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The History and Future of Digital Ownership (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'd like to get the community's feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we're really doing is purchasing a "license" to access the media on the platform. This is different from owning a physical copy of the same media. Years before the move to digital media, we would buy DVDs and Blu-Rays the shows and movies we want to watch, and no one seemed to question the ownership of those physical media.

Why is it that digital media purchasing and ownership isn't the same as purchasing and owning the physical media? How did it become like this, and is there anything that can be done to convince these platforms that purchasing a digital copy of a media should be equivalent to purchasing a physical DVD or Blu-Ray disc?

P.S. I know there's pirating and all, but that's not the focus of my question.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Affected users who may have spent years building a robust digital library were suddenly left without access to content they had bought through no fault of their own.

Even though downloading and accessing digital content is often easier than trudging to a retail store to buy a physical copy of a game, you’re putting your faith in the platform holders to maintain their digital storefronts, the content on those storefronts, and their account systems so that your access keeps working.

The recent closure of Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS eShops was a stark reminder that companies have the power to decide when you can buy digital content.

While you can still redownload Wii U and 3DS games that you’ve purchased, it seems inevitable that Nintendo will stop letting you do that one day.

And Sony isn’t offering any compensation for titles you’ve already bought or a way to transfer those purchases to another store.

The PlayStation account bans were as swift as they were unexpected, and while resolution for most arrived within a few hours, Sony still hasn’t shared any public communication about what happened or why users should continue to trust the platform.

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