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Comment by captainbland | Hacker News Reader

If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this. "Subscribe now" "purchase license" etc. should be mandated if this is the expectation. Terms like "buy" without qualification are misleading in this context, but they won't remove them from store pages because people are more likely to pay higher rates for something if they believe they are actually owning the good in perpetuity.

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This is actually state law in CA. People reported Sony to California's Attorney General, who basically said they weren't going to do anything about it.

Unfortunately the law is only as useful as its enforcement.

Is that true? This says it’s still pending with a hearing in Oct

https://clouddosage.com/playstation-digital-game-lawsuit-son...

What was their rationale for doing nothing?

I would just like to point out that nobody actually answered this question, just inserted their own imaginary cynical commentary.

In fact, the federal court case over the issue is ongoing.

The case is Mendoza, et al. v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. and you can follow it if you want. [1]

https://openclassactions.com/lawsuits/consumer-protection/so...

Thank you!

Sony supports the media industry in CA. It would be a shame if they moved their studios elsewhere...

To clarify:

The attorney general said they wouldn't be pressing charges, and said that private individuals would need to press charges themselves. Source: https://youtu.be/Wst4wPBH-Cg

It seems that now some individuals have pressed charges against Sony.

The problem is that Sony thinks that rule of law is for chumps and has forced arbitration (waiving your right to go to court) unless you opt out by mail or soemthing within 30 days hidden in the modern Iliad terms of service.

So in theory this case could get thrown out due to Sony legally taking away your right to a fair trial.

And if you read the proceedings Sony says that "consumers in the digital age have no expectation of ownership when they buy digital products". Goes to show you the respect some modern companies have for people.

What was their rationale for doing nothing?

Carrot: Free vacations? Merch? Benefits ...

Stick: Scared because taking actions against the Buy (aka you own nothing) is paramount to going in a fight with a entire industry.

Class action civil case should still be doable? And 100k small claims court cases would hurt.

> Class action civil case should still be doable?

Nope, because there's a stance in EULA's footnote (with extremely small letters) that you give up your rights to class action civil case.

So you've verified this? In this specific case? Or are you just being a wise guy.

Regardless, these sorts of things have been fought before, over and over. Often, courts don't care about an EULA when wrongful action has been taken.

The jurisdiction matters too, of course.

> So you've verified this?

Yes, verified. I would not have said it otherwise.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/terms-of-service/

> 14.5. Class Action Waiver. > YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE AGREE THAT ARBITRATION WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION [...]

> Regardless, these sorts of things have been fought before, over and over.

This specific case BTW: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.47...

I'm no lawyer, but IMHO they probably will reply that Sony has indeed violated CA. AB 2426 (effective since 01-jan-2025) and that Sony illegally tried to restrict customer rights in the first place, as per McGill v. Citibank https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2017/s...

Thanks. I'm in Quebec, and there are very strong protections here, consumer wise.

But it's Napoleonic civil code, so sometimes things don't work out as my common law brain thinks.

(It'll be interesting to read your California link.

This is the only regulation I feel is reasonable. When it comes to luxury goods like video games, it doesn’t make sense to dictate how the product is offered. But by all means insist they’re clear with what the transaction type is.

I can imagine the natural competitive wedge where GOG can say “Buy Game” but Steam has to say “Lease Game” on their buttons.

This would be case-by-case in Steam. There are some games which really do sell under "irrevocable license to play" (which, short of granting copyright privileges, is about as close as you can get to ownership for a digital product). Other games on Steam do not.

I think it would highlight the differences between publishers / studios more than store fronts.

> There are some games which really do sell under "irrevocable license to play" (which, short of granting copyright privileges, is about as close as you can get to ownership for a digital product).

Far from it. E.g. excludes resale.

For digital products, that would mean copyright privileges. Else there is no definition of "buy" that applies to GOG sales either.

> For digital products, that would mean copyright privileges.

