Moral rights of copyright and software ownership *spawn

Really ? I can name 2 industries that have multiple revenue streams from the same product
the film and tv industry and the music industry against the thousands that dont

they got better gfx. more maps debatable, more features debatable, lower prices hell no.

what choice do they have you certainly buy and have bought faulty games.

you have a point here, but weigh that against the advantages they have
1. practically zero manufacturing costs.
2. the ability to sell products in any condition they so please.
3. exemption from nearly all consumer protection laws.
4. the ability to remove customers right to legal protection.

 

You're a fascist. You're just like this dickhead boss that got fired because he kept telling employees that if the employees didn't want to be there they could go find another job. That might be cool in your book, but employees deserve better treatment than that. Pissed off and miserable employees make for terrible service, and since the problem isn't the employees then it's the boss that needs to go.

In the same sense, if MS wants to adopt your shitty attitude then it can happily see their beloved customers go to the competition, or when piracy runs rampant then pursue that as an alternative to buying the software to begin with. Hopefully MS pursues a system where after a certain period of time the price goes down ten or so dollars. That would keep me there as a gamer because I'd happily buy a few titles (even being DD) a few years after release because I missed out on them earlier. I'd get more value for my money and the dev/pub can still make a few bucks out of someone who wouldn't have spent that money otherwise.

 

That almost sounds like you're describing the fact that cars degrade as a good thing.

I'm not convinced that trying to emulate the weaknesses of physical goods in digital products is a good idea.

 

I think the problem here is, while software do not "degrade" like physical goods, they "degrade" in other ways.

The most obvious problem for software is maintenance. Software need maintenance, no matter how good they are. Some people might say, but it's natural that software should be bug free. But this is just like saying "but it's natural for a car to be as good as new after 40 years." It's just unrealistic.

There are also maintenance issues other than bug fixes. New hardware may require modifications to existing software for compatibility. Or small updates to improve user experiences.

Now, people seem to be happy paying money to service their cars regularly (which is usually required by law, and even if the car is completely fine), but if one talks about "software renting model" people seem to be very agitated. I really don't understand why.

 

The problem is that wherever you go you can BUY software, companies SELL software. They dont RENT or LICENSE it to you. And yes I expect software to be updated to fix problems in the same way we all expect car companies to issue recalls if it turns out there is an issue with your car.

Also while people seem happy to pay for having their car serviced, it doesnt necessarily mean that the manufacturer is earning money on that. A lot of people have their cars serviced at independed garages and these days a lot of garages also use junkyard parts instead of brand new parts as a car that is likely going to be scrapped in a couple of years doesn't need brand new parts and can often work fine with junkyard parts that are still in good (enough) condition.

The point is, there is no practical way to prevent you from selling your car, house, tv, washingmachine etc. However there are tons of practical ways for software companies to make it impossible for you to sell your software. Thats the only thing. Software companies know they can make everybody full price because they can prevent you from selling your software that you BOUGHT and they SOLD to you (not rented or licenced) and thats what they want.

Software isn't any different from other products you buy. You should be able to do whatever you want with the software you bought. This includes reselling it (withouth the buyer having to buy online passes etc).

I honestly don't see why software should be different.

 

I'm pretty sure you buy a license to software, you don't own it. You aren't entitled to reverse engineer it, decrypt it without permission, make copies and sell it, or anything else that breaks the EULA that isn't by other laws (the first 3 certainly have other laws about those topics).

Software is not like other property because you can make perfect copies. The law most certainly treats it differently in many important aspects.

 

EULA's dont mean shit. In the civilized world laws are above what a company decides what is or isnt allowed.

Anyway when you go to gamestop to buy Fifa 2013, do they sell you a game or are they telling you they are selling you a license to use the software? Right. They are selling you a game. Not a license.

 

Exactly. Selling you a license to use a software is supported by most countries' (and international) copyright laws.

If you really want to buy a software instead of to license a software, you have very few choices. Most of these choices are open source software. Realistically, if you want to buy a commercial software and use them as you "own" them, you'll have to pay a lot more than what you pay for licensing one. Since very few people actually want to pay that much money for comparably little advantage, most software companies don't bother to provide such option. If you really think that's important, maybe you can start one such company, and see how successful such options will be.

