> The motion says the PlayStation Terms of Service put a binding arbitration agreement and a class action waiver in Section 14, and quotes the opt-out clause: ...
> The clause requires a user who does not wish to be bound to notify Sony in writing within 30 days of accepting the agreement.
Binding arbitration on individuals should be illegal, full stop. The only use case is taking away people's rights as consumers and workers. Or dodging responsibility for deadly mistakes like the Disney+ incident.
This "opt out" mechanism is made to let Sony lawyers argue that accepting it was your choice so it can't be struck down as forced, even if 99% of users have no idea it exists, by design. Evil all the way down.
This is also one of those scenarios similar to subscription cancellation where we should not allow accepting/signing up for something require using an entirely different method of communication to cancel/opt out.
Requiring written notification while the TOS being accepted entirely via digital means should be illegal.
> "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
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!
As a society we need to sort out this simple scenario:
* 16 years old Joe buys a $70 cartridge/disc game, already assuming and counting on the $35 that he'll get back on second-hand sell.
That's it. A simple idea that should never cease to be possible, regardless of the medium.
This particular example made games affordable, and it also inadvertently put a concrete price on several other factors like how much it costs to be a first owner vs. wait for a second-hand purchase, and how much it costs to keep it for your collection vs. allowing the product to flow back into the community.
Seems like we need some copyright reform WRT issues like this. We need a true way to have digital ownership; including putting assets in escrow and a way for access to continue after the store is shut down or the item removed from the store.
Remove DRM laws and make copyright on all media expire after 5 or 10 years off market. Abandoned franchises should get the same treatment. Call it Sackboy's Law. See how quick Sony and EA rush to port their back catalogue.
I've been posting a similar idea for years. Require that for each piece of commercial software there is a "method" to open it up and use without requiring on-line servers. The method is be registered with a special government agency for that purpose, who first verifies that the method works.
Later when the agency considers the software to be "abandonware", it publishes the method.
Your access to a digital product you have "purchased" should not be tied to the continued existence of the store you also bought it from. Similar to physical products.
If I bought a game at GameStop we aren't required to continuously reach back out to them every once in a while to check that they're okay with me playing the game I bought from them. And if GameStop goes out of business they aren't going to come knocking on my door to make sure I never play the game again or take it back from me.
Once a game or any other product is purchased from a digital store, it should not require the stores continued existence or permission.
Yes there are some drawbacks in that maybe they could argue then that they could stop allowing redownloading a game you've already purchased but so be it, they'd just be offering a worse experience and users would move away.
We also need to stop allowing unclear language. When we lease a car at a dealership they never use the term "buy" or "own". That's strictly reserved for ownership. We should require the same for other licensed/leased products.
One fun thing I remember from reading some EULAs for physical games I bought in the past: the EULA for StarCraft at least explicitly said that you are required to obtain prior written permission from Blizzard Entertainment before lending the disk to a friend. Obviously this is not practically enforceable, but it shows that nothing of this kind is new from these companies' perspectives.
The way the law is structured, you are never buying copies of digital goods, regardless of the format in which you obtain them. Instead, you buy a license to use the digital good under the specific terms and conditions of that license. That is why if you get a disk with GNU utils on it from the FSF, you are still bound by the GPL in what you can do with the data on that disk.
Not so strange, there is lots of money to be made by people not owning things anymore. Especially getting rid of physical second hand sells/buys will force consumer to buy the games straight from Sony again, who is the only store you will be able to buy Playstation games from.
But yeah, hopefully the community and ecosystem is aligned enough to massively fuck Sony over this, vote with your wallets people.
yeah the outcome here is "we're sorry, here's your 0.50 class action settlement payment" and updated terms of service... it's not going to reverse anything, people need to stop buying
> In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining "ownership" of a digital game.
So their argument really is that it is unreasonable for anybody to believe they own any of the things they download or purchase digitally? What a leap there.
I mean thats as plain english as you can get to an official rubber stamp on "you will own nothing and you will be happy".
And then they want to have it both ways by interchangeably using the words "revocable license" and "ownership" when it suits their needs. License in small writing/text, but "own" in anything the user might actually reasonably read.
> The motion says the PlayStation Terms of Service put a binding arbitration agreement and a class action waiver in Section 14, and quotes the opt-out clause: ... > The clause requires a user who does not wish to be bound to notify Sony in writing within 30 days of accepting the agreement.
