7 ms·

California Assembly Bill 2426 (AB 2426), effective 1 January, 2025. Expands the state's false advertising laws to explicitly ban companies from using words like

California Assembly Bill 2426 (AB 2426), effective 1 January, 2025. Expands the state's false advertising laws to explicitly ban companies from using words like "buy," "purchase," "own," or "keep" if what the customer is actually getting is a revocable digital license governed by shady T&Cs.

dataflow 3mo ago
Is it working/being enforced? Anecdotally I haven't seen or heard of any changes in verbiage, but I haven't been paying that much attention.
- galleywest200 3mo ago
  Steam/Valve follow the law: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purchase-license-digital-storefront https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purch...
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    So they avoided having a "rent" button by using the technically correct "add to cart", "continue to payment" instead of "buy this game", "buy all games in cart", and just have a separate sentence in small grey text that is confusing to most people. Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting.
    - cptroot 3mo ago
      In my experience it's a pretty clear warning, but I might not be the best person to judge. The thing to remember is "buying" a revocable license is pretty different from "renting" a temporary license, and those words have pretty different connotations.
      - inigyou 3mo ago
        No, the thing to remember is that "buying a revocable license" is a dishonest way to say "renting for at least one millisecond"
    - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
      > Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting. No, there is a much better alternative. No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO.
      - Silhouette 3mo ago
        No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO. That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return. I am in favour of copyright reform but not of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
        AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
        > That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return. Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost. Meanwhile rentals are an attempt to cheat the public out of a bunch of rights they would otherwise have under First Sale etc. Which turns your access argument on its head, because the thing they're being denied is the ability to sell their copy when they're done with it, which in turn denies less well off customers the ability to buy a cheaper copy second hand.
        Silhouette 3mo ago
        Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost. It destroys the library model used by Spotify, Netflix, and all the other similar services for one example. Those are clearly not working on the same basis as selling permanent copies of everything you might want to listen to or watch. They clearly do make a lot of revenue from subscribers enjoying the long tail of music and programmes and often that includes repeats. Many more people enjoy many more works that aren't the big headliners under this model. People can also try something they might enjoy without committing to the cost of buying it and therefore don't have to feel bad if it's not for them and they give up after a few minutes. And yet obviously the subscribers individually spend far less in many cases than it would cost them to buy permanent copies of everything they'd listened to and watched. Given the popularity and financial success of the streaming services this is evidently an alternative model that works for both sides. So I would challenge your claim that the loss from always providing permanent copies is insignificant. I don't really buy the other argument you're making either. With digital works there isn't much reason for a "second hand" market where copies would be significantly cheaper than a "new" copy direct from the supplier. When people used to trade used works on physical media there was a degree of degradation in those media that justified a price reduction. Why would someone who had bought a copy of the latest summer blockbuster sell it for 30% of its original purchase price if it's a flawless digital reproduction identical to a new one? Naturally this shifts the dynamics in the market and the price of buying a true permanent copy that can legally be sold on afterwards would tend to increase because of this effect. Meanwhile the library services I mentioned above work on almost the opposite basis and it tends to push the price per work accessed down because the subscribers aren't effectively subsidising other people who are enjoying identical works to themselves but without paying the original source anything to access those works. I think there is demonstrably room enough in a world of billions of people with access to orders of magnitude more content than any of us could experience even once in our lifetimes for multiple economic models. What matters is that people get to create useful works and other people get to enjoy those works and the financial arrangements make this worthwhile for everyone. There are certainly flaws in the current copyright model that is established in most of the world. There are rights that I think people who have bought (or believe they have bought) permanent copies of works should enjoy with the force of law behind them if necessary. I don't have a great answer yet to the problem of rights holders not wanting to make anything available permanently at all so that everyone is locked into some form of temporary arrangement. Clearly market forces haven't always sorted that one out effectively and some sort of adjustment is warranted. But I'm also wary of relying on some form of government regulation that distorts the market and potentially excludes arrangements that everyone actually involved might find worthwhile. Maybe you could somehow require that once any work has more than a certain number of licensed copies in circulation or has been available to a certain number of people from authorised sources for a certain (relatively small) number of years then it must also be available for sale as a permanent licence - regardless of any other continuing and still legitimate ways to access it from authorised sources - but with some recognition that a fair price to buy a permanent copy that comes with all the associated rights today might be significantly higher than what these things used to cost in the days when physical media were required.
