German Court Forbids Resale of Valve Games 261
sfcrazy writes "A German court has dismissed a 'reselling' case in favor of Valve Software, the maker of Steam OS. German consumer group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv) had filed a complaint against Valve as Valve's EULA (End User License Agreement) prohibits users from re-selling their games. What it means is that German users can't resell their Steam Games."
Fascinating ruling (Score:5, Interesting)
[ Still using Slashdot until beta takes over, then I'll dump it. ]
It's an interesting ruling. While Steam's lack of support for re-sale of games may run into legal issues, their willingness to keep games available at lower and lower price points as games get older shows that they're not abusing the privilege. If you can wait a while, the price will come down to a reasonable point and the game is available for people who'd have otherwise needed to buy the game used. And I've been delighted to see old games that I've enjoyed, such as the original Doom or Thief or X-com games, be available on Steam. It's helped me avoid having to recover and old games and simply pray that they'd be playable on modern operating systems: I'm very pleased with Steam for making older games available at very reasonable prices. We're actually getting something from them in return for their exclusive licensing.
However... (Score:2)
Also note GOG games are ancient(although I do love them), Steam not only has modern games but massively discounts those games and its DRM is mild. Once youve downloaded the game from steam you can switch to offline mode and never contact steam again. If Valve dies switch to offline mode. Steam also supports independent software developers and charities with humble bundle(I had already bought half the games in the bundle so steam lets me gift the codes to someone else).
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Also note its DRM works with WINE and their steam OS is based on linux
Correct Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
The correct headline would be:
German court refuses to force Valve Steam to allow resale of games
Too complicated?
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The correct wording would be: a german court dismissed a case where the challenger argued the "you may not sell a steam/valve account" clause was unlawfull
In other words:
a) neither was the case about selling used games,
b) nor was there a court ruling!
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Even better ;-)
Regional Court (Score:5, Informative)
This is a decision by a regional court. They universally suck at rulings regarding any technology invented after 1900. A state court recently held a domain registrar responsible [heise.de] for copyright infringement. And nevermind the treasure trove of truly grotesque copyright-related rulings coming out of the city-state of Hamburg - they are legendary here in Germany, similar to patent cases in Texas.
This is bound to be appealed, and our higher courts usually fare better when it comes to dealing with Das Internet.
Upholds previous precedent (Score:3)
This follows a previous ruling:
The matter was litigated all the way to Germany’s highest civil court, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof; "BGH"), which dismissed the suit in 2010, finding that while the doctrine of exhaustion limited the rights holders’ powers with regards to an individual DVD, it did not require them to design their business in a way that facilitated the sale of used games and therefore did not make the Steam terms of service unenforceable.
-- Osborne Clarke [osborneclarke.com]
This second suit was prompted by a court case which found that the first sale doctrine ("doctrine of exhaustion") did apply to digital goods. However, it's not surprising this case was dismissed because it is not a question of what rights the consumer has over software they have purchased, it is a matter of what duties the software provider must guarantee to continue providing.
IMHO it is perfectly reasonable that if it is a matter of online support (cost of server maintenance, etc.) that the one-time fee charged to one person does not in turn mean that person can give their support contract to someone else. The one time fee is presumably calculated based on typical use for a single account holder.
But the single-player package should remain fully transferrable.
And as for companies making games require internet connnections they really don't need to abuse the ambiguity here, let's just say I'm not going to cry when they complain about piracy.
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On the flip-side, what right do you have to dictate the way their software license works?
The only right you always have in this regard is the right not to play/use their software.
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Well, since you and the other replier seem so intent on taking my comment out of context I will help you.
Yes, there are things that are excluded from being enforced within a contract. But just because one party of the contract wants things to be different, doesn't mean the other party has to allow it. There can simply be no contract and no license given. They are demanding particular things that some software makers are simply not willing to give and as a consequence taking that denial of license as a right
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Can I simply not agree with the GPL and use the software/code anyway?
YES.
What you're not allowed to is REDISTRIBUTE the changes you made on the original code without licensing it on the same terms.
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And, more importanlly, there're people that says you can't change a contract after you paid the bill. If EULAs are contracts, they must adhere to the rules. If EULAs are not contracts, I don't have to comply with it.
