Sony argues gamers license, not own, digital games in legal filing
The company's court statement that software cannot be sold because it is not finite has drawn criticism for misleading marketing and threats to consumer rights.
What to know
- Sony claims in a court filing that game purchases are licenses, not ownership, arguing software cannot be sold because it is non-finite and multiple copies can coexist.
- Critics charge that Sony uses misleading 'buy' language on store pages while reserving the right to revoke access if servers shut down, and note recent removals of purchased movies and plans to end physical media.
- The debate centers on whether labeling should be mandatory (say 'lease' instead of 'buy'), whether consumer protections like refunds or service guarantees should be required by law, and whether this is Sony-specific or a broader platform issue.
- Some gamers indicate they will avoid future Sony purchases or switch to DRM-free platforms like GOG, while enforcement gaps exist even in jurisdictions with existing consumer protections.
The dispute Whether Sony is uniquely culpable or merely more visible than other platforms that have used the licensing model for 20 years; whether regulation/labeling or market exit (GOG, boycott, piracy) is the better remedy. · positions read across 246 posts and comments
Sony's claim is misleading and requires legal/regulatory intervention; store pages should say 'lease' not 'buy,' and consumers should have refund rights or guaranteed service periods.
-
“If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this.”
captainbland · Hacker News
This is a systemic 20-year-old issue affecting all digital platforms, not Sony-specific; Steam deserves equal criticism but has been more consumer-friendly in other ways, making it harder to blame.
-
“Valve killed the previously thriving boxed game industry two decades ago and people can't get over how much they love everything about Valve.”
redwall_hp · Hacker News ↗
Consumers should vote with their wallets by boycotting Sony and switching to GOG or other DRM-free alternatives; if licensing is the reality, piracy becomes justified.
-
“If I'm not buying a thing, but instead a limited license to a thing, then I don't care about buying that thing anymore and I'll just take it.”
hightrix · Hacker News ↗
“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.”
Sony, Legal filing · aginggamer.net
Sony Defendant in ownership licensing disputeEdward Heycock & Jason Mendoza Named plaintiffs in case
The record 1 articles and posts · last 30 days
What people are saying 24 voices from 1 site · best of 246 · verbatim
- Why did California's Attorney General decline to enforce existing California consumer protection law against Sony?
- Should digital game sales be legally required to guarantee playability for a minimum period, or offer refunds if servers shut down?
- If GOG and other DRM-free platforms prove commercially viable, will market pressure force major publishers to offer ownership-based alternatives?
- Sep 4
-
> So you've verified this?Yes, verified. I would not have said it otherwise.https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/terms-of-service/> 14.5. Class Action Waiver. > YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE AGREE THAT ARBITRATION WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION [...]> Regardless…
- Sep 3
-
I'd be very surprised if the average buyer of Call of Shooty was aware that their game could be taken away from them (for reasons (or lack thereof) other than maybe getting their account banned for cheating).I'd also be fairly surprised if that average buyer cared all that much. For many the life cycle of any random game is short enough that it…
-
> Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct.Don't move the goalposts.The only thing I am conceding is that conceptually it still ownership if you own the encrypted bits but they work fine with some other hardware that has the keys to decrypt them…
-
It's easy to get lost in arguments where analogies are used. They're almost always terrible and are the death of nuance and detail. Fuck car analogies, a car isn't a video game console.Sony host a massive, massive marketplace. That's where their monopoly lies, they have end to end control over distribution of not only their games, but anyone else…
-
Sony doesn't DRM the power that you use to run the Playstation either. But to try and meet the comparison: there are different manufacturers of fuel just like there are different publishers of games and while Volkswagen can't force you to not put standard fuel in your car they can certainly void your warranty if you don't use premium (and fuel is…
-
The problem is that ownership is itself a legal fiction, so it's kind of necessarily legalese. It's interchangeable with "legitimate control" in common parlance. IE if I break into your house and throw you out of it, I don't suddenly own your house. Even though I'm in possession of it, the control I have of it isn't legitimate. Ownership is the…
-
This is not a bold claim, this is just how it is.If you ask any average gamer, "if you buy a game on Steam or on a CD from Walmart, do you operate on the understanding that you are now legally allowed to make as many copies of it as you want and sell those copies?"The answer will unanimously be no. If they owned it, the answer would be yes. They…
-
The copy itself is incidental. It's the medium by which the performance of the license is executed through, and if some form of it requires a Sony online service to exist and to work or respond in a certain way and tied to your specific account, to gain access to the meaningful parts of the work, that's what you own. You can sell the physical…