ikekkdcjkfke 3mo ago
Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Power in numbers is with the people. Power in votes is with whoever has the votes. Power in money is with the billionaires. Power comes in many forms and isn't fungible.
  - Retric 3mo ago
    No, Money, Votes, etc has value because the general public gives it value. All billionaires could be instantly broke if the general public decided they were broke. Votes are ultimately a method of control not an inherent power unto themselves. Societies have gotten really good at convincing people they don’t have power so it’s rarely exercised but it’s always worth remembering the difference between abstraction and the underlying reality.
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      If I stop believing that money has value, men with guns will come to my house and force me out of it and change the locks. If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house, force them out of it and change the locks. This isn't a voluntary system, it's a forcibly imposed one.
      - Retric 3mo ago
        > If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house You’re assuming there’s going to be large groups of people that believe money still has value. However, there’s nothing inherently different about the first group of people with guns and the second group of people with guns. If hypothetically there’s a large moon heading to earth so everyone is going to die, everyone is responding to the same situation. Less extreme situations result in societal collapse, and that’s just one of many options.
giancarlostoro 3mo ago
Effective after most people likely bought their movies.
em500 3mo ago
I don't think this type of legislation will have any kind of real world effect. Apple App store labels all their buttons with "Get". Google Play Store just prints the price on the button for paid apps/games.
- SpaceNoodled 3mo ago
  Yet another victim of an overspecific law.
- delecti 3mo ago
  In a thread about movies, it's perhaps more relevant to talk about how those two platforms handle movies. In a browser, the top category on Google's "Movies & TV" is "New to buy or rent". The buttons on the page for a movie are labeled "$X.XX Buy" and "$X.XX Rent". In the Google TV app on my android phone, the two buttons are "Rent 4K // $X.XX" and "Buy 4K // $X.XX". The splash images in the Apple TV app iOS say "Buy or rent it now.", and the buttons on the page for an individual movie are labeled "Buy $X.XX" and "Rent $X.XX".
  - chaosharmonic 3mo ago
    Not to defend this, just to further observe the different nature of their marketing -- games also haven't historically had similar "rent" options in the first place. Timed demos are a newer trend, demos in general have usually been smaller sections of the content, and they typically aren't something you're paying for.
    - 8note 3mo ago
      blockbuster rented cartridges and disks back in the day. so do libraries
      - chaosharmonic 3mo ago
        Fair, I more so mean for digital releases. Movies, on digital marketplaces, have had this kind of distinction for a lot longer than games have.
apparent 3mo ago
I've wondered how they'll draw the line on this. If Amazon or Apple has a buy button and it means you get to have ongoing access to the content for as long as Amazon/Apple is around, then for a 30 year old person there's a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing. But if it's hazier, as in the case of Sony's revocation based on losing rights in later years, then you're obviously not getting the same thing. How does CA's law apply to this continuum of circumstances?
- amelius 3mo ago
  Buy only means buy if you can use the product as advertised after breaking all ties with the vendor. Let's not broaden this definition in favor of the vendor.
  - alt227 3mo ago
    Is this an official definition defined in law?
    - confidantlake 3mo ago
      I'm sorry what? There isn't some super secret legal definition of every word. Buy means buy.
  - apparent 3mo ago
    Can customers continue to use the content Sony is removing from their accounts, if they have previously downloaded it? I assume that "buy" doesn't require the vendor to continuously maintain the content on their servers, to be available for free download, forever. Of course, customers would also need a way to transfer the content from their existing devices to later-purchased devices. If that is possible now, but becomes impossible later (like if Sony goes bankrupt), then does that ruin the "buy" characterization that seemed legit at the beginning?
    - amelius 3mo ago
      Basically, Sony is trying to couple the selling of the content to the renting of cloud space. That is a kind of tie-in sales that should not be permitted like that (the buyer should have the option to rent the cloud space for their product elsewhere).
bix6 3mo ago
Amazon still shows me a buy option for movies?

