Comment by pessimizer
3 days ago
> Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert ? what did you actually own ?
A ticket that would allow you entrance into a particular concert. Is this some sort of rhetorical question? I can't decipher what it's attempting to illustrate.
The original post was about the use of verbs.
> it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when [...]
The use of "buy" and "purchase" were never restricted to ownership or unlimited rights, we buy licenses, usage rights, priority tokens, all sorts of lottery tickets and weirder abstractions every day.
GP probably wants digital movies to have a specific purchase model, but the discussion has to be about the model, not the vocabulary. Right now I actually have no idea what they'd be willing to accept as a middle ground to rights management.
I think it's perfectly clear? If you buy a ticket, it's clear you own that ticket. But the usefulness of the ticket is that it can be exchanged for a service (admission to the concert), which is also clear. Nobody would expect the ticket to grant them admission to every future concert by the artist, or at the venue. The date and start/end times are on the ticket you buy, otherwise it would say "lifetime pass" or something.
The same is true with movie downloads, except that Sony very strongly, probably deceptively and maliciously, implies the "lifetime pass" part while they full well know they're only selling you a ticket for access during a limited timeframe.
We wouldn't have this article or discussion if Sony had been truthful and had their store pages not say "purchase movie", but "purchase temporary ticket".