7 ms·

it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date

by dc3k 3mo ago

dathinab 3mo ago
and this should include musics and similar in games (excluding stuff like sessional content) if you sell a game you should have to have bought a license to use the music (and similar) in the game permanently (for given game sold, new sold revision can change what they contain but only if there isn't deceptive advertisement and it's very clearly labeled that it's a different revision/the content changed!).
- autoexec 3mo ago
  Single player games putting out "seasonal content" is kind of obnoxious too though so I wouldn't exclude them all. One example is the Moogle Chocobo Carnival and Assassin's Festival in Final Fantasy XV which players had to work very hard to patch back into the game after it was removed. The limited time Stellar Blade Summer Event wasn't nearly as impressive as the carnival, but it was still a black mark on a game that was otherwise refreshingly free from bullshit.
b112 3mo ago
Yes, 100%, and that end date should be very clearly listed too.
- munk-a 3mo ago
  Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly, but consumers should still be aware of the fact that their rights are limited. While the Gaben lives valve will store many people's games - when the Gaben dies... well, it's going to suck - but it'll probably take a while to completely suck, we'll probably go through drawn out enshittification first. This outcome seems inevitable[1] but it is likely a fair distance off. 1. Unless you write a damned clear company charter, Gabe, get on that.
  - jeroenhd 3mo ago
    Companies selling these titles should know a minimum end date. Even if contracts don't get renewed, it's unlikely they will only have the rights for less than a year. If that minimum drives customers away, these companies should put more work into ensuring their minimum availability is a good deal.
  - Karliss 3mo ago
    > Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly I am pretty sure that whatever contract streaming platform has with publishers has a some kind of date. It might be unpleasantly short (a year or month) making it look like a bad deal, but that's the point. In current situation the "unknowable" date might be as short as 1 day. It's up to the good will of streaming service to warn ahead of time. Knowing what you get and the quantity of it is the most basic part of fair deal. If a streaming service has only negotiated a 1 month license they shouldn't be allowed to re-license the content for longer period. If they want to offer longer deal they need to negotiate better license with publisher or take the risk on themselves by being prepared to give refund in the case of failure to deliver promised service. Telling that they guarantee only single year of service to provide doesn't prevent them from providing it longer. If a travel agency rents a bus for a day, offering a 1 week trip around Europe would be considered a scam.
  - tjpnz 3mo ago
    If Valve continue to stay privately owned I've some confidence that the status quo will remain, regardless of whether Gaben's around. Enshittification is a feature of publicly traded companies and those owned by private equity.
LoganDark 3mo ago
Renting what? The non-exclusive, revocable license? Because that's what purchase or buy means.
- skywhopper 3mo ago
  No, that’s not what “purchase” or “buy” means.
  - akramachamarei 3mo ago
    It literally is. "Verb "purchase (third-person singular simple present purchases, present participle purchasing, simple past and past participle purchased) "To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase "Verb "buy (third-person singular simple present buys, present participle buying, simple past bought, past participle bought or (archaic, rare, dialectal) boughten) "(transitive, ditransitive) To obtain (something) in exchange for money or goods." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English
  - LoganDark 3mo ago
    It is. You can either be purchasing a license to a movie, or purchasing the movie itself. You have never been purchasing the movie itself from these services, because you're not entitled to it even after you purchase (i.e. there is DRM, etc. preventing you from ever getting it, you don't get it in any alternative forms, etc). If you want to own something, you buy on iTunes, where they let you download DRM-free copies, to do whatever you want with. But if you buy it on PlayStation, Amazon, etc. you are only getting a revocable license. You are only buying a revocable license. That is what "purchase" or "buy" means, because you're "purchasing" or "buying" the license, not the movie
    - tremon 3mo ago
      Citizens don't need a license to read and/or watch stuff in their own private homes, that's a basic right guaranteed by the First Amendment (in the US; similar laws apply in the rest of the civilized world). Whatever you want to claim that people are purchasing it can not be a "viewing license" because that would violate the Constitution.
mistyvales 3mo ago
Pretty sure the Terms of Use say just that. They should update the language on the frontend though.
xboxnolifes 3mo ago
That's a big can of worms, since it applies to approximately 100% of all software. You only ever buy a license that allows you to use software, almost never actually buy software.
- yellowapple 3mo ago
  I'm quite alright with that can of worms being opened for software. Enthused, even.
- sidewndr46 3mo ago
  I'm reasonably certain when I ordered linux CDs in the 90s, no one put a limit on the time frame I could be using them
- jeroenhd 3mo ago
  And if that one-time purchased software stops working at an arbitrary date, it should be subject to the same rules. Especially online software or software requiring servers to run. You can still offer limited-time subscriptions, of course, and you can extend the minimum deadline for your server-dependent software to free as often as you want, just make sure people know what the deal is when they buy your software. DVDs and other media also aren't yours to buy, they're just licenses and a physical container to use that license. You can buy software the same way you can buy a DVD, and you can rent software the same way you can rent a movie on a digital storefront.
- fluoridation 3mo ago
  Copyright law has been playing semantic games with "buy" and "own" for decades. When I buy(1) something, it's mine, and I can do what I want with it. The person whom I buy it from doesn't have the right to rescind my rights over the thing I bought. When I buy(2) a software license, does the seller have the right to claw back the license? If not, then buy(1) and buy(2) are conceptually identical, and there's no difference between buying a license and buying the (copy of the) software. If yes or unknown, then buying(2) is not buying(1), as it does not grant ownership, but something else; not even over the license. So what kind of transaction is buying(2) something? What do you get in exchange for money? It's clearly not a good, so is it a service? Is continued permission to use the software a service? Then if that service is interrupted the consumer should be entitled to some kind of reimbursement from the provider, right? Because otherwise the provider has an incentive to stop the service.
sib 3mo ago
So... I used to work in the "digital movie & TV selling" industry. Our product detail pages, like pretty much all our competitors, had language on the call-to-action buttons that said "purchase" (and also, as an alternative, "rent," for 48- or 72-hour viewing). At one point, about 10 years ago, one of the major Hollywood studios came to us and required us to change that because they believed that exactly this sort of thing would happen and we would all be setting ourselves up for liability because consumers would rightfully assume that that meant they owned the movie "forever."
- mzajc 3mo ago
  "Rent for 48h", and... "Rent until we say the time is up"?
makeitdouble 3mo ago
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)
- pessimizer 3mo ago
  > 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.
  - makeitdouble 3mo ago
    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.
    - Anamon 3mo ago
      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".
microgpt 3mo ago
In California it isn't legal
neop1x 3mo ago
Yes, it is very comfusing. "Buy" buttons should be replaced by "License" buttons when you are licensing stuff instead of buyimg it. There should be a law for that.