 

Even then there's much debate or flamewars about open source licenses. GPL is said to protect more the user and BSD protects more the developer but you have to read some stuff to work out a good explanation for yourself.

Basically the GPL likes "contaminating" derivating software which all has to be GPL and sharing all your contributions is mandatory, so as much as using a GPL library will make your program GPL. Unless the library uses the linking exception : that's the LGPL license, and it allows a proprietary program to dynamically link to a LGPL library (on Windows, that's a program that uses a .dll)

But the GNU/FSF now has a policy of writing GPL libraries, so it's open source software but you can't have it if you don't accept all the terms. GPLv3 vs GPLv2 is another hot debate, it adds other, semi-political restrictions that can drive away e.g. embedded hardware vendors (linux kernel is still GPLv2)

BSD-style licenses allow you more freedom to do what you want with the code you've written (including making OS X with the FreeBSD userland)

Still the GPL (at least v2) has lead to enormous successses : linux, GCC, and a lot of other stuff (but a lot isn't GPL, too)
GPL can lead to debacles, such as a useful kernel feature that proprietary drivers are banned from using - nvidia is legally barred from providng Optimus support, basically (or everyone that needs the kernel feature and doesn't do GPL-compatible drivers)
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11/1918251/alan-cox-to-nvidia-you-cant-use-dma-buf

Just to say that software licenses are "serious bizness" and to say "just get rid of them", well.. let's say it's shit we have to live with for lack of something better..
At least, depending on your local laws, there are rights that you can't sign away so some terms can't apply to you. Such as a term banning reverse engineering? "Clean room" reverse engineering should always be legal, probably?. Sometimes a license or "terms of agreement" may be kind to you and say "this doesn't apply if you live in the EU", or else let yourself figure out it's bunk.

The big can of worms is software patents but that's a separate issue. That software is covered by both copyright (a special, strong regime of it) and patents is ridiculous but just get rid of patents, I'm sure the software you use to come here to read and comment (loads of it : kernel, OS, drivers, browser, the stuff in all routers all along) infringes 15,000 or so patents and maybe I'm far from the truth. No one can even know.

 

Holy time machine?
Rehash of old arguments.. The money that people get from selling used games usually goes back into .. games.
Does "Guillaume de Fondaumiere" require everyone in my household to pay for their own copy?
What about my friends that might borrow my game?
How far would he like his like money straw to reach?
If i only complete 80% of the game would he reimburse me 20% of the almost $100 his game would cost me in denmark?

If he wants his game to stay away from the used shelfs he would release constant free DLC updates to his game and make sure it was a game worth keeping.

Needless to say, that this dude is all about money, including Tax breaks.

 

Nope this is big corporations that doesn't give a f*ck about anything else but their profit, that is pure evil in my world. They don't care at all about their customers unless it makes them money or costs them money. And for some strange reason many people thinks it's "allright" because money makes the world go around and nothing else matters. Nintendo is actually one of the few companies that has principles that cost them money but matters to them because of moral issues, at least from the outside. Sony and Microsoft couldn't care less, as long as it's within the law they will milk every last penny from their beloved customers.

But, as a customer and purchaser of a game i am entitled to owning that game and doing whatever the hell i want with it, including selling it to gamestop. Now just because Gamestop made a business on used games the world shouldn't stop. In capitalistic sense they should applauded for building a business on other peoples work, it's all about money after all and they did something smart.. right?
It would be the easiest thing in the world for Sony and Microsoft to compete with Gamestop.

But because someone made a smart move the consumer has to pay with time limited games that can't always be played and has very low resale value?

No thanks, then rather spend money on a platform where i can just "take my games" that i am perfectly entitled to own. And about steam, i have 2 PC's in offline mode so that the kid can play his Lego games even if i am logged in. I guess that is wrong if you ask the same people that wants to ban used games.. but it works, and it's been offline for a long time. That is sensible Online DRM. What Microsoft is suggesting is crap compared to that. In 5 years some people will own many games, maybe 30 games.. but if something happens, unpaid bill, internet down, hacker attack (it's bound to happen) then there is no way that person can play his collection because ET can't phone home. In 20 years every XBOX One game could potentially be useless. And to take it to the extreme, from this generation on there will be no cultural history kept for the next generations when it comes to games (there goes the tax break). If ONE and FOUR does this, so will the next generation. I would say we need the lawmakers to protect our cultural history, including the games.

