Housing Our Library in the Master’s Study

In October, the video game platform and store Steam added a disclosure to its checkout process, letting buyers know that they weren’t actually buying the game they’d added to their cart, but rather a license to play the game. What this means, as the Verge put it, is you don’t own the games you buy from Steam — at least those that require you to be online to play.

Its inclusion was driven by a change in California law that mandates the disclosure. As things stand, video game companies can — and have — removed games from libraries or stopped servicing them, treating certain games more like subscription-based services than owned products. In 2023, Sony did the same for television shows purchased by consumers after its licensing arrangement with Discovery changed.

Licensing can be a massive pain for consumers, especially those crossing borders. If you’ve ever lost access to books, albums, TV shows, or even games when moving between countries, you’ve experienced the headache that comes with losing access to the thing you bought — or, rather, the license you purchased.

Audible, Amazon’s audiobook company, is a top offender. But it’s not the only one. Companies routinely deny customers access to personal digital libraries when one crosses borders, which is akin to a border guard reaching into your suitcase and confiscating your purchased novels. If you relocate permanently, the problem escalates: you could lose access to all your purchased materials, unable to port your account — and all your content — to your new country.

Lost to the Cloud

The shift toward digital versions of entertainment material has meant a decline in the production of hardware capable of playing physical media. In December, LG announced it was discounting all Blu-ray players once and for all — what was left of them, anyway. Microsoft is transitioning away from discs, too, introducing a recent Xbox console without an optical drive, though other versions still include one. Sony has been hedging on drives, too, offering a disc and discless version of its PlayStation, with the former costing less than the latter. But there’s plenty of speculation that the next generation of Xboxes and PlayStations will be driveless, period.

The move toward digital media and streaming reinforces a cycle: as demand for physical media declines, so does the production of the hardware required to play it, which further accelerates the decline in the production and availability of physical media. Paris Marx writes about how hard it is to find a Blu-ray these days. As physical media fades, streaming companies and online retailers gain greater control over what customers can and can’t access. This control increases day-to-day as they develop content strategies to maximize profits, which may include getting rid of content to save cash on taxes and licensing.

Some people are fighting to preserve physical media, but it often seems like a lost cause. The entertainment and electronics industries are highly concentrated, dominated by a few major players like Amazon, Disney, Sony, and Microsoft. These companies have a stranglehold on much of the entertainment ecosystem, crossing boundaries between content production, hardware manufacturing, and retail. Walmart, Best Buy, and a handful of other retailers further restrict availability, deciding what sits on their shelves and what doesn’t — and physical media simply doesn’t get much shelf space anymore.

Ultimately, the shift to digital media represents a deeper power shift. A few multinational corporations are consolidating control over the market, determining what is available and who has access, with little room for alternatives.

The Right to Keep What You Buy

Control is the name of the game here. In the past, companies could control what went on shelves. But once you purchased something — a VHS tape, DVD, Blu-ray, cassette, or CD — it was yours to keep. Technology has changed over time, but changes to format didn’t mean direct and swift control over what appeared on any shelf, anywhere, at any time, or the retroactive removal of content you’d already purchased and put in your entertainment cabinet. You owned and controlled that stuff.

That’s no longer the case. We’ve lost that power and control. And as things stand, we’re not going to get it back anytime soon.

Fighting to preserve physical media and the capacity to play it on one machine or another is all well and good, but the real battle is shifting toward legal protections for those who purchase digital media and subscribe to streaming services. While we should continue to advocate for physical media, building and maintaining a library is tough and getting tougher — and the ability to use those tangible goods will continue to become more difficult. What we can do is demand better laws to keep companies from abusing their market dominance in the digital sphere.

Purchase of a digital good ought to mean ownership, period. Whether online or offline, buying something should grant the purchaser the right to access and use it anytime, anywhere. You should be able to read your books, watch the shows and movies you’ve bought, play your games, and listen to your music as long as you’d like, anywhere you’d like after buying them.

Creating a global framework of perpetual ownership and access is no simple task. But that’s precisely why governments exist: to establish and enforce regulations and negotiate cross-border agreements. Domestic policies ensuring true ownership and access across platforms are, obviously, a precursor to an international framework. The sooner we fight for these protections, the better our chances of being able to keep amusing ourselves — perhaps to death — indefinitely.