If you sell me a (copy of a) program, I own it and need no (c) privilege to be allowed to resell it. Just like a book.

Digital media cannot be transacted without being copied.

It's a non-transferable lease that can be canceled at any time by the issuer.

The real problem is that most of society still thinks of games as a piece of physical media that you combine with a player that allows you to play the game. In that world you have a liscense to the software, and a physical token which is transferable and therefore valuable.

I'd argue that we need to decouple transferability and cancel ability from physical media. If this were to happen then the word "Buy" makes sense precisely the same way it used to with physical media. Of course more provision needs to be provided for live service games regarding cancel ability.

Yes, some people are trying to achieve this by arguing that physical media should stick around forever. I think the real solution is providing the same protections and rights for digital purchases as we had with physical media.

That would be a real win for consumers since we get the advantages of digital media with the ownership and transference rights of physical media.

Of course this would be a great inconvenience to those who wish to charge the same price for a temporary revocable license to the content, and they have deep lobbying pockets to fight against it.

As long as we're in copyright world, it ought to be structured as three separate parties:

1. Licensor, the company who makes the game.

2. Licensee, the person buying a digital copy of the game.

3. Safekeeper, Steam or another platform that stores the digital copy on behalf of Licensee. Similar to how depositories store securities and guarantee that they can be neither lost nor duplicated. For a separate fee perhaps.

Good luck. SKG got an official response from the EU that was basically "copyright law is a sacred cow, we can't change it"

I even take issue with "Purchase license". Shouldn't it be "Lease License"? Purchase implies that it can't be revoked, no?

Nah. Licenses can be revoked. When I buy a hunting license I don't get it forever

You don’t buy a hunting license though. You pay a fee and the government issues you a license.

That feels like a distinction without a difference. On the other hand, "buy" vs "buy license" is actually a meaningful difference.

They both communicate the same thing because they both start with “buy.” They communicate Ownership and collapse to the same thing to a normal consumer: implied ownership of the game. Insisting that the ownership is of the license and it says it on the button doesn’t really help, because no reasonable person thinks that a “purchased” license can be revoked for any reason or no reason at all. Why doesn’t anybody think that? Because “owning” a license implies you actually control it. But a license you can’t control at all means you own NOTHING! Not even a license. So “buy license" miscommunicates in the same way as “buy.”

Then maybe is should be forced to say: “Buy revocable license” and require the user to answer randomized multiple choice questions regarding the terms of the license that act in opposition to the purchaser. Collect metrics on wrong answers and if greater than say, 15% of people can’t determine what they are actually handing over money for, fine and require additional clarity.

Or, just flip the tables and say the historical meaning of buy implies transfer of ownership in exchange for some trade. Since the seller no longer owns the items that was sold in the transaction, they have no additional rights that are covered by other areas of the law (such as copyright). First sale applies and if the seller doesn’t provide a mechanism to facilitate that sale, the buyer is free to exercise that right in whatever way they see fit.

Licenses are commonly understood to have variable duration, as specified by the license.

I get that people want to be able to purchase games forever, but this linguistic argument seems tortured concern trolling. maybe Im wrong, but are there even people confused by what they are getting when they pay for a modern online game? It seems like the bigger issues is people know, but dont like those terms.

There is some string of terms that accurately describes the state of current game sales. Even if it is used, most of the people upset by the issue will not be happy.

I'd be very surprised if the average buyer of Call of Shooty was aware that their game could be taken away from them (for reasons (or lack thereof) other than maybe getting their account banned for cheating).

I'd also be fairly surprised if that average buyer cared all that much. For many the life cycle of any random game is short enough that it doesn't matter whether or not it gets revoked, just so long as that's far enough into the future (and Sony probably knows that). So long as the average buyer doesn't have to think about it, since any revocation is so far into the future as to probably not matter, the average buyer won't care.