There's a misunderstanding here. You _never_ have to comply with a EULA. However, the EULA, especially the letter L = License in it, is what gives you the right to make copies of the software. Like the copy that is installed on your computer, and the copy that is loaded into memory when you run the game. So a EULA that says you can't play the game on fridays you are indirectly forced to comply with it, because without the license you can't play on friday or any other day. If the EULA says that you have to p
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the EULA, especially the letter L = License in it, is what gives you the right to make copies of the software.
Sorry, but you're wrong.
What gives me the right to make ARCHIVAL and BACKUPs copies (besides the running one on my HD) is the Law.
A License is required to redistribute that copy.
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So a EULA that says you can't play the game on fridays you are indirectly forced to comply with it, because without the license you can't play on friday or any other day. If the EULA says that you have to pay a $10,000 fine if you play on friday, you don't have to comply because at most you did some copyright infringement.
Problem is when I buy a game those EULA that states I can play the software every day I want, and some months later they change the EULA forbidding me to play on Saturdays.
So... (Score:4, Funny)
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Do the Germans have a single, very long, really angry-sounding, word for 'this software is licensed, not sold'? Inquiring minds want to know.
Kaufvertrag!
Yes, that just means "sales contract". Because the 'this software is licensed, not sold' meme does not work under German law.
Philosophically sound (Score:2)
First, I'm going to operate under the assumption that proprietary software is considered ethical; if you disagree you may have some valid points but we're just going to have to disagree.
With digitally distributed software, the per-unit cost is negligible - the cost to the seller is almost entirely the cost to produce the "first copy". The ideal method of funding games entirely would reflect this fully, but I think it's going to take a while for crowd-funding to reach that level of cultural acceptance. Until
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With digitally distributed software, the per-unit cost is negligible - the cost to the seller is almost entirely the cost to produce the "first copy".
Well, Im not a marketing drid.
But I had guessed otherwise.
Asumming I have 10 developers working for two years I get something like 2 million raw development costs.
On top of that I have the parasites like management and marketing. So lets hope for the sake of argument this is another 2 millions.
Now I want to sell the result via downloads, perhaps on an App Sto
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You are misunderstanding both the terminology and my argument.
Let's say you're a car company. You have 10 engineers work for two years to design a car, plus marketing and management, at a total cost of $20M. That is your development cost.
Let's further suppose that each car costs $20K to build, both in materials and labor. This is your per-unit cost.
You would break even if you sold a single car for $20,020,000. Or you would break even if you sold a thousand cars at $40,000. Or if you sold a million cars at $
Misleading title (Score:3)
The court didn't "forbid" anything like reselling games. They simply agreed with the EULA stipulation that you're not allowed to transfer ownership of an *account*. This actually makes perfect sense.
The fact that Steam also disallows/lacks the functionality for the transfer (gifting or resale) of used games on Steam, simply means there's a market for other providers to start a platform that would allow sale and resale of games. Of course, they might have some trouble attracting large game publishers, but that's another matter altogether.
Re:Wow more free FB... (Score:4, Informative)
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Except when a sale is a rental under a lease agreement, which is basically what the Steam EULA is.
The question is not "whether you own something you've bought" but "did you *buy* it, or just agree to a copyright-usage license?"
Pretty much, we know how the answer should go in law (the same way this article says they've gone). Yes, it would be lovely to "own" a game. But you don't. You don't own a movie, or many other things either.
Like the GPL, the law is only going to give one answer, it just takes sever
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Except that just because a contract says it's a rental does not make it a rental. I would expect certain terms for something to be considered a rental. In particular I would expect that the longer a person has the object or the mor he uses it, the more he pays.
Re:Wow more free FB... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Except when a sale is a rental under a lease agreement, which is basically what the Steam EULA is.
In Germany, if you paid money for it - you bought it.
Unlike USA, in Germany, EULA can't override the (consumer protection) law.
My reading of the RTFA (the only linked by Muktware) [osborneclarke.com] is that the issue isn't as singular as "enforce the EULA":
1. (The first case.) Valve isn't obliged to facilitate the resale of games.
2. (This, the second, case) The judge decision isn't yet public so it is unknown why/how it was reasoned.
3. (Another pending case) Games are not only software, but in larger part are art work.
