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New California law will force companies to admit you don't own digital content

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2426, a new law that requires digital marketplaces to make clearer to customers when they are only purchasing a license to access media.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2426, a new law that requires digital marketplaces to make clearer to customers when they are only purchasing a license to access media. The law will not apply to cases of permanent offline downloads, only to the all-too-common situation of buying digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows or ebooks from an online storefront. Ubisoft's move to delete The Crew from players' libraries after the game's servers shuttered is one of the most recent examples of how customers can suddenly lose access to media they felt they owned.

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