Binding arbitration when there is a significant power imbalance should be illegal. If it's between two similarly abled parties (e.g. two individuals), it should be fine.

I studied a bit of this in a university course. Between a lot of organizations, binding arbitration is more efficient (i.e. cheaper) than the legal system. If your company wants to make a deal with another company, binding arbitration often makes sense.

Ditto for 2 individuals: If they had to go through the legal system, it could end up being a war of attrition - the one who has more money to pay lawyers wins. Binding arbitration is a way to "level" that field.

The down side (at least in many, if not all, states) is that you have little recourse if the arbiter is totally unfair. With the legal system, you can appeal, etc.

But between an individual and a large company - no way!

In my last job, the (very big) company automatically enrolls new employees into a binding arbitration agreement, but they do give a timeline to opt out. I was surprised I had that option. I even paid a lawyer to review the docs. He said "Yep, you can (and should) opt out. I'm surprised they even gave you that option."

In my country, many laws state that the consumer (or "weak" part) can not sign away their rights, any contract with stipulations regarding that would void that clause. Feel like that should be the norm. Shouldn't be able to lose your consumer rights just by pressing a button, then the rights are worthless if everyone just have a huge TOS / EULA for any service covering their asses.

This is also one of those scenarios similar to subscription or membership cancellation where we should not allow accepting/signing up for something require using an entirely different method of communication to cancel/opt out.

Requiring written notification while the TOS being accepted entirely via digital means should be illegal.

Not to mention I think its insane that we allow companies to be able to dictate how citizens are allowed to utilize their legal system.

> Binding arbitration on individuals should be illegal, full stop. The only use case is taking away people's rights as consumers and workers. Or dodging responsibility for deadly mistakes like the Disney+ incident.

Hijacking to link to another website that has good information about how binding arbitration is stacked against the consumer/employee:

https://arbitrationinformation.org/

what was the disney+ incident? /gen

> deadly mistakes like the Disney+ incident

Well, that led me down a wild rabbithole.

Access to the legal system is a fundamental right. It should not be possible to sign it away, any more than you can sign away your right to life or liberty.

> pirating a copy of the content is fine because others can/do still "buy" or "own" (rent/lease) it.

Piracy is not theft. It is an infringement on another's right to distribute intellectual property.

This lawsuit is wasting a lot of time by not simply addressing the long-standing norm of buying a physical object which bundles the content, the license, and it many cases the copyright protection mechanisms.

Selling a used DVD is possible because the DVD contains the license — it is transferable and irrevocable by dint of its format.

Digital goods lack these distinct features but the language looks the same so people are now feeling the rug pull. Hence, the pushback against abandoning disc sales.

Yeah I'm not sure what they are trying to argue with that defense. It's also clear that this is not the point that the plaintiffs are trying to make. We don't care if you call it a license or whatever, if we purchase something (like a digital movie), we should be able to at least maintain access to it for an indefinite amount of time. "oh but that's not feasible", that's not really my problem, you are the ones ditching physical

Ah, you could not have purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from the store on February 25th because I myself purchased a bag of Lays potato chips from that very same store the day previously!

Eh “buy” vs “license” is a distraction. The real problem with online stores & licenses is that they charge the same amount of money for a worse product.

If I buy a game on a disc, I can play the game, then resell it and someone else can play it. Or I can lend my copy of the game to a friend. When the online store eventually goes offline, I can still play all the games I have on disc. If I lose access to my online account, I still own the game. I can just get another console and play it.

If digital purchases let you do all that, I’d be all for them. They’re more convenient and better for the environment. But Sony and friends want to take these rights away from us, without choice. And without a corresponding drop in game prices. I want the PlayStation store (and steam and Nintendo and so on) to let me remove a game from my account and give it to someone else. Let me do that and I wouldn’t have a problem with any of it. But the current online store system is too greedy.

It sounds like a pipe dream, but this is how physical copies have worked for decades. My license moves with the game disc or cartridge. Why don’t we have a digital equivalent to this?

If Sony stopped trying to push a worse product on their customers, their customers wouldn’t be mad about it.

> We do not own the same copy of that book

Why not? If you hash the book, it’ll match. It’s word for word the same book (editions not withstanding). It’s not the same if you tie in account permissions, of course. Or is this on a philosophical level?

Edit: the downvotes make no sense, aren’t we talking about digital copies here?

I guess it's worth pointing out that Sony (the conglomerate) isn't one company. It's a whole lot of companies. The gaming related part is called Sony Interactive Entertainment (headquartered in San Mateo, California). Movies are done by Sony Pictures Entertainment (headquartered in Culver City, California).

The ones making cameras are Sony Corporation (headquartered in Tokyo).

As far as my understanding goes, the Japanese part is pretty good, while the people in California have lost the plot.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Buy and enjoy their cameras while avoiding their software as much as humanly possible.

Your access to a digital product you have "purchased" should not be tied to the continued existence of the store you also bought it from. Similar to physical products.

If I bought a game at GameStop we aren't required to continuously reach back out to them every once in a while to check that they're okay with me playing the game I bought from them. And if GameStop goes out of business they aren't going to come knocking on my door to make sure I never play the game again or take it back from me.

Once a game or any other product is purchased from a digital store, it should not require the stores continued existence or permission.

Yes there are some drawbacks in that maybe they could argue then that they could stop allowing redownloading a game you've already purchased but so be it, they'd just be offering a worse experience and users would move away.

We also need to stop allowing unclear language. When we lease a car at a dealership they never use the term "buy" or "own". That's strictly reserved for ownership. We should require the same for other licensed/leased products.

I've been posting a similar idea for years. Require that for each piece of commercial software there is a "method" to open it up and use without requiring on-line servers. The method is be registered with a special government agency for that purpose, who first verifies that the method works.

Later when the agency considers the software to be "abandonware", it publishes the method.

Remove DRM laws and make copyright on all media expire after 5 or 10 years off market. Abandoned franchises should get the same treatment. Call it Sackboy's Law. See how quick Sony and EA rush to port their back catalogue.

We do but it'll never happen. Estates would accumulate huge libraries of digital goods and never need to buy anything new.

Which would be awesome which is why it won't happen.

> the precedence will screw over Sony

As is usual in the modern world (and probably since the beginning of time since there's nothing new under the sun for the last ~2,000-3,000 years), not enough people will care for it to have any measurable screwing effect.

Not so strange, there is lots of money to be made by people not owning things anymore. Especially getting rid of physical second hand sells/buys will force consumer to buy the games straight from Sony again, who is the only store you will be able to buy Playstation games from.

But yeah, hopefully the community and ecosystem is aligned enough to massively fuck Sony over this, vote with your wallets people.

Does Sony believe in ownership of digital money?

Steam trained a whole generation of gamers not to expect real ownership with resale rights. It's sad. The population old enough to even know this is how it used to be is shrinking.

> how much it costs to be a first owner vs. wait for a second-hand purchase

Nitpick, but in your example, they would cost exactly the same eventually (other than the effort it takes to sell it secondhand), so no reason to wait.

> own

> revoked

I think the dispute is right here.

yeah the outcome here is "we're sorry, here's your 0.50 class action settlement payment" and updated terms of service... it's not going to reverse anything, people need to stop buying

Also, the definition of what a "reasonable person" is capable of understanding varies from case to case, depending on the interests of the companies involved.

E.g. meat and milk industry want us to believe that a "reasonable person" is dumb enough to be confused by labels like "soy milk" or "vegan burger".