California Assembly Bill 2426 (AB 2426), effective 1 January, 2025. Expands the state's false advertising laws to explicitly ban companies from using words like "buy," "purchase," "own," or "keep" if what the customer is actually getting is a revocable digital license governed by shady T&Cs.
Remember that the power is always with the people. We can enact any law we want
Unless you’re in, say, Ohio, where the government will simply overrule decisive mandates with years of procedural nonsense https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/03/31/ohio-republican-la...
The government is selected by the people.
If the people decide to elect a comedian with a dustbin on their head, they can do. That apples to Chicago as much as Clacton
That reads to me like a hand wavy an excuse for not asking what we can do to make our system more representative of the voters’ will when it should be.
EU Chat Control would like a word as well
Ohioans need to elect better reps then, don't they?
It’s a lot easier to act as a few people than as millions. Let’s not pretend this is some fair fight.
Power in numbers is with the people. Power in votes is with whoever has the votes. Power in money is with the billionaires. Power comes in many forms and isn't fungible.
No, Money, Votes, etc has value because the general public gives it value. All billionaires could be instantly broke if the general public decided they were broke. Votes are ultimately a method of control not an inherent power unto themselves.
Societies have gotten really good at convincing people they don’t have power so it’s rarely exercised but it’s always worth remembering the difference between abstraction and the underlying reality.
If I stop believing that money has value, men with guns will come to my house and force me out of it and change the locks.
If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house, force them out of it and change the locks.
This isn't a voluntary system, it's a forcibly imposed one.
> If they stop believing money has value (so they wouldn't want to come to my house), men with guns will come to their house
You’re assuming there’s going to be large groups of people that believe money still has value. However, there’s nothing inherently different about the first group of people with guns and the second group of people with guns.
If hypothetically there’s a large moon heading to earth so everyone is going to die, everyone is responding to the same situation.
Less extreme situations result in societal collapse, and that’s just one of many options.
I believe the parent was referring to the power to do something with the money. (Not in what one owes). In a decent society there are things no amount of money can buy, and things that take inordinate amounts that would only corrupt a sick fraction of the populace. That is part of what is gross about Epstein's scale, it made many of us realize that there is a price on those specific things and it wasn't just a sociopathic microslice of society, but seemingly "all" (lots, most, too many -- choose your term) of the people in power.
Additionally Lobbying shows us the amount of money for corruption is surprisingly low.
Eh. The people exercise their power constantly. Only historically not in the ways some people (read as: me) would prefer.
> value. All billionaires could be instantly broke if the general public decided they were broke.
Are we taking about abolishing the fiat currency system or bringing back the guillotines ?
Any of the above, the world could just decide arbitrarily everyone with 1+B is suddenly broke. That’s not likely but it doesn’t break the laws of physics or anything.
ok but who enforces the law?
If you haven’t been paying attention lately, laws are only as good as they are enforced and it has become obvious that the ruling class is not going to enforce laws against themselves.
The solution here is not something most people are willing to inconvenience themselves over
Rewind a bit over 100 years and the robber barons had an iron grip over the US economy, US politics, and people who understood the mechanisms despaired at ever prying it away from them.
Then the wind shifted and, suddenly, we could and we did. It took them decades to undo that progress and decades more to reassert their grip.
Don't self-sabotage by imagining that it is impossible to achieve change through democracy. We've done it before and we can do it again.
Can we though? There is marked difference in how the government reacts to populist demands. Notably, they learned from Vietnam how to manipulate the population to divide public opinion. I am not sure people today can overcome such organized machinations.
Of course we can.
Using foreign wars to prosecute domestic agenda is a strategy that predates written history, let alone Vietnam. Rulers have always understood which levers were available to them, this is not a modern discovery. Classical history in particular is full of this sort of thing and worse in a democratic context, which is comforting in the sense of where we stand and concerning in the sense of where things could go.
Machinations were always organized. I'm reading about Louis Brandeis and I'm struck by how familiar the robber baron talking points are; they are exactly the talking points I heard from neoliberals growing up. Time is a flat circle when it comes to antitrust. Also: they tried to coup FDR! They got themselves a strongman figurehead and everything, it just didn't work.
I'd actually give us the advantage today: the information environment is messier and more difficult to control and machine politics is barely starting to form rather than firmly established everywhere at every level.
Laws are meaningless de jure. Especially where megacorps are concerned, the de facto law (ie the only one that matters) is the text, multiplied by the enforcement mechanism, multiplied by the political will to enforce, multiplied by the 10-15 year process of the megacorps draining their legal warchests into challenges and appeals. Then, after all that, maybe… you get a change to corporate behavior.
The laws in this country are primarily written by and for large corporations. They’re not going to meaningfully practically restrain them just because something got passed.
