List of references on Sony websites to players "owning" their digital games

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Sony’s legal stance that consumers cannot reasonably believe they “own” digitally purchased PlayStation games has reignited concerns over what digital purchases actually confer: ownership or a revocable license. Commenters contrast traditional rights tied to physical media (resale, lending, offline use) with tightly controlled digital ecosystems, raising broader calls for copyright reform, clearer language around licensing, and curbs on practices like mandatory binding arbitration. Many see the case as part of a wider trend in which corporations erode consumer rights and long‑standing expectations of ownership in favor of subscription- and license-based control.

Scope of Ownership for Digital Games

  • Core dispute: Sony argues it’s unreasonable in the “digital age” for consumers to believe they own digital games; purchasers only hold revocable licenses.
  • Many commenters see this as word games: marketing says “buy” and “own,” while legal terms say “license” and “revocable.”
  • The specific legal argument that if one user “owned” a game, another couldn’t later buy it, is widely mocked as conflating owning a copy with owning the IP.

Physical vs Digital Copies

  • Physical copies: users can resell, lend, or keep playing even if stores shut down or accounts vanish. This is tied to first-sale norms and the practical impossibility of revoking discs.
  • Digital copies: same price but fewer rights; no resale, no lending, fragile access if stores or accounts disappear. Many view this as selling a worse product for the same money.
  • Some defend digital for convenience and durability (no disc rot or damage), but acknowledge revocability undermines that advantage.

Philosophy and Law of “Copies”

  • Debate over whether two digital copies are “the same thing” (identical bits / same hash) or separate owned instances on different storage media.
  • Several emphasize that property law is about physical instantiations and rights, not hashes; copyright historically governed the right to copy, not what owners do with lawfully obtained copies.

Second-Hand Market and Consumer Behavior

  • Eliminating resale is seen as a major motivation: drives all purchases through the platform holder.
  • Counterpoint: many second-hand buyers can’t or won’t pay full price; removing used markets likely drives them to piracy or non-consumption, not new sales.
  • Steam and other platforms are cited as having normalized non-resellable digital licenses for a generation of gamers.

Legal Machinery: ToS and Arbitration

  • Sony’s ToS includes binding arbitration and class-action waivers with a 30‑day written opt-out.
  • Many view mandatory arbitration in consumer contracts as inherently abusive, especially when hidden in long ToS and requiring offline opt-out for an online agreement.
  • Some nuance: arbitration can be efficient and fair between equal parties; concern is power imbalance and loss of access to courts.

Proposed Reforms

  • Ideas raised:
    • Clear legal distinction between “buy/own” vs. “license/rent” in digital stores.
    • Digital ownership that survives store shutdowns, possibly via escrow or mandated offline modes.
    • Rollback of DRM protections and shorter copyright terms, especially for off-market or “abandonware” titles.

Broader Concerns

  • Thread reflects wider anxiety about erosion of ownership (“you will own nothing”), overreach of EULAs, and corporations redefining ordinary words like “own” and “reasonable consumer” to their advantage.
  • Some note this isn’t unique to Sony; similar issues exist across games, ebooks, streaming, and other digital media.