New California law will force digital stores to admit you are licensing, not owning the content

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, signed AB 2426 into law, which will force digital stores to be upfront about their purchases of a product. license to a media instead of actually owning it. The law will take effect next year and will ban digital stores from using words like “buy” and “purchase.” [Thanks, The Verge!]

Again, this is only for digital stores that offer licensing. If you can buy something that is permanently available, even offline, it will still show “Purchase”. This law is intended to combat the purchase of “disappearing” digital content. In addition to games, this also includes movies, music, and e-books. Considering that physical drives are becoming rarer, thus forcing people to buy digital content, laws that protect consumers’ rights and money could be something that other countries and states need to adopt. reality.

According to The Verge, this law is intended to respond to game companies such as PlayStation and Ubisoft. In the past, game companies have shown that they can remove games from people’s accounts and libraries at any time. This also includes demos, such as when Sony takes away access Star blade back to demo March 2024. That’s something people don’t even have to pay for. Meanwhile, in April 2024Ubisoft REMOVE crew from everyone’s library after it shut down the game’s servers.

From next year, digital stores in California cannot use “Buy” or “Purchase” when selling media that does not allow players to keep it permanently, even offline.