Just like pirates will fuss over the word “steal”, I do think we need better vocabulary for “owns”.
My friend rushes over to me from across the mall and announces “Dude, I just bought Frog Racers for the PS2!” and I turn to him and celebrate “Aw, sweet! Could you greenlight a Frog Racers movie? Maybe set up some merch for the franchise?”
Obviously, that’s not what he means. “Emily Bunt owns Zelda” doesn’t mean the same as “Nintendo owns Zelda”. But the end goal for consumerism is that whatever it means for buying a disc, should mean the same thing as buying it digitally. The pedantry has a point, since it helps us write legal language. If a simple term can mean “owns access to” X, then it’s easier to write legal penalties for a company taking large steps to remove said owned access, rather than just let every store write their own 8-page disclaimer that says “By ‘obtain’, we mean grant a revocable paper-thin license…”
Just like pirates will fuss over the word “steal”, I do think we need better vocabulary for “owns”.
My friend rushes over to me from across the mall and announces “Dude, I just bought Frog Racers for the PS2!” and I turn to him and celebrate “Aw, sweet! Could you greenlight a Frog Racers movie? Maybe set up some merch for the franchise?”
Obviously, that’s not what he means. “Emily Bunt owns Zelda” doesn’t mean the same as “Nintendo owns Zelda”. But the end goal for consumerism is that whatever it means for buying a disc, should mean the same thing as buying it digitally. The pedantry has a point, since it helps us write legal language. If a simple term can mean “owns access to” X, then it’s easier to write legal penalties for a company taking large steps to remove said owned access, rather than just let every store write their own 8-page disclaimer that says “By ‘obtain’, we mean grant a revocable paper-thin license…”