Sony's unsolicited EULA email tells PlayStation users their digital games are licensed, not owned, arriving just as the #PSBlackout boycott kicks off.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74416381

The relevant section is blunt. “The Software is licensed to you, not sold,” the EULA states. “You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”

The terms also restrict renting, modifying, or obtaining games through unauthorised means. Nothing in there is new, technically. Sony’s EULA has always said this. The timing is what makes it land differently right now.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
    1·
    21 hours ago

    No, it’s literally not. Sony can take away your license for a digital game for any or no reason. They cannot take away your license for the physical good outside of very specific cases (and they will require a court order to do it, unlike revoking a digital license).

    • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
      3·
      20 hours ago

      Sigh. Whatever.

      The license doesn’t change. You are arguing about the ability to revoke it by taking it from you physically. That is two very different things.

      The license did not change. If you download a game and turn off the internet, guess what, it isnt going away. If you clone the drive and restore it, it isnt going away.

      These are just weird semantics. There is no reason (and it has happened before) that the same thing couldnt happen with a physical device as long as you connect it to the internet. They could revoke the key from a physical disc just as easily by banning it from the device if they wanted to.

      • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
        1·
        10 hours ago

        How old are you? Because no, there is no key to revoke for a UMD. There is no “banning” discs from a PSP.

        The fact you apparently are so young you aren’t aware things used to be different, is proving the point here.

        And more importantly, no the license was not the same; the physical disc fell under what is called the First Sale Doctrine:

        The first sale doctrine is a legal principle codified in U.S. copyright law at 17 U.S.C. § 109. It states that once a copyright owner sells or gives away a physical copy of a work, their control over the distribution of that specific copy ends.

        When companies began to use license keys for instance as a backdoor route to bypass it, it was a big legal deal.

        I think you’re confusing copyright ownership, which was always the same (since video games have existed, that is), with end user licenses, the nature of which are very different now.

        • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
          1·
          3 hours ago

          I mentioned the key as a tool in general, not necessarily related to the PSP. Just all devices. Or even updates that could change the way a game worked, making it not work anymore.

          Lets look at the license from Sony:

          Here is my license agreement from my PS1:

          “The Software is licensed to you, not sold. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”

          And their current agreement with a PS5:

          “The Software is licensed to you, not sold. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”

          30 years and its almost exactly the same.

          That is what I said. Nothing changed.

          You are wanting to talk about physical vs digital ownership, but I already said I wasnt talking about that, but it also didn’t change, as they had exactly the same words during the PS1, you just didnt see it because you were not a developer. You were not allowed to share, transfer, use anything digitally transferred.

          Yet there is a history of nothing changing for the consumer as well:

          By the time the PS2 came out, in Japan they were selling online games. As well as the PS3 and even the PSP GO. All with non transferable licenses.

          So even in those cases, its been constant and nothing changed today that hasnt been around for a very long time.

          Now lets talk about software promised and removed, and this is one example, but it is sony and was huge:

          Sony sold the PS3 with Linux support. Sony said I could put another OS on it, or I could get Yellow Dog Linux. There was a presentation that said I could watch movies, program the ps3, listen to music, view photos, etc.

          Then they updated the firmware and took that away. They mandated the update, and broke the software, even when I owned the Disc it was on.

          Same as it ever was: if you have an online device they can screw you. Its a hardware issue, you have no control over that so, as it has been since the ps3: never buy sony.