Consumers Are Worried About the Loss of Physical Media Ownership. Libraries Are Leading the Conversation.

Last Updated on July 22, 2026, 3:09 pm ET

Sally Sax is head, Collection Strategy and Partnerships, MacOdrum Library, Carleton University.

Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on Unsplash

In a recent Atlantic Monthly article about Sony’s plan to end physical sales of PlayStation console games, Will Gottsegen describes the impending loss of consumer autonomy in a way that librarians will find sadly familiar:

When you buy a disc, you own it and can resell it or lend it out the old fashioned way—without online mediation. No corporate middleman was watching me hand my copy of Red Dead Redemption to my friend when I was done with it. Although physical games can be damaged or even decay over long periods of time, I could still loan that same copy out today if I wanted. Digital purchases only grant you a license for use, and that license can be revoked.

Gottsegen’s article is just one of many negative responses in the popular media about this latest erosion of personal ownership rights, with Trevor Noah observing “…one day your entire library of games could be deleted overnight because technically you don’t own it.” Gottsegen and Noah also highlight another serious consequence of licensing: the lack of control consumers have over how the digital content they pay for is accessed and used.

Librarians have been in the digital information marketplace for over three decades and can speak to the long-term financial consequences of renting information.

When the market for scholarly publications shifted away from analog distribution, copyright experts predicted the emerging digital market would prove hostile to institutional consumers of information. Copyright law is always complex, but, as law professor Jane Ginsburg wrote in 1993, “…a world without copyright may prove even less user-friendly. The reason is simple: in such a world, the information supplier, relying on contract, forgoes the benefits of the copyright law, but also evades important limitations on the copyright monopoly, notably the fair use privilege. In such a world, librarian-users might look back on existing copyright law with wistful nostalgia.”

Twenty-five years ago, libraries raised concerns about limitations on the use of digital products imposed by restrictive license terms. Despite warnings from libraries and experts like Ginsburg, policymakers believed market forces would keep rightsholders’ business practices in check. As part of their 2001 review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the US Copyright Office wrote:

The library community has raised concerns about how the current marketing of works in digital form affects libraries with regard to five specifically enumerated categories: interlibrary loans, off-site accessibility, archiving/preservation, availability of works, and use of donated copies. Most of these issues arise from terms and conditions of use, and costs of license agreements. One arises because, when the library has only online access to the work, it lacks a physical copy of the copyrighted work that can be transferred. These issues arise from existing business models and are therefore subject to market forces. We are in the early stages of electronic commerce. We hope and expect that the marketplace will respond to the various concerns of customers in the library community. However, these issues may require further consideration at some point in the future. Libraries serve a vital function in society, and we will continue to work with the library and publishing communities on ways to ensure the continuation of library functions that are critical to our national interest. [emphasis added]

Twenty-five years after the US copyright office’s first DMCA review, libraries operate in an increasingly non-competitive digital information environment. A lack of digital ownership rights remains a critical barrier to libraries serving their missions as memory institutions. The closest libraries can get to ownership of commercial digital content is a perpetual access license (PAL), and the marketplace may be deciding that PALs are no longer viable from its perspective. In 2022, Wiley removed over 1,300 ebooks from academic library collections; according to Wiley’s website, perpetual access is not an option for subscribed content. In 2025, Clarivate, one of the largest digital content aggregators, announced they would stop offering libraries perpetual access licenses for ebooks and primary-source digital collections.

In 2001, the digital retail market was in its infancy. Discussions about the limitations of licensing were niche, limited to experts working on behalf of businesses and institutional consumers of information. It would be another two years before iTunes became the first major retailer for legal media downloads for individual consumers. Policymakers and the average citizen had not yet had the opportunity or time needed to understand and experience the complexity of the digital marketplace for themselves.

Consumers in 2026 know what they stand to lose from a lack of digital ownership, and they’re speaking out. Library leaders can use the reaction to Sony’s announcement and similar cultural moments to showcase our institutional expertise on digital rights issues, and to advance our interests in library-owned digital collections and federal contract override protections. Recent legislation from Illinois shows the advocacy work that librarians have been doing for over 30 years is working, proving the value of our persistence over time. Libraries aren’t just part of the conversation about digital ownership rights—we’ve been quietly leading it and we have to continue our advocacy efforts.

The post Consumers Are Worried About the Loss of Physical Media Ownership. Libraries Are Leading the Conversation. appeared first on Association of Research Libraries.