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PayPalDoing the rounds across the net right now is a small update to the Steam checkout process when you're making a purchase, to make it clear you don't own what you buy.
Valve added a note (I don't entirely know when), to mention how "A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam" with a link to the Steam Subscriber Agreement. As you can see in my shot below taken today when testing a purchase:
Of course, there's already a lot of misinformation going around about this from people on social media. To remind everyone: this has always been the case. The Steam Subscriber Agreement says (if you bothered to read it, you all read agreements right?) "The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services".
So while this has always been the case, it is still somewhat buried because most people just quickly scroll through these things to get access to what they want. At least now, Valve has put it upfront every time you make a license purchase on Steam.
Why is all this happening now? You can likely thank a new California law on this (AB 2426) that is summarised as:
Existing law makes it unlawful for any person doing business in California and advertising to consumers in California to make any false or misleading advertising claim. Existing law makes a person who violates specified false advertising provisions liable for a civil penalty, as specified, and provides that a person who violates those false advertising provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor.
This bill would, subject to specified exceptions, additionally prohibit a seller of a digital good from advertising or offering for sale a digital good, as defined, 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, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental, unless the seller receives at the time of each transaction an affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser, or the seller provides to the consumer before executing each transaction a clear and conspicuous statement, as specified. By expanding the scope of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
GOG took the opportunity to jump into this as well on Twitter / X with a post suggesting they will be adding a note onto their checkout process too, to say that their offline installers they offer cannot be taken away from you:
The new law doesn't seem to actually affect GOG, since in the main bill text it does specifically note it does not apply if they have access to a permanent offline download. However, it should be noted GOG also sell you a license as per their own terms. So while the new bill may not apply to them, this little jibe only really properly works if people are backing up all of their GOG purchases. Since you only get a license, rights holders could still technically get GOG to entirely remove them.
I should also note that this situation is the same for most physical media too, it's not a digital distribution only issue for consumers. Much like GOG's offline installers, you have access to your physical media whenever you want, but you still only get a license for the media you have on disc - you do not own it.
Over to you in the comments, what are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
redneckdrow Oct 14
Quoting: ElectricPrismQuoting: TheRiddickQuoting: sourpuzI demand we be able to print out the source code and preserve it in book form!
Books erode, we should really write it on stone in a cave somewhere, for future generations that will 100% be living in caves. lol
Laser Engraved Data Crystals will do just fine ;P
But what happens when they reach minimum entropy around the degenerate era? As I understand it, They'd have to stretch out to be at least a kiloparsec wide to be readable!
We need to figure out some way to write on the surfaces of electrons; protons might decay, after all!
Quoting: Mountain ManWhich brings up an interesting legal and moral question: If I have paid for a license to download, install, and play a game on my computer, then does it really matter where I download it from?The answer in principle is simple: yes, you are only allowed to play the game the way it is licensed to you.
You are even not allowed to circumvent any DRM that's on that game if that license tells you so.
The question is: will any judge hold you accountable for not abiding to the license? This is not a question of being legally right, a judge will also try to make it fair. In a dispute this can be holding you guilty for the act of violating the license, but making it have no consequences. Also the essence of licenses is: are you enforcing them, and if you enforce them, are you acting like a bully. That last part, the being a bully about is what gave you those consumer rights. The bigger companies are bullies because they thought they could get away with it. Nintendo is a bully, but still knows how to pose like the victim, and hence nothing in law will change.
The right to make a backup came because of bullying.
The right to reverse engineer and make compatible came because of bullying.
Even the right to repair is a movement that gets things done because they can make a clear case that the customers are the victims.
Quoting: Maxine-PieOne note on Steam licenses though that I don't think many people talk about, whenever a game or a piece of content gets removed from the steam store; you still get to keep the ability to download the thing that you bought a license for. The same can't be said for other storefronts like Amazon's, EA's or Sony's storefronts.If Steam dies, your access dies too to games that use steam DRM. Only those DRM free in the steam store that are downloaded already will continue to work.
