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

hhaunter about 2 hours ago 5 commentsRead Article on consumerrights.wiki

DE version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

83% Positive

Analyzed from 667 words in the discussion.

Discussion (5 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

voidUpdate•about 1 hour ago

> "Were that the case, then Plaintiff Edward Heycock would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem on February 25, 2026 for $69.99 from the PlayStation Store after Plaintiff Jason Mendoza had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14, 2026, because Mr. Mendoza, not Sony, would have owned it then"

I buy a book. I now own the copy of that book. My friend buys the book. They also own a copy of that book. We do not own the same copy of that book

stetrain•10 minutes ago

Ah, you could not have purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from the store on February 25th because I myself purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from that very same store the day previously!

pixelatedindex•6 minutes ago

> We do not own the same copy of that book

Why not? If you hash the book, it’ll match. It’s word for word the same book (editions not withstanding). Or is this on a philosophical level?

gwbas1c•about 1 hour ago

Seems like we need some copyright reform WRT issues like this. We need a true way to have digital ownership; including putting assets in escrow and a way for access to continue after the store is shut down or the item removed from the store.

Findecanor•1 minute ago

I've been posting a similar idea for years. Require that for each piece of commercial software there is a "method" to open it up and use without requiring on-line servers. The method is be registered with a special government agency for that purpose, who first verifies that the method works.

Later when the agency considers the software to be "abandonware", it publishes the method.

Jcampuzano2•44 minutes ago

Your access to a digital product you have "purchased" should not be tied to the continued existence of the store you also bought it from. Similar to physical products.

If I bought a game at GameStop we aren't required to continuously reach back out to them every once in a while to check that they're okay with me playing the game I bought from them. And if GameStop goes out of business they aren't going to come knocking on my door to make sure I never play the game again or take it back from me.

Once a game or any other product is purchased from a digital store, it should not require the stores continued existence or permission.

Yes there are some drawbacks in that maybe they could argue then that they could stop allowing redownloading a game you've already purchased but so be it, they'd just be offering a worse experience and users would move away.

We also need to stop allowing unclear language. When we lease a car at a dealership they never use the term "buy" or "own". That's strictly reserved for ownership. We should require the same for other licensed/leased products.

simiones•24 minutes ago

One fun thing I remember from reading some EULAs for physical games I bought in the past: the EULA for StarCraft at least explicitly said that you are required to obtain prior written permission from Blizzard Entertainment before lending the disk to a friend. Obviously this is not practically enforceable, but it shows that nothing of this kind is new from these companies' perspectives.

The way the law is structured, you are never buying copies of digital goods, regardless of the format in which you obtain them. Instead, you buy a license to use the digital good under the specific terms and conditions of that license. That is why if you get a disk with GNU utils on it from the FSF, you are still bound by the GPL in what you can do with the data on that disk.

2OEH8eoCRo0•43 minutes ago

We do but it'll never happen. Estates would accumulate huge libraries of digital goods and never need to buy anything new.

Which would be awesome which is why it won't happen.

Jcampuzano2•about 1 hour ago

> In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining "ownership" of a digital game.

So their argument really is that it is unreasonable for anybody to believe they own any of the things they download or purchase digitally? What a leap there.

I mean thats as plain english as you can get to an official rubber stamp on "you will own nothing and you will be happy".

And then they want to have it both ways by interchangeably using the words "revocable license" and "ownership" when it suits their needs. License in small writing/text, but "own" in anything the user might actually reasonably read.

croes•31 minutes ago

Does Sony believe in ownership of digital money?

haunter•about 2 hours ago

HN trunks the url

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony_PlayStation_digital_game_...

rf15•about 1 hour ago

Sony's lawyers really picked a strange hill to die on here... even if they win, the precedence will screw over Sony, at least in marketing.

embedding-shape•10 minutes ago

Not so strange, there is lots of money to be made by people not owning things anymore. Especially getting rid of physical second hand sells/buys will force consumer to buy the games straight from Sony again, who is the only store you will be able to buy Playstation games from.

But yeah, hopefully the community and ecosystem is aligned enough to massively fuck Sony over this, vote with your wallets people.