It should be illegal to have others purchase what you as a company only licensed and therefore aren’t legally allowed to sell.
It should be illegal to have others purchase what you as a company only licensed and therefore aren’t legally allowed to sell.
What's funny is that Sony has done this before![0] I've had a personal boycott against Sony products due to this.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOSYep. I had tons of Sony games across the first three Playstation consoles. I was a grad student with a PS3 at the time and I actually used Yellow Dog Linux on it as a computer to write papers when my laptop broke. Then the update came and I chose to ignore it, but that meant I couldn't play online games. Soon new games required a firmware update (still remember putting in the Dark Souls disc and being stunned I wasn't allowed to play it!).
And with games it's just getting worse (Sony announced they won't make discs starting 2028; the Switch 2 takes carts but very, very few games release on a cart). If you care about control over the games you purchased, if you care about going back and playing older games, then the only choice is to use platforms that are DRM free. (Or, well, non-legal means.)
Kinda. On Steam I can still play games I bought 18 years ago.
Still walled garden, but they act way better.
Valve is in a funny position now. They lived long enough to see every one of Sony and XBOX's moats dry up by being pro-consumer where possible, but with Steam as the leader of a fungible game distribution market it may no longer make good business sense to continue to act so benevolently.
We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over the network to a thin client. PlayStation and XBOX consoles are basically dedicated gaming PCs that can only run Sony or Microsoft's version of Steam. DirectX is losing ground too thanks to Proton and Vulkan, so Microsoft won't have the last laugh there either. If Valve controls the store you purchase games from, the software which runs the games, and the operating system running the software, they are an ODM contract away from becoming Sony's PlayStation division, and look where they are now.
Steam still has to deal with Epic being willing to throw billions at trying to dethrone Steam, and Gog being alive and well and being in the perfect position to say "we told you all along that you shouldn't have to trust Steam, buy your DRM free games here". Also every big publisher wanting to pull their own games to their own storefront and only being forced to crawl back because gamers refuse to leave Steam
And even if they somehow arrived in a market position where being less benevolent would make more money: Valve isn't publicly traded, nobody is forcing them to make the most profitable move. As long as Gabe and the other owners prefer being benevolent they can continue doing it
(not that they are all around benevolent. "consistent" and "usually choosing the side of the customer over the side of the publisher" is maybe the better framing)
One point in Steam's favor (not to suggest that Valve is above reproach) is that it doesn't impose any DRM. If games have DRM, that's the publisher's decision.
True, but Steam still controls Steam and they can change their terms whenever they want. But for now it's ok, at least. And their hardware is happily open: I've played a bunch of games I got on GOG, DRM-free, on my Steam Deck, for example.
I don't disagree with you, but open hardware DOES make a difference, in the worst case scenario I can turn the hardware into a GOG machine, or into a PC. Also if they ever lock my library, I am turning to piracy (I have 1000+ games)
Agreed, for sure. Open hardware is the only way forward honestly. As someone who has traditionally played mostly on consoles, it does make me sad, partially because consoles are so much less finicky. But the control is worth it (and work on things like Proton has made playing older games so much smoother).
Now if the RAM companies make it so you won't ever be able to afford your own hardware and every game company pushes cloud-only gaming... Well, we aren't there yet thankfully, but I fear it'll happen.
They're always good until they aren't. They can only be trusted if they don't have a way to be bad. Steam could lock down tomorrow and you couldn't do anything about it.
Till Gabe dies and valve is bought out by private equity
Imagine if Gabe went the Yvon Chouinard way? (founder of Patagonia refused to IPO, never sold controlling stake, recently left the entire company to an environmental conservation trust - certified LEGEND)
Gabe seems like the kinda guy who is in the Game for the love of games.
It would be a legendary legacy indeed to commit Valve and it's profits to a trust which defends digital rights and freedom.
I’m wondering what happens when Gabe dies?
I joined the class action lawsuit and got a small check a decade later. My proof that I had OtherOS ended up being timestamped whinging on the ars technica forums. My ps3 stopped working shortly after receiving the check due to bad solder, which was I guess fitting.
I got my $10 too. I remember laughing at the amount when I got the check. Thankfully after the OtherOS issue people worked to crack open the PS3, so by the time I got that check I had long since installed custom firmware on it.
> the Switch 2 takes carts
I believe the switch 2 carts don't contain the actual game, just a license key. The game is downloaded on first run.
Many Switch 2 carts contain the entire game. A larger portion just act as a license key.
Nintendo outright ships incomplete games on carts sometimes, requiring a day 1 patch to have the game in a non-buggy state (one of the recent pokemon games was like this)
And "gamers" refuse to listen to reason and assume physical copy = they can play it for eternity, when in reality, in 5 or 10 years when a server is inevitably shut down, they're forced to pirate. Nintendo does not allow offline patches.
I boycot Sony since they blocked my PSN account, which got hacked due to them! Purchases I made are not available, ... I really took a disliking before when they refused to fix my Vaio laptop, ... this was the last drop!
Good, but only laws will keep them on check. If I boycotted all companies that have done something wrong, I would boycott all of them. I keep that option for the worst offenders. Laws and regulations is what keeps companies in check.