Laws are great and all. But what we really need is a massive boycott. Stop buying shit manufactured or sold by Sony for a year. That alone will probably force them to backtrack every single anti consumer decision they've made recently.
You are not going to get the guy at 7-11 or the cashier at Target who just bought a PS5 for her son to boycott watching movies on it. Boycotts only work if it is demonstrably going to make their life worse if they don't. Losing access to a movie that interested you 15 years ago when you were still in high school is not one of those things.
I gave up on Sony for life when they tried to install a rootkit on my computer from an audio CD years ago and I see no reason to change.
There's a reason why they teach the prisoner's dilemma on day 1 of business school: a group which is more fragmented has less power. From the consumer perspective, this is why monopolies are bad and this is why boycotts don't work. From the slimy businessman perspective, this is why monopolies are good and boycotts are the only way consumers should be allowed to push back. Boycotts are empirically understood to be an ineffective strategy -- which, of course, is usually exactly what the people proposing them as an alternative to legislation are usually after.
For the love of god please understand 80% of people are trying to just get on day by day. They don't give a shit about any of this. They probably don't even realize it's happening. Some subset of them might be hit by this but most just don't care.
The point of a government in society is for people who give a shit to guide this kind of thing.
No, I won't understand. These people who don't give a shit, they are the problem. They're the ones who finance these corporations and enable their abusive practices.
They are indeed part of the problem, but you cannot blame them. You have to blame those who caused their situation to be so dire, making them lack support.
These people work 2 jobs, have a young kid, a demented parent or a bedridden sister that need constant support. If they take the time to give a shit about politics, their dependent dies. You don't seem to know how incredibly stressful and exhausting the life of some people is.
Do something about their situation that gives them the time to participate in real life. Don't blame them for trying to survive with all their might, and not go to council hall twice a week.
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Boycotts don't work nearly as well nowadays because
a) Consumers don't have enough money already, so they're both stressed out and getting fewer things for themselves. These combine to mean that they're less likely to be willing to give up what little luxuries they have left, even if you're just asking them to substitute one media property for another.
b) The companies being targeted are just too damn big. The consolidation that began in the '80s has reached truly ludicrous levels in 2026, meaning that the company can just...ignore drops in profits for months or even years while consumers get worn out.
You painted an accurate picture about how people act in this case and for boycotts in general but let’s be honest, not buying movies from Sony and its store is the last thing most people would “suffer” from. There’s such a large supply of content today that ditching one source for another has almost no real impact.
How much content really is only on Sony’s store, and how much of it would wear you down if you didn’t consume it within X years?
There are truly painful boycotts (try boycotting the only ISP in your area), and boycotts that are an inconvenience. This one is a far cry from losing a luxury or getting worn out.
You seem to have either misunderstood my point (a), or you have a misguided idea of how important small luxuries are to people, especially people who do not have the means to procure larger luxuries on a regular basis.
I mean, sure; it's much more painful to boycott the only ISP around, or the only grocery store within a 30 mile radius, but just because there are things that could be worse doesn't mean that this can't be bad.
Also, corporate bullshit such as this should be stigmatized.
Yup, it's wild to see corporations effectively say "kiss my ass" and then watch people line up to do it :|
> But what we really need is a massive boycott
Is it? What’s the most effective boycott you can think of ever achieved?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_bus_boycott
Completely different circumstances as the protest was very organised and the target far smaller than a multi national company and the reason was far more important than access to a few films
Boycotts are one thing, people simply not buying because a company's reputation is ruined is another. What I think we really need is simply to spread the word about how sony is a shitty company, let people know the stuff they buy from them gets deleted. That's enough to really smash up sony's revenue. Tech people naturally assume other people are highly informed about tech stuff, but they aren't, they're watching tiktok ai sexy cat videos and assume the reason grandma lost her copy to Alien: Resurrection was because grandma isn't very good at computers, not that sony deleted it. Indeed, I think, because sony is concurrently removing physical media the outrage probably will effect their bottom line in some ways when the next playstation comes out.
Look at how the firestone tire scandal in 2000 effected their company's bottom line. Or how the click of death effected the fortunes of the owners of Iomega. Reputation actually does matter sometimes.
Maybe not the most effective but Helldivers rolled back the requirement to link a Playstation account (on PC) after massive outrage and pushback.
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In democracy, power comes from demos. In capitalism, power comes from capital.
Demos doesn't have capital. People never had power. Whenever they've thought they won ... they just damaged position of someone powerful for someone even more powerful without even knowing it.
> In democracy, power comes from demos. In capitalism, power comes from capital.
By this logic, in consumerism power comes from consumers, but maybe it's more complicated than that?
the power is not with the people (us) but with the people in power (corpos and politicians). We (they) can enact any laws we (they) want.
I don't think this type of legislation will have any kind of real world effect. Apple App store labels all their buttons with "Get". Google Play Store just prints the price on the button for paid apps/games.
