A license is a license. They don't have to expire either. I can sell a perpetual license to something.
> For me if DRM is involved it is always a rental, license or no, as I am left unable to legally keep an archival copy to retain access to the purchased item beyond the undisclosed access window.
Call it whatever you want. The correct term is a license. You were licensed something in accordance with a bunch of terms that may have included, for example, DRM. It's a license to use the good in accordance with the terms of the license. Why confuse things?
Or think of it like this: what if I “purchase a license” to use a hammer, and as part of that license the hammer’s owner can ask me to return the hammer at a time of their choosing. Am I buying the hammer, or am I renting the hammer? Don’t get distracted by the nonsense of “buying a license to use the hammer”. What am I doing with the hammer?
I guess you need to take it up with a lawyer, then?
>How can I buy something and then be arbitrarily deprived of it by the person who sold it to me at their whim?
same way with a physical license. I have a license to drive, I still need to pay every year to renew my license to ensure my car meets safety standards and that I'm a registered citizen and whatnot. I also need to be re-tested every so often and my picture retaken every year to update my likeness or that license is rendered null.
I don't see it as any different from a digital license. No one would say I "rented my license".
> Either ownership transfers in a way that the seller loses control, or they retain control and no transfer of ownership occurs, only a transfer of possession
Those aren't technically impossible. Just not a feature in enough demand for anyone to implement. Car metphor works here too: I can't transfer my license to drive to another person.
>Now I know IP law says something else, but just because a bad idea is encoded into law does not make it a good idea.
not at all. But it's what you need to argue against and challenge to make any real change. And "it's nonsense" isn't the most sound argument. We can interpret all we want here, but ultimately it does nothing to society at large.
>Or think of it like this: what if I “purchase a license” to use a hammer, and as part of that license the hammer’s owner can ask me to return the hammer at a time of their choosing. Am I buying the hammer, or am I renting the hammer? Don’t get distracted by the nonsense of “buying a license to use the hammer”. What am I doing with the hammer?
sounds like something that can happen if you tweak it slightly. s/Hammer/Gun (albiet we now enter controversial territory) and you see how it settles in. You need a license to own a gun, you can buy and own a gun, but you can have that gun revoked for crimes that may not even be related to the gun itself.
People would still say you own the gun and have a license to operate one. But you can have it taken away. A bit strong armed for a metaphor to video games, but this is more to show that the model of ownership and revoking of possession isn't necessarily stuck in the digital realm.
> same way with a physical license. I have a license to drive, I still need to pay every year to renew my license...
What do you mean? Did you "purchase a driver's license"? Have you ever heard someone use that phrase?
That's...exactly the issue at hand. These companies are not doing much, if anything, to educate their customers on the difference between purchasing a license and purchasing the thing itself. This is, of course, deliberate.
It's not "weasel wording" it's the accurate term. It can also be true that the media companies can make it more clear that what is being purchased is a license which is subject to terms.
We're just taking away the shiny disc in the digital era. It's not a perfect term, but for 99.999% of people, "indefinitely rental for years until the servers die", would associate with "buy".