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Oh and yes, and obviously /. headline is load of bull. In the first case, court hasn't said that resale is forbidden - it has said that Valve isn't obliged to facilitate it. I doubt very much that the second case arguments would be of much different character.
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It's not clear that this is "consumer protection". If the resales actually lower a company's profits, they are going to raise prices to make up for it. In essence, the EU is forcing some group of users to subsidize another group of users. The same is true for a lot of these other "consumer protection laws".
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Fine logic. The best one money can buy.
The goal of the laws is to make sure that companies can't shaft the customers.
And yes, I agree, it would make business much much more profitable if law allowed them to rip off customers left and right.
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But the effect is that one group of customers shafts another, and often that companies can shaft their customers even more, both of which happens with abandon in Europe.
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Funny to hear about that "abandon", esp after in USA, you got shafted of your *own* *pensions*.
10+ years in Germany - and I see no abundance of the alleged behavior. Frankly, I like that I do not have to think about it and can concentrate on my own life. Yes, I do not have to think about it. Welcome to the social state!
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Valve has the right? Valve does not. Except now in Germany apparently they do. But in the US they are still skirting around the law and the first sale doctrine by using digital locks. Imagine if you had a physical board game that came with a license forbidding you from playing it outside your home, or from regifting it to someone else. But the fans will step forward and defend Steam over this, thinking it's just another form of copy protection.
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Valve has the right? Valve does not. Except now in Germany apparently they do. But in the US they are still skirting around the law and the first sale doctrine by using digital locks. Imagine if you had a physical board game that came with a license forbidding you from playing it outside your home, or from regifting it to someone else. But the fans will step forward and defend Steam over this, thinking it's just another form of copy protection.
That's not the situation here. The court ruling didn't say you can't sell the game. The court ruling said that Valve isn't required to let the person who bought the game use their servers.
Let's say you buy a ticket that gives you unlimited entrance to the zoo for one year. After three months visiting the zoo every weekend, you've had enough of seeing animals. There is nothing that stops you from selling the ticket. There is also nothing that can force the zoo to let anyone else but you into the zoo for f
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But the game was sold with a hidden provision disallowing reselling. The fact that servers have to be used is a side effect of their method of restricting buyer's rights.
When you buy that zoo ticket it is stated clearly up front that this ticket is only good for you (though practically speaking they don't check ID, I used to have a zoo pass myself). With Steam it is not so clear, except hidden away in a long EULA. Now maybe it is more clear is most games did this, but in this case most computer games fre
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The court 'decission' is about a resale of a downloaded game, the decission is about selling a steam/valve account.
And: the court did not rule against the cunsumer or in favour of valve: the court dismissed the case!
Huge difference!
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Buyer's remorse is enforceable if the buyer was not informed clearly of the state of the product at the time of purchase.
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Without commenting on the other aspects of that ruling, but that point is moot for games bought on Steam. The Steam EULA IS shown before the purchase.
And in another ruling just one day earlier German couts followed the ruling of the European court that in general, the sale of used software is legal and can't be stopped by EULA. (If it has been bought like a tangible good, the rules for re-sale of tangible goods apply. --> similar to first sale doctrine)
Licenseing is explicitly handled differently, but it
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Licenseing is explicitly handled differently, but it has to be clearly noticeable that the underlying contract is a licensing contract and not a sales contract.
In the European Union, if you "buy" a software license online, it is not handled differently. According to the Court of Justice of the EU, the "the downloading of a copy of a computer program and the conclusion of a user licence agreement for that copy form an indivisible whole" (Judgement of 3 July 2012, C128/11, para. 44 [europa.eu]).
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It refutes your point that "the EULA is shown *before* (emphasis mine) the purchase" as it changes afterwards...
In what way exactly? Steam always shows you the new EULA to accept if it's been modified.
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And if you deny it can you still play the games you previous bought?
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Just curious, if you refuse the modified EULA, does the game get deactivated and your account credited?
I haven't used Steam yet but will be gaming again (hopefully) soon.
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I feel that it is a bad ruling. Typically EULAs aren't shown to the user until the purchase has been done. Shit like that should not be tolerated in contract law.