There's some media attention from the people who do care and want Sony et al. to do better, but they alone don't have the power to fight back against Sony, since even though the rest of the market might even agree that the current situation is bad, it's very difficult to mobilise people into actually doing anything (and what are you even supposed to to beyond 'voting with your wallet'?).

I think the average buyer of a online multiplayer game is loosely aware that the company could stop hosting it. Probably less aware that their single player content could disappear.

I personally think it is hard to mobilize people because the overwhelming majority simply dont care. If they did, yes, they could vote with their wallets. Nobody will die without Call of Shooty 10.

We are in this weird twilight zone where some people say they dont like products, but keep buying them.

Whether or not people understand it (I’m guess most don’t), we’ve lost something and been handed an inferior alternative with significant disadvantages. I have CDs from the 80s that still work. Plenty of games on disc and cart that still work.

Is not having to get up to change a disc worth giving up libraries, resale, lending, and not having stuff taken away at the whim of the publisher?

Revocable is an obscure word to normal people. It should say temporary.

temporary implies it is temporal -- there is a time limit.

revokable means that it's fine until the evil megacorp says it isn't.

to steal from an earlier thread -- my hunting license is temporary: I know it is only good for this year. No ambiguity there, no surprises, and everyone agreed on this upfront.

It’s only temporary if they revoke it.

And the license is not perpetual. It can expire or be revoked.

Are you suggesting that "Purchase license" is somehow unclear and "Pay a fee and we will issue you a license" is clearer?

What kind of logic is this?

99.99% of people say "buy" a hunting license and 0% are confused about the duration.

But licenses in general you don't just "buy", you "earn" them somehow, then also usually you pay a price for it too, but it's typically about knowing about some rules and/or norms.

Software licenses are bought all the time.

Sure, but that's a very different type of license compared to a hunting license, driver license or similar stuff, you know, the context.

And the initial comment that started this was that "Purchase license" in reference to this... software license... wasn't clear. Arguing about whether you buy a hunting license or that it's not a perfect analogy seems pedantic and irrelevant.

> Arguing about whether you buy a hunting license or that it's not a perfect analogy seems pedantic and irrelevant

It's a completely different thing, it's like comparing buying a "license" (ticket) to ride a roller coaster and taking a driving license, they're obviously different things, not exactly pedantic, imo.

Yeah. But we're talking about software licenses here. It was more weird hunting and drivers licenses ever got brought up.

> It was more weird hunting and drivers licenses ever got brought up

Agreed! :)

True, but you do get it under clear terms, for a duration that is both obvious and well established.

Right but when you buy it, they tell you how long it is valid for.

With video games it is often for some unknown amount of time, and of course they don't tell you that.

Depends on the details of the license, no?

A lease is a license/document/interest/contract/deed granting use rights. So lease license is not meaningful.

We won't know without A/B testing, but I suspect aesthetics mean nothing here and, for example, someone isn't going to turn down playing GTA VI if the only button between them and the game says "purchase license" as opposed to "buy".

I'd rather have my rights as a consumer protected or get something tangible for giving them up (like cheaper games) than introduce even more legalese into online shops.

Then the button becomes License and everyone knows that's the one you click to buy.

As much as I empathize with (and even support) the reasoning, I wonder if it would have a tangible effect. Is there anyone who was gonna click "buy" but not "license" (presuming they relabel the button and everything else is the same)?

I think it depends. If they are also required to allow 3rd party stores, and one of the third parties has a “buy” button while the others have “lease (lifetime)” buttons, it might sway a decent number of people.

Same thing with consoles, if one has “buy” and the other “lease”, then it might not convert everyone but could it take 5% of sales? 10%? 20%??

I don't think the general public is engaged enough to understand the difference between "license" and "buy". They will look at the button and think "This is what I click to get it" and don't understand that they are just temporarily renting the thing. To most people, "license" is a noun: something you carry in your pocket to drive. The word is already overused by media vendors to confuse people.

