{"id":37938,"date":"2025-05-07T19:10:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/?p=37938"},"modified":"2025-05-07T19:11:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T19:11:24","slug":"the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Big Beautiful Lie (of Digital Purchases)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve ever scoured Amazon for the hot new release (say, Emily Henry\u2019s newest romance novel), you are probably paying more attention to the price and format selections than the purchase button. It\u2019s unlikely that the phrase, \u201cBuy now with 1-Click,\u201d raises any red flags \u2013 but it should. Because like so many doomed love affairs, it\u2019s based on a big, fat lie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Screenshot
New trope proposal: an enemies-to-lovers arc where a spunky lady librarian fighting to save her local system’s ebook access goes up against a darkly handsome\u00a0publishing exec, and makes him see the value of public access. Berkley: Call me.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What you\u2019re paying for when you \u201cbuy\u201d a Kindle e-book isn\u2019t actually a copy<\/em> of said book; it\u2019s permission to download and access the work under terms defined wholly by Amazon, under parameters defined solely by Amazon, only so long as Amazon feels like making it available. The first (and arguably most on-the-nose) illustration of this happened when, in 2009, Amazon remotely deleted copies<\/a> of George Orwell\u2019s 1984 <\/em>off customers\u2019 Kindles following a complaint by the Orwell estate. To paraphrase a TV legend, \u201cThat\u2019s not very romance<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies are lying to you when they claim to \u201csell\u201d you digital things, and that needs to stop. In February \u2013 following news that Amazon had disabled customers\u2019 ability to back up their Kindle libraries to external thumb drives \u2013 Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter<\/a> to the Federal Trade Commission asking it to stop companies from using bait-and-switch tactics that imply ownership of digital products. Today, Public Knowledge and the Internet Archive, along with 16 other civil society organizations, endorsed Wyden\u2019s letter and called on the FTC<\/a> to establish clear ground rules for digital ownership and sales of goods. To truly own something, consumers need the right to preserve, use, and transfer their goods. Without these abilities (which we\u2019re calling the \u201cPUT\u201d framework), you don\u2019t really own something in any meaningful sense of the word because you cannot control what happens to the products you thought you were buying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also been momentum at the state level to clarify what consumers are actually paying for when accessing digital content. California\u2019s AB 2426<\/a>, which took effect on January 1 of 2025, requires companies selling digital goods to California consumers to clearly disclose when consumers are paying for a revocable license<\/em>, rather than ownership<\/em> of a particular good. This bill also forces retailers like Amazon to provide easy access to the license terms so that consumers can understand what they\u2019re actually paying for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that \u201cBuy Now\u201d button is emblematic of a lot of problems all at once. Besides the obvious fact that companies are lying to you when it comes to digital products, this button highlights another<\/em> core issue: you don\u2019t actually own<\/em> most of what you pay for online. Like many problems online, this is a side effect of archaic copyright laws, but the problems they create are very real, and very widespread. Lack of digital ownership is why libraries are stuck paying extortionate rates<\/a> to acquire and lend e-books. It\u2019s what allows technology companies to drop support<\/a> for \u201csmart\u201d devices and allows car companies to charge subscription fees for heated seats<\/a>. It\u2019s why your entire media library exists at the whims of fickle media executives<\/a> and why we need to ask the Copyright Office every three years for permission to fix ice cream machines<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cannot keep going down the path of endlessly paying for things we don\u2019t own. We call upon the FTC to define digital ownership, and let Americans go back to what we love: buying stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Buy now” buttons for digital purchases are more than a little misleading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":37939,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-37938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insights","tag-copyright-reform"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Great Big Beautiful Lie (of Digital Purchases) - Public Knowledge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Buy now" buttons for digital purchases are more than a little misleading.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Great Big Beautiful Lie (of Digital Purchases)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""Buy now" buttons for digital purchases are more than a little misleading.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Knowledge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-07T19:10:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-07T19:11:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Platforms-1440x720.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Meredith Filak Rose\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Meredith Filak Rose\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Meredith Filak Rose\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/#\/schema\/person\/cb2c92f558c63e83a5ef351b4a5855b0\"},\"headline\":\"The Great Big Beautiful Lie (of Digital Purchases)\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-07T19:10:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-07T19:11:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\"},\"wordCount\":623,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Platforms.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Copyright Reform\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Insights\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/publicknowledge.org\/the-great-big-beautiful-lie-of-digital-purchases\/\",\"name\":\"The Great Big Beautiful Lie (of Digital Purchases) - 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