People who bought a Discovery series via their PlayStation account will no longer be able to watch it from 2024. The purchases are deducted from accounts and no one gets a refund. Experts therefore have difficulty with the buy button for digitally purchased products: “It is misleading.”
In het kort
- Mensen die een Discovery-serie via hun PlayStation-account kochten, kunnen deze vanaf volgend jaar niet meer bekijken omdat Sony’s licentie voor Discovery-titels afloopt.
- Gebruikers krijgen hun geld niet terug, wat vragen oproept over de betekenis van ‘kopen’ bij digitale aankopen en leidt tot verwarring en klachten.
- Deskundigen suggereren dat de term ‘kopen’ bij digitale aankopen misleidend kan zijn, omdat gebruikers in werkelijkheid betalen voor toegang tot streamen en geen blijvende eigendom verwerven.
Samenvatting gemaakt met behulp van AI.
From 2008 to 2021 it was possible to buy films and series via Sony’s PlayStation Store. The titles could then be played via the game console. That option disappeared two years ago, but previously purchased films and series could still be viewed. As Sony’s license for Discovery titles expires, those titles disappear from the accounts after December 31 this year.
In online comments are complaints to read from people who lose purchases because of this. A frequently asked question is what the word ‘buy’ still means if you do not actually own the product afterwards.
Dirk Visser, professor of intellectual property law at Leiden University, also thinks the term is wrong in this case. “When you purchase a movie online, you’re essentially buying permission to stream it repeatedly,” he says. There is often also an option to rent, but then the boundaries are more clearly defined. Then you get, for example, 48 hours to watch a movie.
Rules for digital purchases differ from physical purchases
Legally speaking, rules apply to buying physical things. “In a digital environment, the fundamental point is that they do not exist,” says IT lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet.
“You cannot drop an MP3 file on your foot. Instead, you pay to use digital products. The word ‘purchase’ is misleading if it turns out that it can be retrieved later by the provider.”
This makes the digital world different from the physical world. If you buy a film on Blu-ray and put it on the shelf at home, there is no store that will come and get it back later. Digital providers have more control over what they sell after the transaction. For example, they can intervene via customer accounts to prevent the streaming of a purchased film with an expired license.
Conditions must be clear
It is not prohibited to limit or attach conditions to digital products. These must be clear to the consumer. This way it is always clear that an iPhone app does not work on an Android phone. When you purchase a film digitally, you are not sure how long it will remain in your possession, which is almost always the case at the time of purchase.
As a consumer, you agree to all kinds of conditions via the platform or site where you make the purchase. You often do this when you create an account. “You don’t want to have to go through a lengthy contract with every purchase,” says Engelfriet. “It is often the case that crazy, unexpected situations are included in the small print because they are so exceptional.”
This would also apply if a purchased film or series is retrieved. This also rarely happens at Sony. “But it is not the case that if something is stated in the conditions, that is a silver lining,” says Engelfriet. “The small print should not contradict the large print. So if an advertisement promises unlimited internet, the provider cannot, for example, say that there are exceptional restrictions attached to it. Unlimited is unlimited.”
Buying something forever therefore also means buying something forever. It then just depends on what conditions a purchase is described in the rules of a platform. And so the problem appears to mainly lie with the meaning of the word ‘buy’.
“If you buy something digitally, you expect to enjoy it for years,” says Visser. “In principle, you now pay for an indefinite period, unless the seller withdraws access. I call that a breach of contract: promising to deliver something that you cannot deliver.”
2023-12-10 10:26:35
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