it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date

by dc3k 3mo ago

it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date

dathinab 3mo ago

and this should include musics and similar in games (excluding stuff like sessional content) if you sell a game you should have to have bought a license to use the music (and similar) in the game permanently (for given game sold, new sold revision can change what they contain but only if there isn't deceptive advertisement and it's very clearly labeled that it's a different revision/the content changed!).

autoexec 3mo ago
Single player games putting out "seasonal content" is kind of obnoxious too though so I wouldn't exclude them all. One example is the Moogle Chocobo Carnival and Assassin's Festival in Final Fantasy XV which players had to work very hard to patch back into the game after it was removed. The limited time Stellar Blade Summer Event wasn't nearly as impressive as the carnival, but it was still a black mark on a game that was otherwise refreshingly free from bullshit.

b112 3mo ago

Yes, 100%, and that end date should be very clearly listed too.

munk-a 3mo ago
Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly, but consumers should still be aware of the fact that their rights are limited. While the Gaben lives valve will store many people's games - when the Gaben dies... well, it's going to suck - but it'll probably take a while to completely suck, we'll probably go through drawn out enshittification first. This outcome seems inevitable[1] but it is likely a fair distance off. 1. Unless you write a damned clear company charter, Gabe, get on that.
- jeroenhd 3mo ago
  Companies selling these titles should know a minimum end date. Even if contracts don't get renewed, it's unlikely they will only have the rights for less than a year. If that minimum drives customers away, these companies should put more work into ensuring their minimum availability is a good deal.
- Karliss 3mo ago
  > Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly I am pretty sure that whatever contract streaming platform has with publishers has a some kind of date. It might be unpleasantly short (a year or month) making it look like a bad deal, but that's the point. In current situation the "unknowable" date might be as short as 1 day. It's up to the good will of streaming service to warn ahead of time. Knowing what you get and the quantity of it is the most basic part of fair deal. If a streaming service has only negotiated a 1 month license they shouldn't be allowed to re-license the content for longer period. If they want to offer longer deal they need to negotiate better license with publisher or take the risk on themselves by being prepared to give refund in the case of failure to deliver promised service. Telling that they guarantee only single year of service to provide doesn't prevent them from providing it longer. If a travel agency rents a bus for a day, offering a 1 week trip around Europe would be considered a scam.
- tjpnz 3mo ago
  If Valve continue to stay privately owned I've some confidence that the status quo will remain, regardless of whether Gaben's around. Enshittification is a feature of publicly traded companies and those owned by private equity.

