These services should be forbidden from using the phrase "Buy it now" if they do not mean it. The phrase should be "License it now" or "Get a license" so people know what they are getting into.
Words have power.
Words have power.
They should be forced to commit to a specific time period that the rental is available and failing to do so is considered fraud. Failing to list the time period is considered equivalent to perpetuity and they should be forced to provide the content in perpetuity, regardless of their circumstances.
Oh, and if it seems unfair to do so and they don't like it, they're perfectly free to not sell that content at all. It's a free country right?
Transparency is the only way to make sure there’s no bullshit for the customer. Also maybe they would need to adjust prices, as they’re no way I’m gonna pay full price for a 1 year license (which is effectively what I’m paying for).
Maybe it’s hard to sell, but it’s the truth
This is a large part of my gripe with the way things are now. I cannot make an informed purchase decision if I do not know what exactly it is I am purchasing; And when the goods that I 'purchased' can be arbitrarily taken away, it is impossible for me to have ever made an informed decision about the purchase.
For example, say that in this case, you bought one of these Blu-Rays with the digital code for Christmas last year, just two months ago, because your friend who bought it five years ago recommended it. They got to use their digital copy for five years, you only got two months, despite having agreed to purchase the _same exact product_. If the package said "free digital copy until March 2024" then there's not that much problem, you got exactly what you paid for, and you were fully aware of what it was that you were buying. But if the package said "free digital copy" then you might rightfully assume that you'll get the same amount of use from the digital copy that your friend did.
As it stands right now though, you have no guarantee whatsoever for how long the digital copy will remain accessible, so you're in effect paying for some nebulous vision of a digital copy in the hope that it materializes for long enough to make use of.
“Lease this content for 10 years” is a deal that makes perfect sense, even if the sellers might hate it
In the same way, going to an half empty theater to watch the show without paying would not be stealing according to your definition (you’re not taking the place of a paying customer anyway), yet it is a form of stealing too.
No you're not. A pirated copy is not a lost sale. Many people wouldn't interact with some media/software at all if they hadn't pirated it. Linux on the desktop would probably be more popular too.
Further, none of the physical resources 'of the owner' are being consumed past whomever first liberated the data. Hopefully obtained as an otherwise legitimate purchase / rental / access. A copy of a copy...
Copyright infringement on the other hand...
Web browser userscript/extension to change the terminology on purchase pages of major vendors?
/s
What Sony is doing here is shitty, but it's a long way from removing access to digital content which people have paid for, which is what the title suggests.
Fire, theft, misplaced/lost, water damage, tiny kid damages the disc, so on and so forth. Keeping something sometimes is out of our control.
>... but it's a long way from removing access to digital content which people have paid for, which is what the title suggests.
They're literally pulling content they paid for. They bought this knowing they would get a physical copy and streaming access. They paid for both, and now part of that "both" is being taken away.