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

> The motion says the PlayStation Terms of Service put a binding arbitration agreement and a class action waiver in Section 14, and quotes the opt-out clause: ... > The clause requires a user who does not wish to be bound to notify Sony in writing within 30 days of accepting the agreement.

Binding arbitration on individuals should be illegal, full stop. The only use case is taking away people's rights as consumers and workers. Or dodging responsibility for deadly mistakes like the Disney+ incident.

This "opt out" mechanism is made to let Sony lawyers argue that accepting it was your choice so it can't be struck down as forced, even if 99% of users have no idea it exists, by design. Evil all the way down.

> "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

> "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"

That's a very interesting defense. I wonder if it opens up a door maybe Sony would rather keep shut. If I can't own a copy of content because someone else has another copy, how does this play out for piracy? According to Sony's own argument, pirating a copy of the content is fine because others can/do still "buy" or "own" (rent/lease) it.

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.

If 30 years ago someone suggested breaking into your house to take away your Nintendo games or remotely disabling them by sending something over the network to the console, it would have absolutely been beyond the pale.

But 30 years of boiling the frog and now we have a megacorp that has absolutely no qualms about maximizing their profits by doing the moral equivalent. The popular conception of what constitutes a transaction, what constitutes ownership, and what is fair use has swung so far away from what consumers want and expect, that I can't believe they're arguing, stupidly, in court, that ownership is "not possible" because one person can buy a game, and then a second person can!

Whatever happened, I dunno. I hate that consumers have become so powerless in the face of relentless erosion of basic transactional norms.

It just reinforces how much I will not be participating in that economy.

HN trunks the url

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

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.

> 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.

This thing where companies can use custom definitions of words in order to intentionally build ambiguity into their agreements is designed to induce just this type of problem. Words have meaning outside these agreements and that outside meaning influences people's interpretation of the agreement. Words are, unfortunately, also ambiguous. So when we make these agreements we allow them to add more detail to definitions in an effort to clear up that ambiguity, but we end up with people trying to argue blatant contradictions like "any reasonable person would understand that own doesn't mean own"

As a society we need to sort out this simple scenario:

* 16 years old Joe buys a $70 cartridge/disc game, already assuming and counting on the $35 that he'll get back on second-hand sell.

That's it. A simple idea that should never cease to be possible, regardless of the medium.

This particular example made games affordable, and it also inadvertently put a concrete price on several other factors like how much it costs to be a first owner vs. wait for a second-hand purchase, and how much it costs to keep it for your collection vs. allowing the product to flow back into the community.

I've noticed something interesting here. Sony claims it does not disown people because even when they purchased a physical hard copy, Sony still would own it. Naturally this is wrong - people could re-sell it if they want to and Sony could not remote-control anything else. But it is interesting that Sony TRIES to go that route now. I think the courts will have to make a very simple decision as to what ownership constitutes. IMO when there is a physical hardcopy, things have to stay as they are for decades - this is the only logical conclusion. So, Sony trying to prevent physical hardcopies, as means to dis"own" future sales, should be closed down by the court system. I'd even think legislation should change so that Sony would be required to make these as a copy. That could be as simple as on a USB stick for instance (does not even have to be provided by Sony, could be purchased elsewhere by the buyer). Sony's way to try to argue here makes no sense to me. We need better right to ownershiper by customers laws, in addition to right to repair laws in favour of the customers. These corporations bribed legislation to their favour - that must stop.

[dead]

You own the license. The license can be revoked. Don’t look for ways to prove them wrong. Just don’t buy it.