LoganDark 3mo ago

Renting what? The non-exclusive, revocable license? Because that's what purchase or buy means.

skywhopper 3mo ago
No, that’s not what “purchase” or “buy” means.
- akramachamarei 3mo ago
  It literally is. "Verb "purchase (third-person singular simple present purchases, present participle purchasing, simple past and past participle purchased) "To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase "Verb "buy (third-person singular simple present buys, present participle buying, simple past bought, past participle bought or (archaic, rare, dialectal) boughten) "(transitive, ditransitive) To obtain (something) in exchange for money or goods." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English
- LoganDark 3mo ago
  It is. You can either be purchasing a license to a movie, or purchasing the movie itself. You have never been purchasing the movie itself from these services, because you're not entitled to it even after you purchase (i.e. there is DRM, etc. preventing you from ever getting it, you don't get it in any alternative forms, etc). If you want to own something, you buy on iTunes, where they let you download DRM-free copies, to do whatever you want with. But if you buy it on PlayStation, Amazon, etc. you are only getting a revocable license. You are only buying a revocable license. That is what "purchase" or "buy" means, because you're "purchasing" or "buying" the license, not the movie
  - tremon 3mo ago
    Citizens don't need a license to read and/or watch stuff in their own private homes, that's a basic right guaranteed by the First Amendment (in the US; similar laws apply in the rest of the civilized world). Whatever you want to claim that people are purchasing it can not be a "viewing license" because that would violate the Constitution.

mistyvales 3mo ago

Pretty sure the Terms of Use say just that. They should update the language on the frontend though.

xboxnolifes 3mo ago

That's a big can of worms, since it applies to approximately 100% of all software. You only ever buy a license that allows you to use software, almost never actually buy software.

yellowapple 3mo ago
I'm quite alright with that can of worms being opened for software. Enthused, even.
sidewndr46 3mo ago
I'm reasonably certain when I ordered linux CDs in the 90s, no one put a limit on the time frame I could be using them
jeroenhd 3mo ago
And if that one-time purchased software stops working at an arbitrary date, it should be subject to the same rules. Especially online software or software requiring servers to run. You can still offer limited-time subscriptions, of course, and you can extend the minimum deadline for your server-dependent software to free as often as you want, just make sure people know what the deal is when they buy your software. DVDs and other media also aren't yours to buy, they're just licenses and a physical container to use that license. You can buy software the same way you can buy a DVD, and you can rent software the same way you can rent a movie on a digital storefront.
fluoridation 3mo ago
Copyright law has been playing semantic games with "buy" and "own" for decades. When I buy(1) something, it's mine, and I can do what I want with it. The person whom I buy it from doesn't have the right to rescind my rights over the thing I bought. When I buy(2) a software license, does the seller have the right to claw back the license? If not, then buy(1) and buy(2) are conceptually identical, and there's no difference between buying a license and buying the (copy of the) software. If yes or unknown, then buying(2) is not buying(1), as it does not grant ownership, but something else; not even over the license. So what kind of transaction is buying(2) something? What do you get in exchange for money? It's clearly not a good, so is it a service? Is continued permission to use the software a service? Then if that service is interrupted the consumer should be entitled to some kind of reimbursement from the provider, right? Because otherwise the provider has an incentive to stop the service.

sib 3mo ago

So... I used to work in the "digital movie & TV selling" industry. Our product detail pages, like pretty much all our competitors, had language on the call-to-action buttons that said "purchase" (and also, as an alternative, "rent," for 48- or 72-hour viewing). At one point, about 10 years ago, one of the major Hollywood studios came to us and required us to change that because they believed that exactly this sort of thing would happen and we would all be setting ourselves up for liability because consumers would rightfully assume that that meant they owned the movie "forever."

mzajc 3mo ago
"Rent for 48h", and... "Rent until we say the time is up"?

makeitdouble 3mo ago

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)

pessimizer 3mo ago
> 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.
- makeitdouble 3mo ago
  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.
  - Anamon 3mo ago
    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".

microgpt 3mo ago

In California it isn't legal

neop1x 3mo ago

Yes, it is very comfusing. "Buy" buttons should be replaced by "License" buttons when you are licensing stuff instead of buyimg it. There should be a law for that.