Sony argues that PlayStation buyers cannot own digital games because multiple customers can obtain the same title from its online store.
The claim stems from an August 21 court filing and response to a class action lawsuit against Sony, alleging that its digital store failed to disclose enough to comply with California’s 2025 Digital Goods Law.
Sony Says PlayStation Digital Purchases Are Licenses
The filing (via GameFile) includes a statement from Sony’s counsel saying digital ownership would be impossible because a player could not own something purchased on a digital store if another player had already bought it.
As Plaintiffs admit, Section 1 of the SPLA likewise explains that “The Software is licensed to you, not sold.” This makes sense. In the digital age, it is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining ‘ownership’ of a digital game. 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.
This is yet another reminder that Sony is moving away from physical media and reminding players that they do not own their games but are renting licenses. Sony is ending physical media production for its games in 2028. However, they will continue to support existing physical titles beyond that date.
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The only issue I think I have with this is that each time something is digitally purchased, it gets a “key” so that the account does not access another user’s file? So this doesn’t hold water. If I purchase a game in the online play store it’s no different than getting the product from in person. They’re nitpicking to basically get away with removing content that is no longer serving their pockets.
Well then they better Make it possible or they’re gonna kill off the games industry. And lose all the money because no one is gonna tolerate their anti consumer practices any longer.
Agree, based on this concept I dont own any of my physical games because theres more than one owner. Watch out sony might collect when you sell those disks 😆
No one has a issue with digital games but at the price they sell it for we should be able to sell the digital copy on a market place if you wish
As we do with physical
It’s not hard to set up on there shop
If its only a file the why dose it not cost £20 since ya ge FA
Sony is gonna fuck up their entire PlayStation business by sabotaging it themselves. They need to make a new physical media or risk it all because I’m not gonna keep buying something that I can’t own. I owned my physical disks, they are here with me and I can play anytime I want and which ever platform makes it so I can continue to buy and own that game then I’ll go with them because I’m not paying 70+ for a game that isn’t mine and can be taken from me at any time because that’s just bull shit and it’s a lousy corporate move, a real sleazy slimeball way to treat customers that built your platform because it wasn’t Sony who made PlayStation what it is it’s the customer who kept coming back to invest in PlayStation. If they want to fuck the customer then with each sale of their games should be a payment to Sony for shares of stock if they want all our games to not be owned by use. Then let us have a share of stocks depending on how many games we buy. I have over 300 games and that’s A LOT of money so let it be shares in the entire company that way we can own a little of the company since they want to own every single bit of our games! The trade is fair.
I purchased some trash bags today. By Sonys logic I am now the sole owner of all the worlds trash bags.
Sony is making a spurious argument. No rational person believes that purchasing a copy of a game–or any other software program–grants ownership of the program, and the right to sell copies to other people. However, rational people do believe that purchasing a copy of a game–or any other software program–grants a permanent non-exclusive license to play the game/use the program. And until this recent shift from physical game disks to online downloads, anyone who bought a game DID receive the right, and the ability, to play that game for as many years as they want to. If Sony is no longer selling a perpetual license, but instead a limited duration access code, they need to make this crystal clear to avoid running afoul of consumer protection laws.
Well, as a rational person I DO believe spending a hundred DOLLARS on a video game grants me ownership. I have ownership when I buy my furniture. I have ownership when I buy a movie, a music album, a house, etc. Why is it different with video games and/or “apps?” (which is a legal loophole term they use to wiggle out of the issues).
I can buy AND sell the aforementioned items just like anyone else with no issue whatsoever and NOBODY ever had a problem with it before. So why now? So the greedy suits can fill their pockets with my hard earned cash even more? This isnt fair and I don’t want to see them legally wiggle out of this at all. They deserve to burn financially for this and I hope it happens. I’ve stopped purchasing games from them and I won’t be getting their useless PS6 later. They earned this
Which is nonsense, because the logic they’re trying to use would supply to the copy of the game code on a physical disc too.
That statement doesn’t make sense , of course when I buy it digital I don’t own the IP. I own my digital copy of the work. So I should still have ownership of my copy and access to it just like When I buy a physical game I am not buying the IP, I’m buying a copy of the work
I mean, what they say is right. With out current nomenclature. Maybe we need some new system that’s better than an irrevocable license.
No Brook…its wrong. If I buy a physical copy of the game Im not buying the whole game. This is laughable defense. But this wheee the fight is. Discs were dead as soon as the digital age began. You can’t stop progress. And a blu-ray disc lasts about 10 years and 20 if youre lucky. The discs were never forever as there is organic material in them.
