California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a new bill, AB 2426, which revolves around consumer protection and false advertising. Going into effect January 1, the new bill “would, subject to specified exceptions, additionally prohibit a seller of a digital good from advertising or offering for sale a digital good, as defined, to a purchaser with the terms ‘buy,’ ‘purchase,’ or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental, unless the seller receives at the time of each transaction an affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser, or the seller provides to the consumer before executing each transaction a clear and conspicuous statement, as specified. By expanding the scope of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.”

NEW: A new law in California will bar any retailer selling always-online games from using words like “buy” or “purchase” without clearly warning that the game might be pulled

Goes into effect Jan 1

I spoke to the lawmaker behind it

More details: https://t.co/ater8njTTo

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 26, 2024

In other words, this new law must make it clear to consumers that digital goods – games, movies, books, etc – are not technically being bought in the traditional sense, they are getting the license for said product to access the digital good they are purchasing.

The bill also notes that this new law does not apply to any subscription-based service that advertises or offers for sale access to any digital good solely for the duration of the subscription, any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person for no monetary consideration, and any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.

Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin told me the law was motivated by last year’s PlayStation/Discovery flap.

Ubisoft’s delisting of The Crew affirmed she was on the right track

She hopes the law will help digital media consumers who she says are “paying a premium for false ownership.”

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 26, 2024

“The legislation was motivated by consumers losing access to content,” the bill’s sponsor, assemblymember Jacqui Irwin (D-CA), told Game File.

“The main story that brought this issue to my attention was Sony’s announcement at the end of last year that digital copies of purchased content from Discovery would be revoked,” she said, referring to the news in December that PlayStation was about to remove access to Discovery shows that people had paid for.

Irwin also pointed to Ubisoft removing players’ licenses to purchased copies of the always-online racing game The Crew. “Ubisoft’s actions with The Crew further highlighted just how widespread this issue is,” Irwin said.

One way for a game to avoid being subject to this law is to include an offline mode. So, with Ubisoft saying earlier this month that The Crew 2 and Motorfest will get them, sale of those games could become exempt from needing a warninghttps://t.co/ater8njTTo

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) September 26, 2024