The state of California has begun to regulate the sale of “temporary licenses” for digital content. Sellers now have to provide unlimited access to the purchased content or inform in advance of the purchase that access will be terminated in the future. This will apply to products such as books, movies, and video games. This was reported by Ars Technica.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2426 into law, which protects consumers of digital goods from being deceived when they purchase content without knowing that access to it is only temporary.

The law prohibits “advertise or offer for sale a digital good to a purchaser with the terms buy, purchase, or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good”.

Going forward, sellers should make it clear that the buyer is only obtaining a license to the digital good, not buying it. Sellers should also make it clear that access to a digital good may be revoked if the seller no longer retains the right to license the good.

It is also important that this information should be placed where the customer can see it, not in the terms of service or notes at the bottom of the product description.

There are exceptions for free subscription goods and services that provide limited access based on the duration of the subscription. And also if access to the product will never be canceled, for example, when users purchase a permanent download that can be accessed offline, regardless of the seller’s content licensing rights.

The lawmakers note that they were prompted to draft the law by increasingly frequent cases when owners lose access to products they purchased on the terms of a full-fledged product. One such case is the closure of access to the racing simulator The Crew by Ubisoft.

“As retailers continue to pivot away from selling physical media, the need for consumer protections on the purchase of digital media has become increasingly more important,” says the author of the law, Jacqui Irwin. “AB 2426 will ensure the false and deceptive advertising from sellers of digital media incorrectly telling consumers they own their purchases becomes a thing of the past.”