> In November 2018 final payouts for members of the class were sent in the amount of $10.07.
Gosh this is ridiculous
Likewise, I've avoided all Sony products since the rootkit scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
They make it up as they go along. Their 2005 Audio-CD EULA includes provisions purporting to require the immediate deletion of all copies if a user files for personal bankruptcy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/12/summary-claims-against...
If buying is not owning, piracy is not theft.
A buddy of mine is pretty insistent on physical media, wherever possible, and honestly, at this point, he's been proven right again and again.
Sad that most executable code (games, software, etc) these days is digital only and requires drm calls to a license server to install. I will not pirate executable code.
Piracy was never theft.
It was a copyright violation. Which, I don't give one fuck about.
Yeah. Copyright monopolists equate copyright infringement to literal high seas piracy because it's the only way they can make any impact. Nobody would give a fuck otherwise.
And the OTHER copyright monopolists (Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta, X) proved the rules don't apply to them with copyright.
And then Anthropic publically bellyaches that "WAHHHH CHINESE ARE STEALING OUR STOLEN DATA WAH". Lemee get that worlds tiniest violin for that sonata!
These days if you're following the rules, you're a rube and a stooge. And you will be taken advantage of again and again and again.
Yeah. It's so disgusting.
One would think dozens of SWAT officers would rappel down helicopters and storm the mansions of these big tech CEOs. Unpayable trillion dollar fines, actual prison time. Instead the AI companies reached some absurd settlements with publishers that made a mockery out of all the previous copyright enforcement victims.
I like how succinct this is.
Plenty of people purchase digital movie rentals from Apple, Youtube, etcetera because they know they will watch it once, and the lower price in exchange for a temporary license is acceptable to them. I don't think banning this is pro-consumer.
It should, however, be illegal to tell your customers that they are purchasing/buying media without explicit "Rent" language (which implies a non-expiring license) when you do not yourself have the right to grant non-expiring licenses.
They often have two tiers, a rental tier and a purchase tier. If you purchase the assumption is it will be available forever.
Seems like a bad assumption at this point even if it goes against expectations. We've seen on multiple occasions now from different companies where a digital purchase wasn't forever. This is no way an endorsement of the behavior, but if that's your assumption then the quip "you know what happens when you assume" wins again.
So the default assumption should be that big companies are actively trying to defraud you?
The difference between "rent" and "purchase" has always been very clear: with the former you have to give it back, with the latter you own it forever. It is only very recently that this kind of steal-back has even become possible at all, as it can only be done with digital content delivery to an entirely-closed platform.
"You should assume that words have the opposite meaning and that big companies can steal from you with impunity" is a world I don't think I want to live in.
Whether you want to or not, that's pretty much where we live now. A default position of "every company is trying to defraud me" is not a bad position to take. As you find out a company is less of a criminal, then you can relax your position, but if you go in relaxed and need to tighten up, you've probably already been screwed out of something.
The "rent" vs "purchase" has never been different than it is now. Yes, purchase is a very deceiving word by design. The thing bringing it to the forefront is that they never were able to rip that physical product sold to you in the way they can with the digital product. That seems to have made people pay attention to the legalese that has always been there.
> Plenty of people purchase digital movie rentals from Apple, Youtube, etcetera because they know they will watch it once, and the lower price in exchange for a temporary license is acceptable to them. I don't think banning this is pro-consumer.
Many of these services offer cheaper rental options. When you go for the more expensive "buy" option, the assumption that you are actually buying it to keep should hold true.
Agree... if they want to sell it, parent company must agree on forever licenses for each user. Regardless of reselling license getting cancelled.
I bet there’s a class action coming.
And Sony made it easy for them too by using this verbiage: “previously purchased content”
Because they were purchases, not rentals. Under no circumstances would a customer reasonably assume that their purchase would be revoked for reasons completely outside of their control.
Studio Canal directly got paid for each individual purchase. It isn't all on Sony, Studio Canal sold a product then took it away.
> Studio Canal sold a product then took it away
If that's the case, why isn't Sony suing Studio Canal? The proper license for Sony to get is one which doesn't allow Studio Canal to take it away after sale in any way. So did Studio Canal somehow hack into Sony HQ to violate that license, or did Sony simply screw over its customers by not getting the proper license in the first place?
They're both to blame. Studio Canal insisted on a licensing agreement that works this way, and Sony agreed to it to sell their content.
For Sony, the correct move here would have been to not list Studio Canal titles in the first place, and put out a very public statement saying that they aren't being listed until Studio Canal agrees to make purchased licenses perpetual as they should be.
> Both to blame
IANAL but I think the US law approach is to rely on chaining, so the #1 blame is on Sony until Sony proves it isn't.
1. Consumers who were damaged sue Sony for damages.
2. If Sony loses, Sony sues Studio Canal for damages.
3. If Studio Canal loses... ?
Correct. In theory, Sony should have warranted that they have the rights to sell the thing the way they sold it. If they didn't have the rights to sell a movie perpetually, then that's on them.
They don't need the rights to sell a movie perpetually, just the rights to sell perpetual movies.