Then why do those licenses cost so much? If everything is labeled purchase then who is liable for ownership. Thus form of Media is entertainment dollars. I can do with it what I did with movies. Sony needs to understand that there is a limit to what they can own and charge. 70 dollars for a new game that you don’t actually own?
That’s utter nonsense. Anyone can own a digital copy as long as you keep it’s original name followed by a serial number or reference after that’s associated with the owner of that particular copy. There’s tons of loop holes, I work with digital media and it’s really not that difficult.
Sony is so full of it.
Funny how they’re comfortable using words like “purchase” and “buy” when owning something, according to them, is impossible. What about more accurate phrases such as “licensed access” or “indeterminate rental”? Sounds like them wanting their cake and to eat it too. You own it when it comes to marketing verbiage but you don’t when it comes to consumer rights.
This is about as disingenuous as it gets. Their argument is basically that if they sold one digital copy of the game they couldn’t sell anymore? But if they rent it to you they magically have unlimited?
People know they aren’t buying the code, just like they know they aren’t buying the lyrics to a song. Sony is so wrong on this its actually got me thinking about switching to Xbox or even bitting the bullet and looking at a PC
It’s very true, but my ask would be that the licensed be irrevocable.
They are so disingenuous, they know damn. Well what we mean by ownership. We want not to be able to be banned. If we decide to modify or do whatever we want with that specific digital game on the license on our own console. Of course, as long as we aren’t affecting anyone else’s digital copy. We also want to be able to sell our digital license. Or loan it to a friend. You know, kind of like how you can do. If you put your profile on someone else’s system and set it to primary system.
What a stupid comment to make. How do multiple people own a disc version, because they are different copies of said software just as digital purchases are different copies of said software
Not saying Microsoft or any other publisher or creator is any better, but this is one of the reasons I have not had a Sony PlayStation since the PS2. Also, I do use the Xbox, but have not purchased any ‘new’ games since I started console gaming again in 2017. I pay for the Xbox gold and play the games I can get through that platform. I do the same for PC now also.
Xbox has more games you can play for free digitally than Playstation, saw a friend have multiple option on game pass, Playstation is lame with the games you can play on subscription plus.
This article makes no sense. When you buy a digital game you are NOT buying the rights to the original source code, you are buying a COPY of the source code and the right to use it, subject to a EULA. If you buy a physical disk of a game you are buying a COPY of the game’s code but in a form that can’t be plundered away from you. In both cases, you are purchasing a license to use a copy of the software.
“You will own nothing and be happy”
Yes it is plausible. They need a unified store where games can be fetched to play, tied to your user account. It’s 2026 and the PS5 was successful. It’s store should be able to be kept online. They should stop removing games. If you don’t want discs, then hosting the game files forever is the only path. Consoles have a bad habit of killing a console and then killing the stores to access the games we purchased. No one wants to end physical media because no one has successfully gained our trust (except steam) with game stores. Our game collection shouldn’t vanish because corporate decides to pull the plug.
Paying for to play the same game on newer hardware is dumb. If I upgrade my pc, my games should run better, not require to be repurchased.
There are a lot of hard passes with digital only. Some games are worth keeping.
Uhhh this is someone taking the word own in the wrong context… Yeah I would not own Call of Duty if I decided to “buy Call of Duty” digitally…. As in, going forward I would not be the person who owns Call of Duty and receiving the income from the games being sold in the future.
This was a really weak way of skirting around the topic at hand. People want to BUY their games , not pay for ownership and then be told “You only get the game as long as we feel like letting you have
If buying isn’t owning then pirating is not a crime if paying for something out right and buying it is not ownership than every time a game gets pirate it is not a crime
What an insultingly bad faith argument. Was there only ever one physical copy of each PlayStation game to ever come out before digital downloads and whoever bought that one disc owned exclusive intellectual property and publishing and distribution rights to that game? No? Of course not because absolutely nobody thinks that’s what buying a copy of a game means? Holy fuck boys.
Another healthy reminder that you can still petition your government to change the laws and guarantee that digital or physical – YOU OWN IT.
No one would ever buy a ‘license’ for $69.99 game, if they can own it outright for the same price. So, either Sony can start sending me my physical copies in the mail, or the government can dictate what is and isn’t ownership.