dataflow 3mo ago

Is it working/being enforced? Anecdotally I haven't seen or heard of any changes in verbiage, but I haven't been paying that much attention.

galleywest200 3mo ago
Steam/Valve follow the law: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purchase-license-digital-storefront https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purch...
- inigyou 3mo ago
  So they avoided having a "rent" button by using the technically correct "add to cart", "continue to payment" instead of "buy this game", "buy all games in cart", and just have a separate sentence in small grey text that is confusing to most people. Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting.
  - cptroot 3mo ago
    In my experience it's a pretty clear warning, but I might not be the best person to judge. The thing to remember is "buying" a revocable license is pretty different from "renting" a temporary license, and those words have pretty different connotations.
    - inigyou 3mo ago
      No, the thing to remember is that "buying a revocable license" is a dishonest way to say "renting for at least one millisecond"
  - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
    > Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting. No, there is a much better alternative. No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO.
    - Silhouette 3mo ago
      No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO. That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return. I am in favour of copyright reform but not of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
      - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
        > That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return. Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost. Meanwhile rentals are an attempt to cheat the public out of a bunch of rights they would otherwise have under First Sale etc. Which turns your access argument on its head, because the thing they're being denied is the ability to sell their copy when they're done with it, which in turn denies less well off customers the ability to buy a cheaper copy second hand.
        Silhouette 3mo ago
        Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost. It destroys the library model used by Spotify, Netflix, and all the other similar services for one example. Those are clearly not working on the same basis as selling permanent copies of everything you might want to listen to or watch. They clearly do make a lot of revenue from subscribers enjoying the long tail of music and programmes and often that includes repeats. Many more people enjoy many more works that aren't the big headliners under this model. People can also try something they might enjoy without committing to the cost of buying it and therefore don't have to feel bad if it's not for them and they give up after a few minutes. And yet obviously the subscribers individually spend far less in many cases than it would cost them to buy permanent copies of everything they'd listened to and watched. Given the popularity and financial success of the streaming services this is evidently an alternative model that works for both sides. So I would challenge your claim that the loss from always providing permanent copies is insignificant. I don't really buy the other argument you're making either. With digital works there isn't much reason for a "second hand" market where copies would be significantly cheaper than a "new" copy direct from the supplier. When people used to trade used works on physical media there was a degree of degradation in those media that justified a price reduction. Why would someone who had bought a copy of the latest summer blockbuster sell it for 30% of its original purchase price if it's a flawless digital reproduction identical to a new one? Naturally this shifts the dynamics in the market and the price of buying a true permanent copy that can legally be sold on afterwards would tend to increase because of this effect. Meanwhile the library services I mentioned above work on almost the opposite basis and it tends to push the price per work accessed down because the subscribers aren't effectively subsidising other people who are enjoying identical works to themselves but without paying the original source anything to access those works. I think there is demonstrably room enough in a world of billions of people with access to orders of magnitude more content than any of us could experience even once in our lifetimes for multiple economic models. What matters is that people get to create useful works and other people get to enjoy those works and the financial arrangements make this worthwhile for everyone. There are certainly flaws in the current copyright model that is established in most of the world. There are rights that I think people who have bought (or believe they have bought) permanent copies of works should enjoy with the force of law behind them if necessary. I don't have a great answer yet to the problem of rights holders not wanting to make anything available permanently at all so that everyone is locked into some form of temporary arrangement. Clearly market forces haven't always sorted that one out effectively and some sort of adjustment is warranted. But I'm also wary of relying on some form of government regulation that distorts the market and potentially excludes arrangements that everyone actually involved might find worthwhile. Maybe you could somehow require that once any work has more than a certain number of licensed copies in circulation or has been available to a certain number of people from authorised sources for a certain (relatively small) number of years then it must also be available for sale as a permanent licence - regardless of any other continuing and still legitimate ways to access it from authorised sources - but with some recognition that a fair price to buy a permanent copy that comes with all the associated rights today might be significantly higher than what these things used to cost in the days when physical media were required.

