In the midst of a lawsuit regarding digital goods ownership, Sony pushes the idea that “reasonable consumers would not be misled” into believing they own the games in their digital library. For a company that is going down the route of an all-digital future and ending disc production for PlayStation consoles, this may be especially bad.
On Jun. 18, four customers filed a class action complaint against Sony on behalf of themselves and anyone else in a similar situation. The complaint states that Sony has not made it obvious that buyers do not receive ownership when they purchase digital games.
The plaintiffs argue that when making most purchases, buyers obtain ownership of a product, whereas here, they are expected to know that they are instead granted limited access to software that can be revoked at any moment. When completing a digital transaction, customers have to click buttons such as “Buy Now” and “Confirm Purchase,” which they argue is particularly misleading.
To avoid legal action, Sony must prove that at the time of purchase, buyers know they do not own any of the digital games they buy. According to Game File, Sony’s counterargument is that reasonable customers know that they do not own a game when they buy digitally. Plus, it is explicitly stated in the PlayStation End User License Agreement that “software is licensed to you, not sold” and “virtual content is licensed, not owned.”
This lawsuit comes down to PlayStation user agreement’s fine print
While Sony does link to its various terms and agreements before a transaction is made, these documents are extremely dense and complicated. The information regarding digital ownership is hidden within thousands of lines of text. Additionally, the disclosures are in small print and easy to miss when making the purchase.
A legal argument can be made that this potentially goes against a California law that prevents companies from selling digital goods using the terms “‘buy,’ ‘purchase,’ or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good.” To use such terms, the seller must make a “clear and conspicuous” statement that the buyer will not own the digital good and will instead receive only a license.
Now, Sony must show that the digital license disclosures are accessible and obvious at the time of purchase to avoid facing a lawsuit. In late August, Sony sent out emails with these terms and agreements to remind players of how digital goods work. It was a poorly timed email, as the company has been under a lot of scrutiny over the past few months following its pledge to stop producing physical video games starting in 2028. Perhaps the emails were sent out so users would read through the license agreement in order to avoid additional lawsuits in the future.
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