I am already paying for online gaming in playstation which is free for pc gaming. Now unless ps is willing to make online gaming free like pc, I will not support ps getting rid of physical disc. If they really going to do that, I am sure many will migrate to xbox/pc…ps is going to lose alot of players.
Xbox is most likely gonna do the exact same
If I am not buying and only renting a license why am I paying the same amount for a rented license as a physical purchase?
So then pirating is ok because it’s not theft.
The only thing that I have to say about this is that if Sony cannot promise that a new game that I had just purchased for $70 is my to OWN, then they would otherwise need to drastically reduce the prices of their so called “licensed” games, which is essentially rentals.
So GOG does not exist? Instead of figuring out how to manage digital ownership they just say no without even trying…
Kinda indicates how a lot of people misunderstand this… Software is licensed, not owned, because ownership laws weren’t designed for the digital world. You can’t copy-paste a table, so licenses have been used. Sony are correct in their description.
No, GoG is no different, read their EULA, they also sell licenses. They just don’t use DRM to enforce the license’s rules.
However we are long overdue for a reasonable model of “digital ownership” that actually institutes some customer rights, because so much of this has been run on “good faith” and “common sense” while companies have steadily pushed boundaries.
This is absolutely great! This the first comment section I have seen in which everyone agrees. That was a very shallow response that Sony had. They made up that scenario to beat around the bush, and it doesn’t even make sense. Just as many others here have stated, how about we address that: when we buy a game, whether digital or even physical we don’t own the rights to the game’s IP. Hello mister obvious we know that already, stop trying to play dumb. Of course I don’t own the game, or I would be the one making money off the sales. The developers own the game IP, we own the game as a consumer bought product. You can call the digital version and the disc version a licence, whatever you want to call it but as long as we’ve bought it, it’s ours you greedy bastards. When my mom buys a Stephen King novel in hardcover, or on Kindle fire, or even audible, she doesn’t own the rights to the book, obviously Stephen King and the publisher does. So she’s not the one who made it, but she’s the customer and what she bought whether physical or digital is hers and IS HERS TO KEEP and read anytime that she wants. Same with music, or music CDs. You buy it, it’s yours. Of course your not the owner of the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, the creator is but your copy is yours to use whenever you damn well wish to.
They are burning themselves sooo bad. I sure hope they lose bad and get the F#$& out of town with that type of anti consumer mentality
This argument is a huge stretch. Nobody sees owning a copy of a game as owning the intellectual property of that game. You could make many analogies about this: if I buy a washing machine, I don’t buy the patent for the washing machine; If I buy a car, I don’t acquire the manufacturer’s trademarks; If I buy a book, I don’t acquire the copyright; If I buy a Blu-ray, I don’t acquire the movie studio’s copyright. Copies of software can be sold millions of times and individually owned and used for an extended period of time by each customer. Customers aren’t competing for possession of a single scarce object.
PlayStation is a company with unmatched loyalty from their group of customers, not a service to make lazy producers money. It’s not convenient it is theft and racketeering. You made a superior product before your foray into mediocrity, so stop ruining a product of better quality because you are lazy and cheap. Pick one or the other.
Idk why everyone is making a big deal about this lol the hard copy era has been dead for years. Despite the backlash Sony wants to make money and they aren’t going to make some crazy move that means you cant play the games you purchased. I haven’t bought a hard copy game since I first got my ps4 and I have a library of hundreds games that I got over the years. I never lose them or damage them. I never have that annoying friend that wants to borrow a game and never returns it. I just have them. I dont hate hard copies I have huge collection of Ps1-Ps3 games but its just not necessary anymore.
People do t have a issue with digital games we have a issue that we can’t resell them
Let us resell them on your market place then it’s a winwin for both
You get 33% and the gamer gets credited so we can buy a new game then your in control
Well we first got to understand who is the real culprit in this matter and the very thing that is motivating the companies to go digital… This culprit is finances and resources. 1. Finances, I feel like the only reason why they are doing this it’s because of money and wealth. 2. Resources, it will be more economical to have things digitally then spending money on physical copies that may or may not be sold to be worth the profit. Now I know many of us have worries up ownership and that to be screwed over digital copies. With a physical CD, we own and can find ways to play them even if we still have the council to play them on. Digital copies, the fear is even if we buy them, will we still on them and are they still going to be playable? Are they going to take down the games that we have bought? Still, that doesn’t stop many from finding ways to make their own physical copies from digital assets.
Then instead of the Buy or Purchase button, they should rename it to Rent.