a ticket that was advertised as a ticket for a concert and you got that. No one ever claimed or implied you were buying the musicians so they would perform the concert for you whenever you like.

When you 'buy' a movie in the way we are talking about here it is advertised and implied as buying the movie in the sense of owning a copy (or the right to access a copy) of the movie to watch whenever you want forever. What you get is more similar to an unlimited ticket to a cinema that allows you to watch that movie as long as it is shown in the cinema, but the cimema can decide to stop showing the movie any time. Unlike the concert ticket that is purposefully not clearly communicated (and the concert has a fixed service you purchase (one concert) unlike the movie ticket where the service you get is dependent entirely on the goodwill of the cinema)

> it is advertised and implied

I'd argue that it is not, especially regarding advertisement.

It could have been an expectation in the early DVD days, but at the time the Playstation Store started providing movies we were already deep into the digital store area, and we'd already had a bunch of "you own nothing" stories.

To my point the Kotaku title goes "_Reminding Us_ Nothing Digital Is Ever Truly Ours", we've been through this many times now.

Why haven't you given me your soul yet? It was in the fine print you agreed to last week.

People understand the game that’s being played. Folks aren’t going to move past it as you say until there’s reform to ensure it doesn’t happen.

> Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert ? what did you actually own ?

A ticket that would allow you entrance into a particular concert. Is this some sort of rhetorical question? I can't decipher what it's attempting to illustrate.

The original post was about the use of verbs.

> it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when [...]

The use of "buy" and "purchase" were never restricted to ownership or unlimited rights, we buy licenses, usage rights, priority tokens, all sorts of lottery tickets and weirder abstractions every day.

GP probably wants digital movies to have a specific purchase model, but the discussion has to be about the model, not the vocabulary. Right now I actually have no idea what they'd be willing to accept as a middle ground to rights management.

I think it's perfectly clear? If you buy a ticket, it's clear you own that ticket. But the usefulness of the ticket is that it can be exchanged for a service (admission to the concert), which is also clear. Nobody would expect the ticket to grant them admission to every future concert by the artist, or at the venue. The date and start/end times are on the ticket you buy, otherwise it would say "lifetime pass" or something.

The same is true with movie downloads, except that Sony very strongly, probably deceptively and maliciously, implies the "lifetime pass" part while they full well know they're only selling you a ticket for access during a limited timeframe.

We wouldn't have this article or discussion if Sony had been truthful and had their store pages not say "purchase movie", but "purchase temporary ticket".

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