I think a lot of people reasonably believe that “buying” digital content provides continuous, permanent access to that content, as opposed to the common alternative of either paying for a time‐limited “rental” or for a monthly streaming subscription that obviously expires access as soon as one stops paying.

Such people are taken by surprise when it turns out companies can take away your “bought” content simply by virtue of changing licensing agreements or corporate structure without public input. Some recent cases:

• Crunchyroll and Funimation merged. People who had “permanent” digital copies purchased from Funimation lost them.

• Sony’s license for Discovery Channel content was not renewed, so all Discovery videos people had purchased (most notably, 20 seasons of Mythbusters) were removed from customers’ libraries.

• Ubisoft shut down the servers for The Crew and removed it from purchasers’ Steam libraries, despite the presence of a 20‐hour single‐player campaign that was online only for no good reason.

Maybe people will get used to this and consider all purchases ephemeral. I hope not. That’s why I buy and advocate for DRM‐free media.

It seems obvious that the distinction between buying a game digitally and buying a license to play a game digitally could be confusing to the average person looking at a digital storefront. Are you being facetious? (honestly asking - like, "gee, who would have thought there could be confusion?")

I'm sure some less knowledgeable people weren't aware of the distinction. There is a proposed California law to make the distinction more clear: don't use the word "purchase" unless you make clear that it is a license you are purchasing, not the game.

How many people do you know that have thought through the implications of Steam versus GOG installation and authentication methods?

Yes there was confusion, and the warning will probably help.