Ownership in a Digital World & Blurring the Boundary Between Products and Services

A group of auto dealers in Oregon secretly attached GPS tracking units to the cars of customers with poor credit to better track them in the event of repossession. This questionable act has brought up a debate over real ownership in today’s world. Do you completely own what you purchase, or is just lent to you for the time being? And if you are only leasing, what rights does the company of origin have over your possessions? Ryan Calo of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society sees this as an example of the blurring boundary between products and services.

Calo explains:

…this practice also relates to an emerging phenomenon wherein sold property remains oddly connected to the seller as though it were merely leased. Whereas once we purchased an album and did with it as we please, today we need to register (up to five) devices in order to play our songs.

Along similar lines, an article over at Ars Technica explores who exactly owns, and can re-sell digital content.

But the first sale doctrine, (relatively) straightforward in the physical world, has been complicated by the easy copyability of digital works, the rise of EULAs, and the use of DRM and activation systems. Did the Castaway decision also pave the way for you to sell your MP3s? And if not, what’s the legal status of all that digital media the young people spend so much money on at iTunes and Amazon? Do they own it? Can they sell it? What about those Steam games? Can you resell that unopened copy of AutoCAD even though the EULA forbids it?

Welcome to the murky “post-sale” world in the digital age.

Design With Intent: “GPS-aided repo and product-service systems”

Ars Technica: “”Can I resell my MP3s?”: the post-sale life of digital goods”