Ignoring the fact that you didn't read or understand the ruling, typical EULAs have to be accepted for the purchase to be completed. Assuming you go to a store the order is either: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and accept the EULA. The contract is done. Then the software gets installed. Or the order is: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and refuse the EULA. You return the DVD to the store. After more or less of a fight,
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Ignoring the fact that you didn't read or understand the ruling, typical EULAs have to be accepted for the purchase to be completed. Assuming you go to a store the order is either: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and accept the EULA. The contract is done.
No, not according to German law. German law basically interprets clicking "I accept" as "F*** you, I just want to use the software I already paid for".
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You are completely wrong, in europe. ... as a customer you can not waive your privileges given to you by law in favour for an EULA.
In europe the contract happens in the shop. You buy a DVD/CD for money. Thats the contract.
You go home and install it, you get asked to accept the EULA.
First of all: regardless what you do (usually you click accept, I guess) the EULA is not binding as the contract already happend, see above.
Secondly, the EULA is not binding as it usually contradicts european law
However in this c
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I think it's an in-between ruling. Why? Because I'm wishy-washy like that.
Game theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading an analysis a while back that actually does a bit of economic/game theory on this, and he found that forbidding resale actually has positive benefits for the *consumer*. Part of his analysis was looking at prices between console games, resellable computer games, and games bought via services like Steam. More specifically, he looked at games with online-playing modes that require servers.
What he found is that with resellable games, gaming companies typically only got that 'first bite' and continued play was essentially free through quite a number of customers. Remember that places like gamestop will buy the old games for a song, and sell them for almost as much as a new game.
With games that can't be resold they're able to price the initial game lower, and keep the profit flowing in. It removes places like gamestop from the equation(so they hate it, of course). Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.
Roughly speaking, the results were that new game consumers don't pay any more(the new game is slightly cheaper, on average, by about the same amount as what they'd be able to sell it to gamestop for), used game consumers don't pay more, and the studios get more money vs resellers, increasing their profits and encouraging more/bigger games.
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With games that can't be resold they're able to price the initial game lower, and keep the profit flowing in. It removes places like gamestop from the equation(so they hate it, of course). Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.
But publishers don't lower the initial game price from the goodness of their hearts. New releases on Steam still cost (typically) 50 Euros, that has not changed compared to pre-Steam times. In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.
Now there are a few people like me, who strongly dislike "services" like Steam and will buy less than before (and that preferably from DRM-free sources like GOG). But it seems that we are too few to make a difference.
Unless
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But publishers don't lower the initial game price from the goodness of their hearts. New releases on Steam still cost (typically) 50 Euros, that has not changed compared to pre-Steam times. In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.
Console titles still tend towards more expensive, at least initially. The initial offer prices are often forced on them because they're forced to match the store price/MSRP. I believe that the big game stores like Gamestop take a higher initial bite than places like steam, plus have rules like 'You can't sell it for cheaper online if it's going to be in our stores!'.
New console games are going for $60-70 today, computer games are closer to $40-50, even less if you take advantage of the many specials.
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Re:Game theory (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.
Why on Earth would they do anything else? They're businesses, not charities! It isn't extra profit, it's simply the maximum profit they can make!
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minimum price(just enough to cover costs) != fair price
Best price = somewhere between minimum and maximum
Maximum may be great for that single instance, but it bad for the overall economy.
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I found it interesting that the only kickstarter game that I backed is having a DRM free version created, due to meeting funding goals, as well as a Linux version, Mac version, etc. This came about because users asked for it, the DRM-free goal was only added after the kickstarter campaign started.
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Able? Yes.
Willing? Hell no.
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Willing? Hell no.
That's where competition comes in. 'Able' means they're able to do so and still turn a profit.
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Competition simply doesn't exist in a market where things are under copyright. As there is no compulsory licensing model for software, it's not like you can purchase your product from a different supplier. If that were the case, I'd be able to play Heroes VI and not have to do business with Ubisoft's Uplay crap. (or Origin for EA games, etc)
Re: Game theory (Score:2)
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I think Valve had an agreement for awhile that games using Steam distribution and copyprotection could not include non-Steam versions of copyprotection in alternate versions; ie, DVD versions of the game had to also come with Steam. This seems to have been dropped over time as I believe I have seen examples of games that don't follow this rule.
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How can you claim that they price older games at lower than used game prices?
Back in the cartridge years, I was able to pick up games by the BOX load from flea markets or yard sales.
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Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.
