The ongoing decibel with Sony and the owners of the PS5 has had many witnessing the current misfortunes of “sacrificing” physical media in favor of going “all digital”. It as been a revelation more than anything else. The tech industry has been using humans lack of patience and love for convenience to trick their consumers. Sony’s terms of service for digital purchases on the PlayStation platform states that when a customer purchases a game, a movie or tv show, etc on the PlayStation Network that he or she does not “own” what they have purchased but instead they have purchased a “license” to use the product. Sony can take away the product you have purchased at any time, and there is nothing you can do about it. This is theft.  

Most customers have been unaware of this clause as I am am sure that if they were, they would not invest any money in the platform. This problem was not brought to light until Sony first decided erase content from their online store earlier on this year due to their “license” agreements with partners expiring. Under normal circumstances and in the event of “physical” media this would not be an issue as the customer retains the copy of the said media in physical form. However many customers were furious to find content that they had purchased suddenly went missing from their libraries. They confronted Sony and Sony used their TOS as their defense. No apologies and no refunds.

The situation escalated in August, when Sony announced that they will be shutting down disc based games in 2028 and that the next version of the PlayStation will not have a disc drive and that the only way for you to play games on it is to buy the content in digital form from Sony’s online store. Where by you do not own it, and Sony can walk in and steal it from you at any time they choose. This made many furious that they started the petition on choose.org entitled “Don’t Kill the Disc” which racked up several signatures, but Sony said they will not be reversing their decision. They continue to defend their “right to steal” content and products they have sold.

This brings me to my point: As said by the famous Mahatma Gandhi “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.” 

In light of Sony’s decision, many customers decided to stage a blackout whereby they unplug their PS5 and stop purchasing content from Sony’s online PSN store. But you know what I find quite funny, is the passiveness of people. Sony has given their customers all the reasons to leave their platform and not go “all-digital” by shutting down stores and taking away their purchased content over and over again.

If you want physical media to remain then you vote with your wallet. Asha Sharma claims that Xbox will be retaining the disc drive and Nintendo supports cartridges on their latest Switch, most of the games are stored on that cartridge. Yet, there are so many angry customers who have invested in to the PlayStation ecosystem, filing petitions, staging blackouts, etc and then there are the sheep who will just take what they are given, waiting for the afterlife to come to receive salvation. 

If so many people are angry at Sony’s decision to “kill the disc”, then the best way to show them is to sell your PS5 and buy an Xbox Series X. Sell each physical game you have purchased for your PS5 and use that money to by a replacement on Xbox (I know there are a few exclusives but those are not worth you giving up your rights and freedoms). If anyone working at Microsoft is reading this, providing customers a path to cross-grade their respective games from PlayStation to Xbox would prove beneficial for both Microsoft and their customers and make the transition much quicker and easier.

Back to Sony: After hearing about the protest, Sony then told their customers this week “you do not own the discs you have bought”. So what Sony is essentially saying is that like a thief in the night, they can just break into your home and take away all your purchased games whenever they please, and there is nothing you can do about it. Wisen up people.

My permanent solution to the problem of exploitation in the digital-era, is for everyone who is filling these petitions to get in touch with their government’s justice department. In the age of “digital” companies in the technology sector have been quietly taking away customers rights to ownership by creating digital rights management schemes that require online verification in order to use content they have purchased. Initially this does not appear to be a problem until, the online store from which the content is purchased is shut down (in the future) or the developer pulls the content from the server. It is at this point when the customer is unable to access the content they have rightfully purchased, they realize what crime has been committed. 

We need governments worldwide to establish new laws and legislations to be implemented in order to protect our “digital assets” from the companies and developers that have sold them to us. That is Fair Use. While keeping physical media alive to be used as backups, we do not need to sacrifice the convenience of digital assets either. When you purchase your house or your car, it perpetually belongs to you, those same laws must apply to “digital assets” as well. If the person who sold the digital asset to you goes out of business or dies, that is not your burden to carry. You are purchasing a “replication” of the original product from the developer who created it. To elaborate further let me use an example in the audio field. When you “BUY” my album in physical or in digital form from an online store, you are purchasing a “replication” of the master project which I own, created, exported and distributed to you. When you have purchased this product from me, I cannot take it back from you, it is yours to keep and listen to perpetually.

Remember that we the customers hold all the power, and we elect government officials to enforce and ensure that our rights and freedoms are protected. If you want the same rights and freedoms to exist with “digital assets” as they do with physical assets then we have to implement and enforce laws that protect not just the tech companies selling us the “digital assets” but also the customers who are spending their hard earned cash to buy them. By implementing these new legislations, companies selling their products will have to comply with these “fair use” protections or cease to sell or distribute their products in these respective countries. I am all for physical media and I am all for “digital assets” but there needs to be an overhaul to (DRM) digital rights management and new legislations need to be put in place to ensure that the consumer is never exploited. Just as a customer has “perpetual” access to his house and car after he or she has purchased the said asset, so should the customer have “perpetual” access to his or her digital assets in the same light. This is not something that can be debated, it is fact and it is common sense.