You’re staring at your TV, controller in hand, finger hovering over “Buy Now” for a $69.99 game. That button feels like a transaction. A purchase. Yours forever. Except it isn’t. Four California gamers filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony in June 2026, arguing that PlayStation’s checkout wording violates California Assembly Bill 2426 — a state law effective since 2025 that requires digital stores to tell you plainly: you’re buying a license, not a product.
The complaint pulls no punches. Consumers who “buy” digital games through PlayStation “do not acquire ownership of those products,” according to reporting on the filing. Instead, Sony grants “a limited and revocable license to access the software, subject to multiple restrictions contained in a separate Software Product License Agreement.” The words “Buy Now” and “Confirm Purchase” sit right there on the screen, radiating retail confidence. The legal reality sits buried in terms of service nobody reads.
You Don’t Own Your Games. You Never Did.
Here’s what a “revocable license” actually means for your digital library.
What does that license look like in practice?
- You cannot resell a digital game
- You cannot lend it the way you’d hand a friend a disc
- Sony can revoke access if they remove the title, change terms, or ban your account
- You paid full price for conditional access, not permanent property
- Steam has already updated its storefront language under AB 2426; Sony reportedly has not
Sony does include a small license notice near its checkout button. The complaint argues it’s too small, buried too late in the flow, and easy to miss — like a nutrition label on the back of a candy bar after you’ve already eaten half of it. Sony’s terms of service have always described access as a license. The fight here isn’t about what the fine print says. It’s about whether fine print satisfies a law demanding upfront clarity. Sony had not publicly responded to the suit as of available reporting.
This isn’t Sony’s first California legal headache. A separate antitrust suit over restricting third-party digital code sales produced a proposed $7.85 million settlement — paid in PSN credits, naturally. AB 2426 represents a different pressure point: not market power, but honest language. Your digital library is essentially a streaming subscription dressed up as a deed of ownership.
Every game, film, and e-book you’ve “bought” digitally likely operates under the same fine print. The question this lawsuit poses is brutally simple: should a button that says “Buy” actually mean buy?
