Consumer Rights Act 2015

Consumer Rights Act 2015

2015 CHAPTER 15

Commentary on Sections

Part 1: Consumer Contracts for Goods, Digital Content and Services

Chapter 3 Digital Content

What statutory rights are there under a digital content contract?

Section 35: Digital content to be fit for a particular purpose

182. If the consumer specifies that the digital content will be used for a particular purpose, the digital content must be fit for that particular purpose. This section corresponds to section 10 in relation to goods. For example, if a consumer tells a trader he wants a piece of educational software so that his/her pre-school child can use it then, if it is only suitable for an older child, it would not be fit for that particular purpose (i.e. use by a pre-school child). The section states that the consumer must “make known” to the trader the particular purpose for which it is intended. This implies that the trader must be aware of the consumer’s intentions. For example, an email sent to a trader immediately before downloading an app is unlikely to fulfil the “makes known” requirement, whereas an email discussion with a trader would.

183. Subsection (2) covers digital content supplied that is sold to a trader by a credit broker but the consumer does all the negotiations with the credit broker. For example, a consumer may talk to a salesperson working for a particular shop about which software would be appropriate to edit a film they are making on their personal computer. The consumer may then buy the digital content on a payment plan (paying in instalments) from a finance company introduced by the shop’s salesperson. What may actually happen here is that the store sells the digital content to the finance company who then sells it to the consumer. This section makes sure that the digital content can be held to be fit for the purpose the consumer told the credit broker (i.e. the shop’s salesperson), even though the consumer does not contract with the shop directly.