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voidUpdate 8 hours ago

> "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

stetrain 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, you could not have purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from the store on February 25th because I myself purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from that very same store the day previously!

RIMR an hour ago | parent [-]

To be fair, this example doesn't work because those chip bags are two physically different objects that one can consume.

Sony is trying to argue that because they are selling digital copies, that consumers cannot be granted rights to their copy because they can't transfer the intellectual property rights, which is complete nonsense. I have a 1999 DVD copy of The Matrix that I have owned for 27 years, and short of the physical disc-rot, I will be able to play that DVD until the day I die, and Warner Bros can't do anything about it unless I try reselling new copies, or claiming authorship because, despite owning the disc, I do not own the rights to the movie...

A download isn't any different just because it lacks a physical form.

johen8 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah I'm not sure what they are trying to argue with that defense. It's also clear that this is not the point that the plaintiffs are trying to make. We don't care if you call it a license or whatever, if we purchase something (like a digital movie), we should be able to at least maintain access to it for an indefinite amount of time. "oh but that's not feasible", that's not really my problem, you are the ones ditching physical

6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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josephg 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Eh “buy” vs “license” is a distraction. The real problem with online stores & licenses is that they charge the same amount of money for a worse product.

If I buy a game on a disc, I can play the game, then resell it and someone else can play it. Or I can lend my copy of the game to a friend. When the online store eventually goes offline, I can still play all the games I have on disc. If I lose access to my online account, I still own the game. I can just get another console and play it.

If digital purchases let you do all that, I’d be all for them. They’re more convenient and better for the environment. But Sony and friends want to take these rights away from us, without choice. And without a corresponding drop in game prices. I want the PlayStation store (and steam and Nintendo and so on) to let me remove a game from my account and give it to someone else. Let me do that and I wouldn’t have a problem with any of it. But the current online store system is too greedy.

It sounds like a pipe dream, but this is how physical copies have worked for decades. My license moves with the game disc or cartridge. Why don’t we have a digital equivalent to this?

If Sony stopped trying to push a worse product on their customers, their customers wouldn’t be mad about it.

nkrisc an hour ago | parent | next [-]

But consumers still pay it. No one has to play video games.

I am in no way defending Sony here but I think it’s beside to the point to chastise them for selling a worse product (I mean revocable license) for the same price because consumers continue to choose to pay that price. And this is not a purchase made out of necessity or duress such as food or housing.

AlexandrB 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Why don’t we have a digital equivalent to this?

This is the one place where NFTs make some sense. Ideally, such an ownership mechanism would be open and not tied to the lifespan of a particular publisher - something that's hard to achieve in practice without a distributed system like blockchain.

Sohcahtoa82 an hour ago | parent [-]

Changing how the ownership of a digital asset is tracked is completely moot when the digital asset is no longer retrievable.

pixelatedindex 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> We do not own the same copy of that book

Why not? If you hash the book, it’ll match. It’s word for word the same book (editions not withstanding). It’s not the same if you tie in account permissions, of course. Or is this on a philosophical level?

Edit: the downvotes make no sense, aren’t we talking about digital copies here?

saghm 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Because property law is not defined in terms of hashes. Why would you expect that property law operates on a mathematical construct that was discovered centuries after it?

rcxdude 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's about how copyright law was originally conceived. It did not particularly care about what you did with the information, apart from when you copied it. Copyright is only about the right to make more copies of a work (hence the name!), it doesn't give you any particular rights on its own to what anyone does with any given copy of a work, such as reselling it. This has changed more recently with (first with software) the concept of buying a license to a work as the primary means of purchasing it, which is far more restrictive.

rpdillon 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Two copies means two copies. I have a copy, my house burns down, your copy is fine.

Hashes have nothing to do with it.

stetrain 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can sell my copy of the book to a third person without interfering with your copy. And I can do so without the involvement or permission of the publisher or book store.

voidUpdate 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I buy a game, and my friend buys a game, we can both own a copy of the game, without owning the same copy. My disc of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 is not the same as my friend's disc of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2

benj111 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I buy a Billy book case from IKEA, is it not the same as your Billy book case?

Hashing said book case is left as an exercise for the reader.

inknight 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

games are actual physical bits stored somewhere.

pixelatedindex 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m not denying that? What is the argument here?

ratelimitsteve 6 hours ago | parent [-]

that even if they form the same pattern, one pile of bits on one storage medium and another pile of bits on a different storage medium are two separate things and it's possible for one person to own one of the piles and another person to own the other one.

shevy-java 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is a distinct physical object. Whether anyone stored digital information about it in a bit-wise manner, does not change that fact of a physical object being unique. The same book can not co-exist at the very same place and location and time in this universe. That makes no sense.

pixelatedindex 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I thought we were talking about digital copies.

ratelimitsteve 5 hours ago | parent [-]

we may have been. the idea that two copies of the same thing are not the same object still applies. you can tell because if you own a PDF and I own a copy of that PDF, and I destroy mine, you still have yours.

OroPla 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Physical objects do not exist in a digital format. When I type the letter "a" is it not the exact same letter that you are using in your text? Even all the "a"s in this comment are identical, are they not?

In the physical world, no two letters "a" are exactly the same, not even printed ones.

Or do you suggest that all those letters "a" here are completely distinct from each other?

I don't think ownership works conceptually for digital stuff. There's no owning a letter "a" and there are no two letters "a" that are distinct from each other, unless you count the Cyrillic "а" which is completely different from "a".

Each of these letters "a" might be a different instance, but they are the same letter: "a". Similarly, two copies of a file are still the same exact copy. Just different instances of it.

ssl-3 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Your comment is unique. Nobody before you has ever written a comment phrased exactly like that.

I saved a copy of your unique comment on my pocket supercomputer, including the letter "a". I didn't ask first; I just did it. It's fine because it doesn't really exist.

Now it's my comment.

6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
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