ikekkdcjkfke 3mo ago

Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want

inigyou 3mo ago
Power in numbers is with the people. Power in votes is with whoever has the votes. Power in money is with the billionaires. Power comes in many forms and isn't fungible.
- Retric 3mo ago
  No, Money, Votes, etc has value because the general public gives it value. All billionaires could be instantly broke if the general public decided they were broke. Votes are ultimately a method of control not an inherent power unto themselves. Societies have gotten really good at convincing people they don’t have power so it’s rarely exercised but it’s always worth remembering the difference between abstraction and the underlying reality.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    If I stop believing that money has value, men with guns will come to my house and force me out of it and change the locks. If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house, force them out of it and change the locks. This isn't a voluntary system, it's a forcibly imposed one.
    - Retric 3mo ago
      > If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house You’re assuming there’s going to be large groups of people that believe money still has value. However, there’s nothing inherently different about the first group of people with guns and the second group of people with guns. If hypothetically there’s a large moon heading to earth so everyone is going to die, everyone is responding to the same situation. Less extreme situations result in societal collapse, and that’s just one of many options.

giancarlostoro 3mo ago

Effective after most people likely bought their movies.

em500 3mo ago

I don't think this type of legislation will have any kind of real world effect. Apple App store labels all their buttons with "Get". Google Play Store just prints the price on the button for paid apps/games.

SpaceNoodled 3mo ago
Yet another victim of an overspecific law.
delecti 3mo ago
In a thread about movies, it's perhaps more relevant to talk about how those two platforms handle movies. In a browser, the top category on Google's "Movies & TV" is "New to buy or rent". The buttons on the page for a movie are labeled "$X.XX Buy" and "$X.XX Rent". In the Google TV app on my android phone, the two buttons are "Rent 4K // $X.XX" and "Buy 4K // $X.XX". The splash images in the Apple TV app iOS say "Buy or rent it now.", and the buttons on the page for an individual movie are labeled "Buy $X.XX" and "Rent $X.XX".
- chaosharmonic 3mo ago
  Not to defend this, just to further observe the different nature of their marketing -- games also haven't historically had similar "rent" options in the first place. Timed demos are a newer trend, demos in general have usually been smaller sections of the content, and they typically aren't something you're paying for.
  - 8note 3mo ago
    blockbuster rented cartridges and disks back in the day. so do libraries
    - chaosharmonic 3mo ago
      Fair, I more so mean for digital releases. Movies, on digital marketplaces, have had this kind of distinction for a lot longer than games have.

apparent 3mo ago

I've wondered how they'll draw the line on this. If Amazon or Apple has a buy button and it means you get to have ongoing access to the content for as long as Amazon/Apple is around, then for a 30 year old person there's a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing. But if it's hazier, as in the case of Sony's revocation based on losing rights in later years, then you're obviously not getting the same thing. How does CA's law apply to this continuum of circumstances?

amelius 3mo ago
Buy only means buy if you can use the product as advertised after breaking all ties with the vendor. Let's not broaden this definition in favor of the vendor.
- alt227 3mo ago
  Is this an official definition defined in law?
  - confidantlake 3mo ago
    I'm sorry what? There isn't some super secret legal definition of every word. Buy means buy.
- apparent 3mo ago
  Can customers continue to use the content Sony is removing from their accounts, if they have previously downloaded it? I assume that "buy" doesn't require the vendor to continuously maintain the content on their servers, to be available for free download, forever. Of course, customers would also need a way to transfer the content from their existing devices to later-purchased devices. If that is possible now, but becomes impossible later (like if Sony goes bankrupt), then does that ruin the "buy" characterization that seemed legit at the beginning?
  - amelius 3mo ago
    Basically, Sony is trying to couple the selling of the content to the renting of cloud space. That is a kind of tie-in sales that should not be permitted like that (the buyer should have the option to rent the cloud space for their product elsewhere).

bix6 3mo ago

Amazon still shows me a buy option for movies?