- California’s latest law targets disappearing digital media.
- It labels “buy” and “purchase” buttons on such media as part of misleading advertising and prohibits stores from using them unless they provide disclosures on lack of ownership.
- The law goes into effect on January 1, 2025.
Many of us have been in situations where our favorite game or movie vanished from a digital store merely because the licensing agreement between the producer and the digital store ran out. Such cases lift the illusion that we are buying digital media — in most cases, we consumers do not get any ownership over the content. While we are unlikely to get ownership over these digital goods anytime soon, at least one US state wants to ensure that digital stores don’t mislead you into thinking you do.
California has signed a Consumer Protection bill into law that specifically targets such false advertising for digital goods. The law prohibits sellers of digital goods from using terms like “buy,” “purchase,” and other such terms if they give the illusion of unrestricted ownership when, in fact, the consumer would not own the digital good in any way. If the digital store wants to use such terms, it will need to make it clear to the buyer before each transaction that they are merely getting a license to enjoy the digital media and not getting ownership rights over it. The new law won’t apply to digital stores that offer “permanent offline” downloads.