GOG - from what I recall - doesn't let you download content that has been removed from their storefront like how steam does, and they rely on the idea that their DRM-free policy is what makes the content always accessible to users even when they are no longer available on GOG.
If GOG dies, you get to keep your copies.
But these are the only 2 companies that I trust my money to. Now it's primarily Valve, because of everything I spend there, 30% goes to my future: valve builds on and supports a free and open world with my money. So any Valve tax goes back to me earning money with work that's just better because Valve decided to invest in projects I use. Also it sets standards for expecting things to be open instead of closed (microsoft) or extremely closed (apple).
Quoting: ArdjeIf Steam dies, your access dies too to games that use steam DRM. Only those DRM free in the steam store that are downloaded already will continue to work.
Look, if Steam ever dies, it will be a problem for 100+ million people. I am 100% sure someone makes a small program that emulates Steam DRM and you can use it to run any of the downloaded games that used to rely on Steam client calls. Given the scale, it might even be government-sanctioned, lol.
Quoting: pbQuoting: ArdjeIf Steam dies, your access dies too to games that use steam DRM. Only those DRM free in the steam store that are downloaded already will continue to work.
Look, if Steam ever dies, it will be a problem for 100+ million people. I am 100% sure someone makes a small program that emulates Steam DRM and you can use it to run any of the downloaded games that used to rely on Steam client calls. Given the scale, it might even be government-sanctioned, lol.
I'd be more afraid Valve could be going to be publicly traded.
Due to the consequences, and the less small likeliness.
Quoting: pbLook, if Steam ever dies, it will be a problem for 100+ million people. I am 100% sure someone makes a small program that emulates Steam DRM and you can use it to run any of the downloaded games that used to rely on Steam client calls. Given the scale, it might even be government-sanctioned, lol.For non-DRM titles that still depends on the Steam APIs there's already Goldberg:
https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator
Caldathras Oct 14
When you own a license, you own the right to use/play the software/game but you do not own the software/game itself.
Even with physical media, you may own the installation media but you do not own the software on that media. Much more complex than a simple physical ownership model.
But then, technically the music industry (vinyl, cassette, CD, etc.) was like this well before the advent of digital media ... we owned the media but not the music itself.
Quoting: CaldathrasI think that software licensing confuses a lot of people, who are expecting an ownership model such as you get when you purchase something like a hammer.Really important to know the difference.
When you own a license, you own the right to use/play the software/game but you do not own the software/game itself.
Even with physical media, you may own the installation media but you do not own the software on that media. Much more complex than a simple physical ownership model.
But then, technically the music industry (vinyl, cassette, CD, etc.) was like this well before the advent of digital media ... we owned the media but not the music itself.
Case in point, the folks who paid $3m for a Dune book, thinking they also bought the movie rights.
Quoting: CaldathrasI think that software licensing confuses a lot of people, who are expecting an ownership model such as you get when you purchase something like a hammer.. . . or a physical book. Which is not unreasonable.
Complicating things in the other direction, software licensing seemingly "confuses" a lot of software licensers, who often claim rights in their licenses that they are not, in most jurisdictions, legally entitled to claim. Just because some software company puts "use of this software entitles us to your firstborn child as slave labour" deep in their license doesn't make it real or enforceable even if you click.
Quoting: ToddLAll this license talk makes me miss the days of playing games without worrying about losing access to them. I know GOG exist but I'm thinking more in terms of the physical media days in the PS2 era and before that didn't require network access to authenticate a license to play.Says the naive young one who never lost the paper cover with the printed cd-key for a PC game, so never had to download a trojan-infested keygen.exe to replay their owned PC Games in the original midia, after a yearly reformatting of Windows.
Or, much older and crazier:
anyone ever played Prince of Persia far enough to get to those rooms with the deadly potions linked to numbers/letters? Those were meant as a way to verify you had a printed copy of the game's handbook (At the bottom of the screen, it should say "Word X Line Y Page Z"... so you grab the handbook and check for the correct letter and drink the non-deadly potion... proceed to next level)
Last edited by Marlock on 14 October 2024 at 11:41 pm UTC
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