It does defuse any excuses like "why do you say I can't buy games? I bought this game just now" and that can be a stepping stone to actual change.

That's assuming there's an alternative.

Yes, the language should be clear and precise.

Also, if the whole industry string-replaces "lease" for "buy," I doubt the effect will be much.

The point is to not mislead people. When you write "buy," you are implying that the "buy"er is obtaining a perpetual right to use the software, subject to certain rules (i.e. you can't make copies and redistribute it). "Buy" implies the buyer has an absolute right. When "buy" actually means a temporary revocable license is issued, and the buyer has no rights, that's a problem.

It should in a functioning system, people who see lease or license on a game may be more hesitant to buy it and might pick a game who differentiates itself by marketing itself as being a permanent purchase.

You are being downvoted but your reasoning is absolutely correct. We nerds on the nerdy techie HN love to believe that people will act correctly if they are properly informed but people have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care. This kind of regulation that only targets wording and nothing tangible will likely just blend into the background noise of 1000 other legally mandated notices in the fine print that people skip over. No surprise this is already a law in California which is littered with useless prop 65 warnings.

I expect many people would accept clicking "license" instead but it's unfair to assume that people don't value ownership as such or that they won't in the future. It's fair to ensure that people are made fully aware of what they're paying for in a clear way which doesn't conflate it with other forms of possession.

Very much matching my thinking on the argument the plaintiffs are making. Sony just needs to change the labels on a few buttons.

But for some reason they don't want to and are willing to go to court on the matter. As you say, using the word "Buy" is stronger than "License", but it seems a strange hill to die upon.

Someone in past threads mentioned that many digital sales website in fact no longer use "buy" anymore, and instead deniably implicate purchases by such expressions as "Add to Cart", "Proceed to Checkout", and "Pay".

Yes, all this talk about the language used still leads us to the same frustrating outcome: customer pays for something, and at some unspecified point in the future that same thing is taken away from them. I don't care if 6 years earlier I clicked a button that said Pay vs Buy, I care that my purchase is being removed due to some backroom licensing issue.

Wonder if you could have those buttons and not give the user anything at the end, since you never said they were buying anything, only giving you money.

Yes. "buy" and "purchase" are redefined in the EULA

They shouldn’t be able to redefine common terms when closer terms like lease or license are available. It’s misleading.

Agreed - and with AI being able to easily navigate arbitrarily complex and humanly-misleading systems, average humans (without a personal lawyer always on retainer) are at an increasing disadvantage in society.

It's also totally illegal in many countries.. you can write whatever nonsense you want on an eula, but it will be about as useful as toilet paper in court.

Additionally e.g. the UK has right-to-repair which may influence this subject:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49552588 (from elsewhere in this discussion).

In which case I redefine "pay" as "torrent it with a very respectable upload ratio".

I wonder if said EULA can also help me make sense of my diceware password.

Here is the EULA: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/terms-of-service/

After reviewing it - idk? It's too complex for me to understand .. in my naivety!

I agree but that's not even enough. If you only lease the game, they will also need to tell you exactly for how long you lease it. Any reasonable person would have an issue with a lease for an indefinite time period that can be canceled at any time without refund, it doesn't sound acceptable at all.

And if you buy a license, it should either have a fixed term that is clearly communicated, or should be forever, and transferrable, not "untile we decide we don't want you to have it anymore".

I would have spent much less money if I knew they could revoke the license at their own discretion

people tend to have short memories though.

late 90s and early 00s - even while growing up in the 3rd world - you bought or pirated a software license.

so we've never really purchased or bought software.

this would wreck a lot of the marketing efforts and probably be bad for their bottom line in the long run

I'm surprised the Sony team isn't freaked out about this

This is the law in some places. Companies solved the problem by not using any buying verbs at all. The button you click to not-buy the app says "$3.99" or "Add to cart". When you go to the cart the next step is "Pay now" or "Continue to checkout".

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