-
Then maybe is should be forced to say: “Buy revocable license” and require the user to answer randomized multiple choice questions regarding the terms of the license that act in opposition to the purchaser. Collect metrics on wrong answers and if greater than say, 15% of people can’t determine what they are actually handing over money for, fine…
-
What's interesting is that the item you linked says "game key card" and "90 GB - Full game download via internet required"also interesting, in california vendors are required to say "you are buying a license" unless you can download the media you are purchasing.I don't know if that game qualifies.for kindle books, amazon says:"By placing your…
-
LOL fuck off with that. The Amazon link[0] to a Final Fantasy game has a "Buy Now" button, not "License Now". I'm buying a copy of a game, exactly like I'm buying a copy of a book.[1] If they want to pretend in their little "licensing" fiction, it should be federally illegal to describe buying a copy as "purchasing" or "buying".When you lease a…
-
We are in the most emotionally driven period of human history to date where reasoning takes a back seat. It's super frustrating but once you realize this instance isn't a one off you can start to focus on the bigger picture. I'm not saying this makes it less frustrating, but perhaps it'd help you to cast things in a new light. You're mostly…
-
> This feels like a strange reductio ad absurdum argument in reverse, where the argument isn’t disproven by reducing it: it is instead proven that merchandise and specifically software is sold as copies not as a singular entity. I’m not sure who Sony’s lawyers are trying to appeal to here, or if they just wanted to burn through a few dozen…
-
Yeah I've already decided there won't be any new Sony consoles in my household. Games are so big now I can't possibly download all my games at once so if the store goes down I lose all those games permanently and $70+ for AAA games that are really hit and miss in the "fun" category is no longer worth it to me. The PS5 was also pretty darn…
-
Of course, I am not arguing otherwise. But if your core problem is not the removal of content but what Sony is arguing right now. You should have just as much of an issue with Valve as you do Sony since you are signing up for the same legal risk.Just because one has done it and the other hasn't is a technicality to me since that could change…
-
Why is your knee jerk reaction to defend steam?Sure they have said and claimed a lot of things, but their TOS says the same thing that Sony is arguing. Its suddenly this big shock now but no one cared before? Sure the way Sony is handling this is fumble after fumble but thats PR.My problem is that Valve for some reason gets a free pass because…
-
That's not really how copyright law works.Firstly, you're not "stealing" (committing the crime of theft) by making digital copies of a work. You are infringing copyright. Even a single copy infringes copyright. To not infringe copyright, you need a license for your copying from the copyright holder.You can still manage to infringe that license…
-
Physical PC games weren't great in the 2000s. Online activated serial keys, optical disc based DRM that caused problems during both the 9x>NT and XP>Vista transitions, the only thing that made PC gaming tolerable for me was gamecopyworld. Valve (eventually) offered something better than that.PC games can still be physical. Burn some discs or copy…
-
I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base. Linux support for GPUs has never been better than what it is today. I've spent the last 4 or 5 years gaming exclusively on Linux just to highlight how good it has gotten, and no I don't have to run around doing command line incantations…
-
Well, in the UK under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, with goods, you're entitled to refund, a repair, or a replacement. We're not good at class actions in the UK, so it's down to the individual, but if a one time payment for a game that was physical media, isn't a 'good', what is it?I'll post the google/ai summary, but this mostly it:Your Main…
-
Redefining common words is the issue here.> If you don't accept society's rules about related norms, such as you having a different definition of theft froom society'sSociety's "norms" around buying is that you own the thing you buy, which is why we have different words for buy, lease, rent, etc. Society's norms around theft is that you have taken…
-
I disagree with the assertion that Valve is responsible for the death of physical game copies.First off, console games have gradually moved away from offering physical copies for years. This had the (probably deliberate) effect of killing the used game market. Earlier attempts to kill that market were driven by the proliferation of digital content…
-
I maybe should have phrased that better since I do understand their announcement around disks and removing the movies is a reason why they are the current target.I just find it hypocritical, people keep saying they are going to move to xbox or pc next gen and its like. Their policy is exactly the same. You have the same risk and not really…
-
What I don't understand is why Sony is the one being targeted for this when this has been the case with any digital purchase for 20 years?I don't know of a digital marketplace that works differently.But instead all of the hate, the boycots, etc are all targeting Sony instead of focusing on actually figuring out how to improve digital purchase…