In a thread about movies, it's perhaps more relevant to talk about how those two platforms handle movies.
In a browser, the top category on Google's "Movies & TV" is "New to buy or rent". The buttons on the page for a movie are labeled "$X.XX Buy" and "$X.XX Rent". In the Google TV app on my android phone, the two buttons are "Rent 4K // $X.XX" and "Buy 4K // $X.XX".
The splash images in the Apple TV app iOS say "Buy or rent it now.", and the buttons on the page for an individual movie are labeled "Buy $X.XX" and "Rent $X.XX".
Not to defend this, just to further observe the different nature of their marketing -- games also haven't historically had similar "rent" options in the first place. Timed demos are a newer trend, demos in general have usually been smaller sections of the content, and they typically aren't something you're paying for.
blockbuster rented cartridges and disks back in the day. so do libraries
Fair, I more so mean for digital releases.
Movies, on digital marketplaces, have had this kind of distinction for a lot longer than games have.
There needs to be a carrot or stick to discourage this kind of practice. Perhaps when companies sue users for piracy, the valuation of what was "stolen" should be dependent on the nature of that company's sales practices. e.g. A company that merely "rents" media in a deceptive way would only be eligible to claim small fractions of a penny on the dollar were stolen when prosecuting a pirate. This way companies would be encouraged to respect user ownership rights if they want their own rights to be respected.
How about if it doesn't say RENT, it means you own it and first sale doctrine applies. We can't let them weasel and wordsmith their way out of things.
or lease? or... There's probably a dozen words to mean that same word.
No outs, we need a controlled vocabulary.
Apple does the same thing as Google, the button is only labeled "Get" for free apps, for paid apps it's labeled with the price.
Paid apps largely failed as a business model though (why would a consumer take a risk on buying a paid app that they can't try before they buy) so most apps that you pay for are free apps with IAP subscriptions... which I guess makes it a little more explicit that you're renting the app, for better or worse.
I think we've also moved towards subscriptions as apps become clients for a backend service.
EG. A mapping app that includes a one time bundle of maps that don’t get updated can be sold as a one time purchase. If you provide continuous updates, which most people expect now, pulling off a one time purchase business model is HARD. The other option is versioned access or time limited support, which is really just a subscription model by a different name. That said I wish versioned access was still a thing. Photoshop CS is still fine for what I want, I’m happy to pay for an upgrade when it makes sense, but a continuing subscription to software that hasn’t substantially changed in a decade sucks.
wow, sidestepping like that sucks.
Strangely, some kindle books actually do meet california criteria of "buy" by allowing a download of the book in .pdf or .epub format.
But when you go to buy them, it still seems to say:
There is no other indication in the item description of this difference.It is only later in your library that it quietly says:
I think that's a great effect, they are no longer lying. I don't want to see a button that contains all the terms. What else would you want?
Yet another victim of an overspecific law.
I've wondered how they'll draw the line on this. If Amazon or Apple has a buy button and it means you get to have ongoing access to the content for as long as Amazon/Apple is around, then for a 30 year old person there's a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing. But if it's hazier, as in the case of Sony's revocation based on losing rights in later years, then you're obviously not getting the same thing. How does CA's law apply to this continuum of circumstances?
What makes you think that this is "as good as" buying when the original post itself demonstrate clearly that it's nowhere close to actually buying something?
Is there something in Apple or Amazon terms which say they can't under any circumstances deprive you of accessing the content you have bought with their "Buy" buttons? I don't see why you are trying to assign a difference between them and Sony here?
We have words like leases, licenses, or renting for a reason and they are not new.
The companies which shifted their business model to renting in the digital age have perpetuated the "buy" buttons to make their customers think the transaction was the same as when they purchased a physical media... but clearly, and it's by far not the first case, these companies will deprive their customers of their "purchase" for many reasons that shouldn't be any concern for someone who actually "bought" something... like the companies suddenly deciding to stop paying for the rights of the thing that they alledgly "sold" to you.
So just as clearly, theses were not actual purchases but just licenses, non-transferable, allegedly "perpetual" but unilaterally revocable at any time with no refund.
I really don't see why you seem to think there is anything hazy about this, or hard to delineate. This law seems to cover the cases in which these companies abuse the language in question, Amazon and Apple are not "selling" you anything digital, you acquire a pretty limited license on all of these services.
I said "a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing". If these mega companies stick around and continue to offer access to the content, then it is as good as buying it (arguably better if you don't have to store it and can download onto many devices over decades). But note that this was all preceded by "a decent chance". There is also a chance that it won't turn out to be as good as buying, if the company goes under, gets out of that line of business, or loses access to the relevant rights.
One important question, which I don't know the answer to, is whether Sony is nuking stuff from your devices. If not, then they could claim that you bought the thing and can keep using it on your existing devices. If you can move the content from a PS5 to a PS6 in 5 years, then arguably it's fine to say you "bought" it. But if they're wiping the content from your local devices, then you've definitely not bought the thing.