But hey, when everyone just eats whatever it's served and even defends stupid consumer limiting technologies like this we can just wait for the next step. Games that only works for a limited number of days, how could anyone expect to buy(license) a game and just keep on enjoying it for months. It costs millions to create that game and in order to recoup the costs gamers that enjoy the experience should obviously pay for the second playthrough. It's not like it was meant to be used for unlimited hours.

 

How about this method of dealing with used games
Live with it...
Just like nearly every other industry lives with its product being resold

 

When i pay good money for a game , i want to play it however i want.
If i desire to play it with the cord unplugged , that's my right , i shouldn't ask for MS's permission .
And no , the 24h thing doesn't work with me . No checks at all , that's a deal breaker . I don't trust them and if let's say after 5 years they exit the console business (i believe they will) then what , my collection won't function ? Get the **** out ...

This scenario seems just fine by me : let me install my games on the HDD so i don't need to change discs and demand an online connection for checking , that's understandable . Or put a serial Nr inside the disc, validate it once and then no check at all.
Should i put the disc in the tray , no checks ever .

 

Software 101: you don't own a game, you own a license to it according to their rules. Sorry.

 

Maybe so but obviously we as consumer also have some rights of ownership otherwise there wouldn't be a legal used game market to begin with..
Are you suggesting that the used game market is an illegal activity and MS is just sitting back and letting it happen?

 

You have plenty of rights to the physical disc, doesn't mean you'll be able to play a game elsewhere. The disc is just a distribution medium. It is not "the game".

Lets put it this way, you have a boxed copy of Windows. A naive person says you can only take either the key or the install disc and he'll take the other one. Which do you take? Which is valuable?

I'm not saying its right or wrong, just point out how it is.

 

And I understand all and the fair use doctrine, my post was to suggest that ownership and rights can be murky,not so simple. There needs to more clarity.
I mentioned this in another post, if the disk itself is not important and the license is the key why would a gamer loose the right to the game if they surrender the disk?
If person 1 buys the game at full price then gives the disk to person 2 and that person pays a full price fee to use the disk why should the first person loose the right to play the game?
If GETTING the disk itself does not GIVE ownership, why should SURRENDERING the disk REPEAL ownership.
It seems that they are trying to have it both ways. The disk holds no value(except for distribution of data) when you get it,but when you give it all of a sudden it's so valuable that it causes you to loose ownership?

 

They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are indeed trying to have their cake and eat it too. Otherwise everyone knows what the simple answer is: make it like Steam with no used games. And I can't imagine what the Internet would look like if Microsoft announced "no used games".

 

Game developers are selling a license to an 'interactive experience' right? Can we at least agree that every time a new person has that 'experience' the developers should be compensated? (the amount for each person is secondary, this is the basics for now) The problem that game developers have is that their medium for delivering these 'interactive experiences' is digital, reproducible, portable, and completely lossless. People selling Pizza for example, don't have this problem because when you split a pizza with a friend, you each get 4 slices, not the full 8 a piece.

If we can't agree on the basics of when developers should get paid, this conversation will remain circular throughout its number of representative threads.

 

Lawmakers to protect the cultural history of gaming? You're joking right? I, like you, feel I should be able to sell a used game like I would sell a bike, for example. IF I'm not able to do that it changes the value of the product for me. That may mean not buying a console. Here's the thing. You have absolutely no right to be able to play multimillion dollar games. That's not an entitlement anyone actually has. You want to play, buy in. Don't pay, do something else with your time. Game companies are not "evil" for trying to make money, especially not if they tell you the conditions of your purchase up front. There is no special right that entitles you to play videogames. They're not jacking up prices on a necessity or life-saving medication. This is entertainment. This should be your disposable income. And to call anyone evil for applying DRM while buying games on Steam doesn't make any sense. You trust valve but not ms or Sony? Why?