Binding arbitration on individuals should be illegal, full stop. The only use case is taking away people's rights as consumers and workers. Or dodging responsibility for deadly mistakes like the Disney+ incident.
This "opt out" mechanism is made to let Sony lawyers argue that accepting it was your choice so it can't be struck down as forced, even if 99% of users have no idea it exists, by design. Evil all the way down.
This is also one of those scenarios similar to subscription cancellation where we should not allow accepting/signing up for something require using an entirely different method of communication to cancel/opt out.
Requiring written notification while the TOS being accepted entirely via digital means should be illegal.
> "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
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!
> 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). Or is this on a philosophical level?
games are actual physical bits stored somewhere.
As a society we need to sort out this simple scenario:
* 16 years old Joe buys a $70 cartridge/disc game, already assuming and counting on the $35 that he'll get back on second-hand sell.
That's it. A simple idea that should never cease to be possible, regardless of the medium.
This particular example made games affordable, and it also inadvertently put a concrete price on several other factors like how much it costs to be a first owner vs. wait for a second-hand purchase, and how much it costs to keep it for your collection vs. allowing the product to flow back into the community.
Seems like we need some copyright reform WRT issues like this. We need a true way to have digital ownership; including putting assets in escrow and a way for access to continue after the store is shut down or the item removed from the store.
Remove DRM laws and make copyright on all media expire after 5 or 10 years off market. Abandoned franchises should get the same treatment. Call it Sackboy's Law. See how quick Sony and EA rush to port their back catalogue.
I've been posting a similar idea for years. Require that for each piece of commercial software there is a "method" to open it up and use without requiring on-line servers. The method is be registered with a special government agency for that purpose, who first verifies that the method works.
Later when the agency considers the software to be "abandonware", it publishes the method.
Your access to a digital product you have "purchased" should not be tied to the continued existence of the store you also bought it from. Similar to physical products.
If I bought a game at GameStop we aren't required to continuously reach back out to them every once in a while to check that they're okay with me playing the game I bought from them. And if GameStop goes out of business they aren't going to come knocking on my door to make sure I never play the game again or take it back from me.
Once a game or any other product is purchased from a digital store, it should not require the stores continued existence or permission.
Yes there are some drawbacks in that maybe they could argue then that they could stop allowing redownloading a game you've already purchased but so be it, they'd just be offering a worse experience and users would move away.
We also need to stop allowing unclear language. When we lease a car at a dealership they never use the term "buy" or "own". That's strictly reserved for ownership. We should require the same for other licensed/leased products.
One fun thing I remember from reading some EULAs for physical games I bought in the past: the EULA for StarCraft at least explicitly said that you are required to obtain prior written permission from Blizzard Entertainment before lending the disk to a friend. Obviously this is not practically enforceable, but it shows that nothing of this kind is new from these companies' perspectives.
The way the law is structured, you are never buying copies of digital goods, regardless of the format in which you obtain them. Instead, you buy a license to use the digital good under the specific terms and conditions of that license. That is why if you get a disk with GNU utils on it from the FSF, you are still bound by the GPL in what you can do with the data on that disk.
We do but it'll never happen. Estates would accumulate huge libraries of digital goods and never need to buy anything new.
Which would be awesome which is why it won't happen.
HN trunks the url
https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony_PlayStation_digital_game_...
Sony's lawyers really picked a strange hill to die on here... even if they win, the precedence will screw over Sony, at least in marketing.
Not so strange, there is lots of money to be made by people not owning things anymore. Especially getting rid of physical second hand sells/buys will force consumer to buy the games straight from Sony again, who is the only store you will be able to buy Playstation games from.
But yeah, hopefully the community and ecosystem is aligned enough to massively fuck Sony over this, vote with your wallets people.
You own the license. The license can be revoked. Don’t look for ways to prove them wrong. Just don’t buy it.
yeah the outcome here is "we're sorry, here's your 0.50 class action settlement payment" and updated terms of service... it's not going to reverse anything, people need to stop buying
> In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining "ownership" of a digital game.
So their argument really is that it is unreasonable for anybody to believe they own any of the things they download or purchase digitally? What a leap there.
I mean thats as plain english as you can get to an official rubber stamp on "you will own nothing and you will be happy".
And then they want to have it both ways by interchangeably using the words "revocable license" and "ownership" when it suits their needs. License in small writing/text, but "own" in anything the user might actually reasonably read.
Does Sony believe in ownership of digital money?