It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#391

Post by account42 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:42 AM UTC

reichstein wrote: post #356

pseudocomposer wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…

It's not that I don't agree, but lawyers will then ask you to define "buy" in such a way that it is distinguishable from a perpetual lease with a cancellation clause _to buyers_, without also disallowing a lot of actually useful leasing agreements. The thing is, you never did _buy_ that Steam game. And you never bought the software on the TV, which you did buy the hardware of, you bought a software lease along with t…

You never bought the movie on a DVD either or the text in a book. Yet everyone understands what is meant. This isn't really something that needs complex legislation.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#392

Post by postexitus » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:42 AM UTC

zythyx wrote: post #263

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #55

The question I'm left with: in the past, the uproar over these types of changes seemed to make companies change their mind when considering very anti-consumer decisions. Now, they just go ahead anyway. What's different? How do we get back to how it was before? I know the current political climate is one that enables this sort of thing. There are parallels with the current movement also WRT to the employer/employee re…

IMO Empathy. Empathy used to exist up until around 2015 in businesses where losing a customer was a really big deal, there used to be a cost in losing a customer, and a cost in gaining a customer, so empathy was the building block in helping a business build and maintain their customers. While that's still generally true for small companies, once you reach a global reach, for the most part the cost of gaining and los…

You are naive. Nothing to do with empathy. Everything is cash - warm little cash. No what's lost is - people stopped voting with their wallets. When someone did something atrocious, people stopped buying it. Now - first of all, half of the consumers don't care if PS5 titles are on disc already. And they will not stop when they stop putting things on discs. So why would Sony stop?

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#393

Post by account42 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:44 AM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #298

pseudocomposer wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…

Also: Those ownership/privacy obligations to customers should come first in bankruptcy proceedings, ahead of other debts. IANABankrupcyLawyer, but I believe the status-quo is that various promises like "we'll open-source the server in the end" or "we'll never sell your data" can become voided in the name of making a buck to repay the landlord or business-partner.

I think the obligation should be transfer to the copyright holder in the case of bankruptcy. They can then choose to either make individual buyers whole or give up copyright protection.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#394

Post by autoexec » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #339

autoexec wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does such strawman regulation even exist? Yes, the DMCA is a great example, but corporations write those regulations and bribe government to pass them. That's not really an example of evil government as much as it is an example of evil corporations, although it does illustrate how much work is needed to limit the influence of money in politics.

> That's not really an example of evil government as much as it is an example of evil corporations It's the corporation's job to advocate for favorable regulations and the government's job to enact regulations that benefit the general public rather than special interests. Only one of them is bad at their job. > although it does illustrate how much work is needed to limit the influence of money in politics. It's actua…

> It's the corporation's job to advocate for favorable regulations

Bribery is not advocacy.

> the government's job to enact regulations that benefit the general public rather than special interests.

No argument there, but so far companies and corrupt politicians have conned a large percentage of the public into accepting that it's okay and that any constraints on what a company wants to do is a terrible thing. We're currently under a very pro-bribery admin.

> The companies that lobby for the DMCA are the media companies. They donate their share of money but by far the largest source of their influence is their ability to run sustained unfavorable coverage against politicians who cross them

I'm not entirely convinced that media coverage is more influential than bribes, donations, and the revolving door. That argument also only works for the media industry and not the other countless industries which bribe government. The oil and gas industry have been getting their money's worth https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/05/10/energy-indu...

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#395

Post by superzero11 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

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Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#396

Post by meh2frdf » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 10:59 AM UTC

Telaneo wrote: post #365

meh2frdf wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the issue is those terms are laid out in the agreement, and you willingly agreed to those terms, so what are arguing for is to welch on the deal you accepted? In terms in consumer protection, at least in UK and Europe (not saying not elsewhere, just don't know much), there is an amount of regulation that tries to help consumers not get screwed in the legalese of these agreements, and some basic protections that c…

> so what are arguing for is to welch on the deal you accepted? I'm arguing unfair terms shouldn't be upheld, or really in the agreement in the first place. This is on paper how it should work in Europe, but we (apparently) haven't quite figured that out yet.

If the terms are unfair, then don't agree to them, that is a consumer choice, don't agree to agreements you disagree with!

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#397

Post by spauldo » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:02 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #343

feoren wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

This is an impressively uncharitable read of GP, and in my view totally uncalled for. People who "generally" oppose "regulation", in my experience, very often have very good reasons for having adopted that stance, that are rooted in examination (or at least knowledge) of several actually existing regulations. And I would hope we all agree that there are plenty of really bad regulations out there. (If not: I invite yo…

I agree that the characterization was uncalled for in the post you replied to. But I don't agree with your statement that most people who generally oppose regulation have good reasons for doing so. Conservative media outlets have pushed that stance for decades now and it gets regurgitated all the time. Ask most of them what specific regulations they want to see gone and you'll get a blank stare.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#398

Post by _heimdall » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:04 AM UTC

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

Regulations that protect your rights are very different from those that limit them. In this case it would be the former, and no less it would be reinforcing a pretty fundamental right in our system, the right to own property.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#399

Post by Telaneo » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:05 AM UTC

meh2frdf wrote: post #396

Telaneo wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so what are arguing for is to welch on the deal you accepted? I'm arguing unfair terms shouldn't be upheld, or really in the agreement in the first place. This is on paper how it should work in Europe, but we (apparently) haven't quite figured that out yet.

If the terms are unfair, then don't agree to them, that is a consumer choice, don't agree to agreements you disagree with!

People agree to fraud all the time. That doesn't mean people shouldn't get their money back.

Re: It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership

#400

Post by _heimdall » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 11:06 AM UTC

feoren wrote: post #103

jbombadil wrote: post #39

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…

You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?

I can't speak for the GP obviously, but lumping together all regulation is a mistake. This would be a situation of having regulation protect our rights rather than limit them. That's a huge distinction and the former isn't particularly common today, more often than not if someone is raising concerns over a new regulation its because the regulation is limiting their rights.