PlayStation To Delete A Ton Of TV Shows Users Already Paid For::Sony says Mythbusters and more Discovery TV shows are going away whether you bought them or not
PlayStation To Delete A Ton Of TV Shows Users Already Paid For::Sony says Mythbusters and more Discovery TV shows are going away whether you bought them or not
The problem is that what you’re buying is a license. Of course it has to be a license, because unlike a physical good, anything delivered digitally could be replicated infinitely, and of course you wouldn’t be allowed to do something like open your own storefront to resell copies of it. Nor would you legally be allowed to play it on the radio, as background music in a store, etc.
“Buy” isn’t really that different here than if you bought a ticket to a concert; of course you wouldn’t be able to attend next year with the same ticket, but you still bought something. The problem is that with digital licenses, they can be INCREDIBLY varied, and sellers don’t make even a small attempt to clarify what the terms are.
You use the word ownership, but at least from a legal standpoint, that doesn’t really mean anything intuitive, unless it means you hold all rights to the IP (which, again, you don’t). It would be nice if there was some widespread legal definition and norms about “ownership of a digital copy”, but no such concept exists, and frankly the rights holders are not incentivized to try to create something like this.
“Not incentivized”!
They like using the current word “buy” because people think it means they “own” a digital copy. Since that’s not true what we’re really saying here is that they like lying because that makes them more money.
I think the more honest term is “rent”. A normal rental agreement online is for like 48hrs. This is a rental agreement for a much longer, but unspecified, time period.
You’d think a court case would clear this up. But probably not.