Signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom AB 2426a new law requiring digital marketplaces to be more clear to customers when they are only purchasing a license to access media. The law will not apply to permanent offline downloads, but only to the very common situation of buying digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows or e-books from an online store. It saw the development, which could see marketplaces face fines for false advertising in the state if they don’t use clear language to explain what limits access. In other words, once the law takes effect in 2025, you won’t see language like “buy” or “buy.”
The shift to digital storefronts has raised new parallel concerns about ownership and preservation for media in the modern era. Ubisoft’s move is one of the latest examples of how customers can suddenly lose access to media they feel they own after a game’s servers shut down. The new California law won’t stop things like this Crewand these losses will not prevent damage. But it makes it clear that ownership is a rare and intangible thing for digital media.
Governor Newsom is having a busy week. He also stated that the state’s “Yesterday and last week, he signed protections against two bills both living and deceased.