Roughly speaking, the results were that new game consumers don't pay any more(the new game is slightly cheaper, on average, by about the same amount as what they'd be able to sell it to gamestop for), used game consumers don't pay more, and the studios get more money vs resellers, increasing their profits and encouraging more/bigger games.
Consider that I wanted to buy a game for my wife, but that game was no longer offered for sale because original company went out of business and was sold. Under the no-resale model, I'm SOL. Unless I happen to get lucky and the company that owns a portion of the sold company (they are never sold 100% to a single party) feels like monetizing some IP, and spends the time to collect all of the other IP fragments, and remarket the game, I don't have the option to buy it anymore.
With the resale model, I could
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All the pro-DRM people always seem to point to Gamestop as their bugbear. Please, there are legitimate reasons to want to resell a game or regift a game or trade a game, without having Gamestop involved.
With Steam games, they are NOT sold more cheaply than competing games! This keeps being repeated but they're referring to Indie games or olders game. New AAA titles on Steam are still selling in the $50-$60 range, which is not a discount, I've even seen them sold for $40-$50 a year after release if they'r
Re:Hmm? (Score:4, Insightful)
it is impossible to resell, since I'm renting the game, but never "own" it.
Indeed. I think Steam should stop using the word Buy (which they currently do).
but if Steam goes down the path of DRM
Steam has been DRM since before Half-Life 2.
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"Steam has been DRM since before Half-Life 2." Anyone who thinks Steam isn't DRM is an idiot.
With that being said, Steam is the example of "good" DRM. As good as you can get atleast. Sure you can't resell your games, but you can download games you bought any time, on any number of computers without having to dance "Authorize/Deauthorize" dance. It also handles connecting to servers, game saves, friends lists, audio chatting...
Steam is pretty much the ONLY DRM service to get remotely close to right.
If you ar
Pure apologist BS (Score:2)
Except no, you're full of shit, compromise doesn't have to happen. Humble Bundle games are sold DRM-free. Good Old Games sells all their games DRM-free, including ones that had DRM at initial release and even ones that are brand new, concurrently under sale through other vendors, and are DRMed there. Both of them allow unlimited re-downloading. There are other
Friends lists and audio chat and such have nothing to do with Steam. There's nothing very special about Steam's implementation of those features, eith
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sales and use taxes (Score:2)
Re:Bad ruling (Score:5, Interesting)
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I don't follow. If you rent a VHS and it wreaks your player then you're up for a new tape for the person you rented it from. The rental company is not liable to replace your VHS player.
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That goes for purchased items as well, in most jurisdictions...
Re:Bad ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bad ruling (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it isn't "fraudelent advertising".
Not trying to troll or anything here, but you seem to share a common misunderstanding with the rest of the world. In the hopes of not getting modded down into oblivion, let me try to explain what is going on. And let me be clear that I don't necessarily support this model, I am just the one who risks his karma and dares explain it a bit better... :-)
You do actually buy something - but not "the game" as such. You buy a license. After you have purchased that license, it is yours. You can use it, or leave it idle somewhere, or burn it, or use it as toilet paper. The license does not give you copyright of the product; but you are free to use the license as you see fit, within the restrictions and rights granted to you in that license... and subject to local laws (which in some cases may expand your rights and in some cases limit it further).
This is in line with pretty much every other "license" in life; including licenses not related to software. A license is society's way of grating you certain rights in a limited fashion and it is used for a gazillion things other than software. You can be "licensed" to produce pharmaceuticals. Or fly an airplane in public airspace. Or recycle waste subject to strict environmental laws.Or carry a firearm. Or drive a car!
Since car analogies are the big thing in IT lets stick to that :-) You can "buy" a drivers license from a local driving school, but you are unable to "resell" that to another person, and you are bound by the terms of the license. You can't drive however you please either. You must follow certain ruled and protocols while driving (restricting the use of your car when operating it). If you loose its physical representation (the drivers license plastic/paper card itself) you are still considered to be "licensed" by the issuing state or country. You may get a small ticket for not being able to produce the little card, but that is not the same as "driving without having a drivers license". A drivers license is in many ways (but not all obviously) a good analogy for a software license. Both grant you certain rights but subject to a number of restrictions. Both are "personal" and cannot simply be passed on to other people. Neither of them are "physical"; they are both tied to your person in an immaterial fashion. Any physical object representing them merely serve as easy/convenient proof that you hold a license - the physical object is not the license.
