Legal intern Suzanne Castillo co-authored this post.
Playstation’s
decision to kill physical game discs
is the latest attack on our diminishing rights to access and engage with culture digitally. Rent-seeking corporations and negligent lawmakers share the blame–and they can do better.
We’ve seen the same playbook used in the move to digital distribution of film, TV, and music: draw in customers with the convenience of a digital download, then limit physical access and move the goalpost on what it actually means to “own” a piece of media. The end goal is to
turn the customer into a renter
, stuck making regular
subscription payments
for access. Gamers are right to sound the alarm, and we must take this moment to fight for digital ownership before it’s too late.
Disk Space Invaders
Depriving gamers of physical discs leads to another obvious and immediate cost: data. Unlike other digital media like film and TV, video games require a ton of storage. Access to high speed internet is still abysmal in the US, making the high-speeds needed for digital game downloads a luxury some of us may take for granted. For many, a modern game can take days and exceed their data caps.
This made physical discs, particularly for the
biggest AAA titles
, a logical choice that also largely spared gamers from losing traditional ownership rights. With physical disks, the cost of storing the game was included in the purchase.
Own or Be Pwned
Limiting customers to digital copies also pushes gamers further into
rent-only copyright culture
.
Physical media comes with a "right of first sale," which means you can lawfully share, resell, alter, or destroy your own copy of a copyrighted work. This right has also helped protect the emergence of alternative community servers, and emulator addition of online play to
games from the dial up era
.
But courts have held that digital media doesn't carry the same right, meaning no such protection is afforded to digital purchases.
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