You clicked buy, you paid $70 and you downloaded the game onto the console sitting right there in your living room.
But according to Sony, that doesn’t mean you actually own it.
The PlayStation maker has made an extraordinary argument in court that ‘reasonable consumers’ understand they are ‘licensing’ not buying digital games from their platform, even when the PlayStation Store tells them to ‘buy’ or ‘purchase’ a title.
The claim has sparked fresh fears that American consumers are already living an age where they own less and less, and the products they pay for can be taken away from them at a whim of the actual ‘owners.’
This isn’t just about video games: The implications touch on any digital purchases from e-books to music downloads.
Sony is in court fighting a proposed class-action lawsuit in California brought by customers who argue the company misled them by using language that suggests they were purchasing games outright.
California law requires digital retailers to make it clear when a customer is purchasing a license rather than ownership. Sony, however, says its terms of service and software licensing agreement already explain that customers do not own the digital products.
Louis Rossmann, a leader in the right-to-repair movement and the owner of the Rossmann Repair Group, told the Daily Mail that Sony’s argument flies in the face of what an ordinary customer would understand when they see a ‘buy’ button.
Sony’s argument that ‘reasonable consumers’ know they are licensing rather than buying digital games has fueled fears of an era of ‘owning nothing,’ where products consumers pay for can ultimately be taken away or made inaccessible
Louis Rossmann, a leader in the right-to-repair movement and owner of the Rossmann Repair Group, told the Daily Mail that Sony’s argument flies in the face of what an ordinary customer would understand when they see a ‘buy’ button
‘I don’t think reasonable people understand that when they’re purchasing a game that they don’t own it,’ Rossmann told us.
He questioned why Sony would need to bury the distinction in its terms and conditions if it were genuinely obvious to consumers.
‘If it’s so reasonable, then why not just write that on the page of the product? Why not put that right next to the add to cart button?’ he said.
The company’s lawyers went even further, arguing that it is ‘not plausible’ for a reasonable consumer to believe they own a digital game outright.
The argument hinges on an unusual example: Two plaintiffs purchased the same game, Resident Evil Requiem, just 11 days apart. Sony argued that if the first customer actually owned the game itself, the second customer could not have purchased the same thing.
In other words, what consumers think of as buying a game is, legally speaking, buying permission to access the game.
Rossmann said companies should be upfront if what they are really offering is temporary access rather than ownership.
‘I think that selling it, you know, saying that you have purchased a temporary revokable license that can be revoked at any point in time, you’re not, that’s not a purchase,’ he said.
Sony’s lawyers argued that it is ‘not plausible’ for a reasonable consumer to believe they own a digital game outright, pointing to two plaintiffs who purchased Resident Evil Requiem just 11 days apart as evidence that each had bought a license rather than the game itself
‘If you want to sell a rental, sell a rental. If you want to sell a lease, sell a lease.’
The distinction could become increasingly important thanks to the ongoing decline of physical media for things like games, music and books.
Sony has announced plans to stop producing physical game discs for new PlayStation titles in January 2028, while the gaming industry continues its shift toward downloads and subscriptions.
The company also said it would stop producing digital games for its older model, the PS3, and its PS Vita systems – meaning no games under those model versions will be available to purchase after the deadline.
And the issue stretches far beyond gaming.
For decades, buying a CD, DVD or Blu-ray gave consumers a physical copy they could keep, lend, resell or display. Digital media has increasingly replaced that model with licenses, subscriptions and accounts controlled by the companies providing access.
Rossmann, who has spent years campaigning for consumers’ right to repair and own the products they pay for, said the disappearance of physical media is a warning sign for consumers far beyond video games.
‘I think the reason physical disks going away matters is because it wakes people up to the fact that ownership has been going away for 10 years,’ he said.
Sony has announced plans to stop producing physical game discs for new PlayStation titles in January 2028, while the gaming industry continues its shift toward downloads and subscriptions
Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
For Rossmann, the Sony case is a ‘canary in the coal mine for everything,’ pointing to his nonprofit’s weekly database, where consumers can submit examples of companies limiting or revoking access to products they have purchased.
Rossman said the database contains ‘tens of thousands of pages’ documenting similar practices across industries, from pipe-leak sensors to baby monitors.
In one case, Google announced that its first-generation Nest thermostats would be shut down and disconnected.
‘Not only are they not telling you that what you’re purchasing is actually a lease, but they’re not even giving you the expiration date,’ Rossman said.
‘One of the other problems here is that you as a consumer don’t really even know how to make an informed decision because you don’t actually know how long your rental is even a rental for. At least Blockbuster would tell me.’
Then there’s another wrinkle to the story: The ownership question doesn’t disappear simply because a game comes on a physical disc.
That is where digital rights management, or DRM, comes in. DRM is technology that can require a game to connect to the publisher’s or another company’s servers to verify that the player is authorized to use it. In other words, the disc may contain the game, but the company can still control whether the game actually runs.
That means a physical copy can offer the appearance of permanent ownership while still depending on a company’s continued cooperation. If the servers are eventually shut down or the authentication service is discontinued, the disc could become little more than a piece of plastic.
Google’s decision to shut down and disconnect its first-generation Nest thermostats, Rossman argued, illustrates the problem: consumers may think they are buying a product without being told that their ‘rental’ has an expiration date
‘If you have a physical disk that has code on it that has to connect to another server in order to work, you’re back at square one,’ Rossman said.
Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Daily Mail that research into digital purchases suggests consumers often believe they are receiving traditional ownership rights even when those rights are restricted in the fine print.
‘When a transaction objectively looks like a sale to a reasonable customer, the customer should get the legal rights that come with purchase, even if the vendor figuratively has their fingers crossed behind their back in the fine print,’ McSherry said.
She said consumers’ willingness to pay depends on what they believe they are getting, arguing that if people think they are receiving rights to lend, resell or otherwise use digital media that they do not actually have, companies can benefit from that misunderstanding.
McSherry also warned that the shift away from ownership could have consequences beyond individual consumers.
‘Our access to culture, from hit songs to obscure indie films, is increasingly subject to the whims of major corporations,’ she said.
She argued that digital goods that can be revoked, altered or rendered inaccessible create problems for preserving cultural and educational material, particularly for schools and libraries.
The result is a strange new reality: you can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars building a digital library without technically owning the underlying media.
Sony’s court argument has now put that reality into unusually stark terms – and raised the uncomfortable question of what exactly consumers are buying when they click ‘purchase.’