While you have "purchased" your drivers license from the local driving school, that have not engaged in "fraudulent advertising" if they have used the words "buy" or "purchase" or "OMG get your licenze here for peanutz". But roughly the same condition apply to your drivers license as to a software license. There are many restrictions on how you can use the license, and if you give it to another person that does not in fact grant them "a license" to do anything. You are really just handing the proof that you hold a license - the license itself is not transferred. All the other licenses mentioned above follow this pattern as well.
In this sense Valve does not engage in "fraudulent advertising" because it is well understood that they sell licenses, not complete copyrights for software products. Or in other words: You buy a right to use the software in a limited way, you do not buy the complete copyright and full intellectual property. And giving your license to someone is really noting more than handing them proof that you are the rightful user of said license. The license itself is not transferred.
We may not like the way these things work, but that is an entirely different story.
- Jesper
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Anyway, simply agreeing to a license doesn't mean you understand it, and if you don't understand it, it should not apply. Most people don't understand to what they are agreeing. EULAs should require a lawyer who can explain all possible ramifications of the EULA and it should require the publisher, lawyer, and end user to sign for it to be valid. Otherwise it's just another way to abuse pe
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Agree they should be required to prominently display that you're buying a non-transferable license - transferability is a traditional aspect of software, if you're removing it you should have to mention that fact prominently.
But being able to duck out of a contract because you didn't understand it? No. That would completely undermine the integrity of contract law. If you don't understand a contract you either refuse to accept it, get a lawyer to translate, or accept the consequences of your own stupidity
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It is not fraudulent; but as I said: we may not like the way things work.
In which case the best thing to do is work to change the system by either joining political lobby groups, supporting FOSS, etc.
I don't think you can claim that anyone on /. doesn't really understand the concept of a software license. They only pretend that, in order to drive their point/post...
- Jesper
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You are operating under the false as
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This is the standard hypocritical bullshit that the copyright cartels try to push. They want copyrighted materials to be treated as a purchase, when it comes to their own obligations, but they want it to be treated as a license contract when it comes to your rights. So they get to "sell" you "products" (after which they have minimal responsibility for ensuring that the product continues to work, etc.), but they can revoke or modify your "license" and they restrict how you use it (including prohibition on re
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It is buying a non-transferable digital copy, subject to the terms of the license.
For the record: I am against this way of licensing things, but to claim people do not understand the concept of a non-transferable license on /. is ... a little silly :-)
As I said in my original post: We may not like the way this works, but that is an entirely different story.
- Jesper
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Very well stated, and may apply in Germany. But in the US, you need to look how our copyright is designed.
You buy a copy of the game, just as we have bought copies of books and music sheets. That didn't give us the right to make more copies, because that right to copy (with limitations) was reserved to the copyright holder. But it did give us various rights concerning the copy we
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I'm just waiting for other industries to start realizing the brilliance of licensing something instead of selling it. Imagine "buying" a house, when in reality all you did was obtain a license to use a copy of a house design. You might own the land the house is on. You can sell the land, but the license for the house is non-transferable. Except maybe under specific conditions stipulated in the license (which probably involves a transfer of money to the home builder or whomever owns the "copyright" on th
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TL;DR: lots of words, fundamentally wrong. Seems oblivious to First Sale, purchasing copies of copyrighted things, changing terms after agreement or all the other counterarguments.
Also, a bad analogy on the car. Buying a book is similar. Getting a license to drive a car is not. The word License has different meanings in the two contexts.
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A shame you posted as AC, I would have gladly engaged in that debate with you. :-)
I don't think those two are really mutually exclusive, because the poster I replied to by all probability already knows and understands this but chooses to ignore that knowledge. I am confident the poster is well aware of how licenses work, but actively chooses to ignore that knowledge in order to - at the same time - claim that using the words "buy" or "sell" is akin to fraudulent advertising. This creates the inner conflict
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My apologies then. English is not my first language.
It is quite common in other languages to use the words "buy" or "purchase" in the context of the services provided by a driving school.
