AB 2426, a newly passed piece of legislation in California signed into law earlier this week by governor Gavin Newsom, will force companies selling digital goods—like games—in the state to warn consumers that they don’t actually own that content, but instead are licensing it and could lose access to it in the future. Buying a video game digitally doesn’t mean you own it forever. Usually, you can download it years later and play it again.
And while the new bill won’t prevent that from happening, it will force companies to be more clear about the situation. What the new California law means for publishers AB 2426 makes it illegal for any company selling digital goods in California to use terms like “buy” or “purchase” without including a warning that the content you are “buying” could vanish or become unusable in the future.