Digital Ownership & the Right to Keep Purchases

DIGITAL OWNERSHIP & THE RIGHT TO KEEP PURCHASES

Digital Ownership and the Right to Keep What You Buy

Licenses Must Be Called Licenses

Businesses remain free to sell:

• subscriptions;

• rentals;

• temporary licenses;

• streaming access.

But those products must be clearly described as such before purchase.

A company should not use ownership language when the company reserves an unrestricted right to revoke access later.

Purchased Games

When a video game is sold as a purchase, the buyer should retain access to the purchased game.

A publisher should not be able to remove a lawfully purchased game merely because:

• a licensing agreement changed;

• a storefront closed;

• the publisher changed strategy;

• the title is no longer sold.

Server-Dependent Games

Where substantial functionality requires remote servers, that dependency must be prominently disclosed before purchase.

If official servers are permanently discontinued, publishers should make reasonable efforts, where technically and legally feasible, to preserve purchased functionality through methods such as:

• offline modes;

• local hosting;

• community server capability;

• preservation tools.

No company should be required to operate servers forever, but consumers should not be intentionally prevented from preserving software they lawfully purchased when continued operation is technically reasonable.

Revocation

A purchased digital product may be revoked where legally necessary, such as:

• fraud;

• chargeback fraud;

• court order;

• cybersecurity compromise requiring temporary intervention;

• unlawful content that legally cannot continue to be distributed.

Ordinary business preference alone should not convert a completed purchase into a temporary rental.

Right to Download

Where practical, consumers purchasing digital goods should have access to a permanent downloadable copy or another method of preserving the purchase independently of a seller's storefront.

Account Bans

A consumer violating the rules of an online service may lose access to that service.

However, companies should distinguish between:

• banning a user from multiplayer/community services;

and

• confiscating unrelated digital products the user previously purchased.

A platform ban should not automatically erase an entire purchased library unless necessary for security, fraud, or other serious reasons disclosed in advance.

Purchased Products Cannot Be Remotely Crippled

Manufacturers should not remotely disable essential functionality of a physical product that a consumer owns merely to force:

• a new subscription;

• an upgrade;

• replacement;

• additional payment unrelated to the original purchase.

Features explicitly sold as subscriptions may expire according to the agreement.

Core functionality sold as part of the purchased product should remain functional.

Related policies: Consumer Rights; Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Media & Automated Accounts; Personal Data & Records Rights.

Status: Proposed / Draft — not yet formally adopted.

Originally published: August 15, 2026.

Last updated: September 25, 2026.

Version: Draft 0.1.