It is also (at least in other languages) possible for young people to "get a drivers license as a gift" at their 16th or 18th birthday; yet nobody takes this as a sign that the giver of such gift (parents usually) are actually the ones issuing the license. For example, a youngster may say "I got a drivers license from my da
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Most people - including you I suspect - understand the concept of software licenses, and understand that when they are "buying a game" they are buying the ability to use/play that game, but not the full rights to the game itself.
When you "buy" a physical DVD in a store you also don't "buy" the movie, there are many many restrictions put on a DVD sold for private use. You can't pay 10 bucks for a DVD and then use that to legally sell 100 more.
The restrictions are not the same for downloaded software and phys
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I am pretty sure the driver of a taxi needs to have a special license to drive with passengers in a commercial capacity; not just a standard drivers license.
You may have the ability to transfer the vehicles license to be used as a taxi (which is really just a monopoly enforced by local organizations and created by lobbyists hundreds of years ago) but you can't transfer the drivers license to commercially transport passengers. He/she will need to get that by other means; separately from the vehicles license
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Thanks man :-)
But for the record: FUCK BETA!
So ... not quite "pro-redesigner" I suppose ... ;-)
- Jesper
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Well, it's a confusing market right at the moment. I used to run a web-based computer game, and out of uneasiness with the term "buy" for digital goods I asked players to "donate" in return for which they'd get a thank-you gift. I treated every transaction as a purchase, but I didn't want to imply they had ownership of the digital goods. One of the merchants I used (Amazon) had a serious problem with this wording because they were convinced I was running an unregistered charity, based entirely on the word d
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For a german, that is trivial to pronounce and no native german will have the slightest difficulty.
Welsh names, on the other hand... "Gwrhyr Gwastawd Icithoedd" - yeah, right. Did your cat jump on the keyboard? No, that's actually some real welsh name.
Then again, I assume native welsh speakers now think "uh, what's the deal? That's easy, it's pronounced ..."
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I'm not German, learned it when I was in mid 20th and I have no problem whatsoever pronouncing (or reading) it.
There are words I struggle with (e.g. Eichhörnchen) but these are none of them.
Also take into account that being long doesn't necessarily mean being complex, long German words are often combined out of very frequently used words, which are easy to recognize.
What you've cited are actually 4 words. Verbraucher-zentralle Bundes-verband.
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I find myself curious - you're not German, and referring to your age as "mid 20th" (instead of mid 20's) suggests you're not American. So what are you?
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You are implying that everyone on /. is either American or German? Now that's a wild assumption. I think you forgot that there are approximately 195 other nations on this planet, a sizable fraction of which have sizable populations able to converse in English (albeit perhaps with some mistakes, which I'm SURE native speakers also do).
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You are implying that everyone on /. is either American or German? Now that's a wild assumption. I think you forgot that there are approximately 195 other nations on this planet, a sizable fraction of which have sizable populations able to converse in English (albeit perhaps with some mistakes, which I'm SURE native speakers also do).
Whoa, a little defensive there, aren't you mate? There was no implication that everyone on /. is either American or German, and no slight in the GP's post against the other 193 countries. The poster said he wasn't German, and the GP who apparently is American, noted that the description of the GGP as "in mid 20th" is not a common American phrasing. So he was, in fact, deducing the poster was neither American or German and asking which of the OTHER 193 countries was that person's home.
Why do some people
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Because 'Murica?
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No. But you can do that with a drivers license ;-)
You can "buy" a license to drive a car from your local driving school, but you cannot give that license to another person and by that action grant them the legal right to operate a car. They need to go get their own license, subject to many restrictions, and issued by an organization which has the "monopoly" for issuing such licenses in your regtion.
That is the nature of licenses. All licenses.
I am not saying we should like it. There is a healthy debate to b
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The first amendment refers to government censorship. Valve closing your account because you shared your password would not fall under its purview in the slightest.
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Can someone please explain me the logic behind this "jewel" of legislation? Who profits from this, and how?
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Try it when you've leased your car, though.
The whole argument is really a question of whether you're "renting" or "buying", not what you can do with it after. And it's hard to "buy" a copyrighted work of any kind without buying the FULL rights, which include the right to redistribute (i.e. selling the game as your own).
Games, movies, books are much closer to "renting" rights than an outright purchase. It's like trying to "sell" your leased car. The people with the lease agreement with you will come looki