this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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“Not incentivized”!
They like using the current word “buy” because people think it means they “own” a digital copy. Since that’s not true what we’re really saying here is that they like lying because that makes them more money.
I think the more honest term is “rent”. A normal rental agreement online is for like 48hrs. This is a rental agreement for a much longer, but unspecified, time period.
You’d think a court case would clear this up. But probably not.
Part of the problem is that court cases don't materialize from nothing. A judge can only rule on a case before them. So you would need someone to bring out a specific complaint against a specific party. So there needs to be a lot of money on the line for someone who actually feels they can win. A class action against all online media storefronts just isn't that.
Also, it's a difficult case because the terms of the legal license that each customer are being asked to read and agree to ARE being upheld properly -- so you either have to make the case that asking a customer to agree to terms digitally that they've pretty please read isn't binding (which kills all digital commerce, because it all becomes a liability nightmare!), or, that the website etc is materially misleading / misrepresenting the agreements; we've talked about consumers maybe being prone to misunderstanding "buy" here, but I really don't believe it's a legal slam dunk.
If anything, the faster path to improve this the way you're looking for would be legislation.