Buy only means buy if you can use the product as advertised after breaking all ties with the vendor.
Let's not broaden this definition in favor of the vendor.
Is this an official definition defined in law?
I'm sorry what? There isn't some super secret legal definition of every word. Buy means buy.
Amazon still shows me a buy option for movies?
Effective after most people likely bought their movies.
Is it working/being enforced? Anecdotally I haven't seen or heard of any changes in verbiage, but I haven't been paying that much attention.
Steam/Valve follow the law: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267864/steam-buy-purch...
So they avoided having a "rent" button by using the technically correct "add to cart", "continue to payment" instead of "buy this game", "buy all games in cart", and just have a separate sentence in small grey text that is confusing to most people.
Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting.
In my experience it's a pretty clear warning, but I might not be the best person to judge. The thing to remember is "buying" a revocable license is pretty different from "renting" a temporary license, and those words have pretty different connotations.
No, the thing to remember is that "buying a revocable license" is a dishonest way to say "renting for at least one millisecond"
> Clearly this law needs to be worded harsher, so the button MUST say "rent" if you are renting.
No, there is a much better alternative.
No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO.
I wouldn't ban renting. Instead, perhaps we ban rentals of unspecified length.
The customer has to know what they're getting. Either they own it, or they're renting for a certain period. Nothing ambiguous.
No renting of copyrighted works for money. The customer owns a copy or GTFO.
That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return.
I am in favour of copyright reform but not of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
> That immediately destroys several useful and viable business models that actually work in that they provide more access to more creative work to more people while the rights holders also make a return.
Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost.
Meanwhile rentals are an attempt to cheat the public out of a bunch of rights they would otherwise have under First Sale etc. Which turns your access argument on its head, because the thing they're being denied is the ability to sell their copy when they're done with it, which in turn denies less well off customers the ability to buy a cheaper copy second hand.
Does it though? The incremental revenue from customers renting something and then renting it again is going to be very small. The "loss" from providing them with a permanent copy instead would be a rounding error, especially for a product with no marginal cost.
It destroys the library model used by Spotify, Netflix, and all the other similar services for one example. Those are clearly not working on the same basis as selling permanent copies of everything you might want to listen to or watch. They clearly do make a lot of revenue from subscribers enjoying the long tail of music and programmes and often that includes repeats. Many more people enjoy many more works that aren't the big headliners under this model. People can also try something they might enjoy without committing to the cost of buying it and therefore don't have to feel bad if it's not for them and they give up after a few minutes. And yet obviously the subscribers individually spend far less in many cases than it would cost them to buy permanent copies of everything they'd listened to and watched. Given the popularity and financial success of the streaming services this is evidently an alternative model that works for both sides. So I would challenge your claim that the loss from always providing permanent copies is insignificant.
I don't really buy the other argument you're making either. With digital works there isn't much reason for a "second hand" market where copies would be significantly cheaper than a "new" copy direct from the supplier. When people used to trade used works on physical media there was a degree of degradation in those media that justified a price reduction. Why would someone who had bought a copy of the latest summer blockbuster sell it for 30% of its original purchase price if it's a flawless digital reproduction identical to a new one? Naturally this shifts the dynamics in the market and the price of buying a true permanent copy that can legally be sold on afterwards would tend to increase because of this effect. Meanwhile the library services I mentioned above work on almost the opposite basis and it tends to push the price per work accessed down because the subscribers aren't effectively subsidising other people who are enjoying identical works to themselves but without paying the original source anything to access those works.
I think there is demonstrably room enough in a world of billions of people with access to orders of magnitude more content than any of us could experience even once in our lifetimes for multiple economic models. What matters is that people get to create useful works and other people get to enjoy those works and the financial arrangements make this worthwhile for everyone. There are certainly flaws in the current copyright model that is established in most of the world. There are rights that I think people who have bought (or believe they have bought) permanent copies of works should enjoy with the force of law behind them if necessary.
I don't have a great answer yet to the problem of rights holders not wanting to make anything available permanently at all so that everyone is locked into some form of temporary arrangement. Clearly market forces haven't always sorted that one out effectively and some sort of adjustment is warranted. But I'm also wary of relying on some form of government regulation that distorts the market and potentially excludes arrangements that everyone actually involved might find worthwhile. Maybe you could somehow require that once any work has more than a certain number of licensed copies in circulation or has been available to a certain number of people from authorised sources for a certain (relatively small) number of years then it must also be available for sale as a permanent licence - regardless of any other continuing and still legitimate ways to access it from authorised sources - but with some recognition that a fair price to buy a permanent copy that comes with all the associated rights today might be significantly higher than what these things used to cost in the days when physical media were required.