California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2426, a brand new law that requires digital marketplaces to make clearer to clients when they’re solely buying a license to entry media. The law will not apply to instances of everlasting offline downloads, solely to the all-too-common state of affairs of shopping for digital copies of video video games, music, films, TV reveals or ebooks from a web based storefront. The Verge noticed the event, which might see marketplaces going through fines for false promoting within the state in the event that they don’t use clear language to clarify the constraints of what entry entails. In different phrases, you will not be seeing language like “buy” or “purchase” as soon as the law takes impact in 2025.
The transfer to digital storefronts has raised new parallel issues about possession and preservation for media within the fashionable age. Ubisoft’s transfer to delete The Crew from gamers’ libraries after the sport’s servers shuttered is likely one of the most up-to-date examples of how clients can instantly lose entry to media they felt they owned. The brand new California law will not cease conditions like The Crew’s disappearance from occurring, and it will not cease these losses from hurting. But it surely does make clearer that possession is a fairly uncommon and intangible factor for digital media.
Governor Newsom is having a busy week. He additionally signed the state’s “click to cancel” invoice yesterday and final week signed two payments with protections towards undesirable AI likenesses of actors, each residing and deceased.