French court rules Steam should allow resale of digital games, Valve will appeal

[Garbage]

GAMERS
RISE
UP

Can we rise up tomorrow instead? Mum said I had to be home by 7 tonight.

 

[Dexter]

in reality what we're purchasing with a Steam game isn't just the game

There is no physical product, so in a way you don't really own anything

it's a fact that Steam will not be around forever, leaving you without access to games that you've paid for (this has already happened with the Wii and original DS)...

First, this is contradictory, either you're purchasing the game or "you don't really own anything". Both things cannot be true at once.

What you're saying is neither de facto true, nor de jure (e.g. this court judgment based on EU law or some of the rulings dating back to 2011 and earlier as has been amply explained).

It's de facto not true, since there are hundreds if not thousands of games on Steam that will run just fine without even having Steam installed once they are installed themselves: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
Further, almost any game is playable with the replacement of one file and circumventing DRM for personal use to be able to use products one has purchased is generally legal.

It's de jure not true, since Valve or any other Digital retailer claiming that purchasing a piece of software doesn't "actually mean purchase" does not change the legal reality of the matter. It further complicates things for them in any legal challenge that you can also buy a retail game from a store or say Amazon and other Online retailers, which will not function without Steam. If they can't argue that purchases on their own store are "Subscriptions" there will be no way in hell that they can redefine entering a store and purchasing a game box as "buying a Subscription on Steam".

If Steam ever tried revoking the rights of any sizable amount of people to their purchased software library it would end up being the mother of all lawsuits, with them either being forced to reverse that decision or likely pay fines to the point that they're litigated into bankruptcy. Which is incidentally also why Steam is generally careful not to "ban" any accounts for any reason other than outright fraud (stolen credit cards and the likes). They have VAC bans for cheaters, they have "forum bans" for "naughty people" not listening to their "community guidelines", they have "account restrictions" for payment issues etc. but you will hardly see anyone get their account locked and deprived of their purchased software, since they don't want to be in the position of having to argue that out in court.

Do you own the files on server? Do you own only the data on your hard drive? What if your HDD breaks and you don't have a backup? With, for example, a book, it's more clear cut.

If we want to compare this to the current situation with gaming media, you only really own the physical paper that the words are printed on and not the words within that book.

This doesn't make any sense. If you want to get into stupid analogies, the argumentation from people ITT is more like being worried about what will happen to the poor/popular Indie <author some people know/like> if people were able to resell their books (or lend it to their friend to read, or any manner of other normal behavior). Thus they apparently came to the conclusion that they should have no rights when they purchase a book and people should be prevented from owning or reselling their books! Because if that ever came to pass, apparently nobody would ever buy a new book again!

since if you owned the 0s and 1s that make up the game code, you'd then own the IP of the game company....

If you were buying the actual data then yes, you would own, in part, the intellectual property of the company that made the game.

This seems to stem from some sort of basic misunderstanding of IP rights, buying one or multiple copies of something doesn't grant someone a right to sub-license, reproduce, commercialize or make derivative works of that something. It also doesn't grant you authorship of its source code like you seem to claim (not that it is being sold or available to a consumer when they buy a copy of a game in the first place).

Just like when you buy a book, you own a copy of said book and can modify or resell your personal copy (or do whatever the fuck else you want to do with it, like use it as toilet paper). In no way does buying a copy of a book or entertainment product "grant you IP rights" of the company selling them and I'm not sure how you even got this abstruse idea.

it's more complicated than one lets on, but I think most of us can agree that the current status quo actually benefits us more than it harms us.

"Most of us" can agree that legally buying something and having the company that sells it to us pretend we haven't actually bought it or own it and have no rights in regards to it (for instance being able to resell) "actually benefits us more than it harms us"? That seems like a rather bold statement.

 

[Dexter]

There is a certain hypocrisy in anybody claiming to care about digital ownership and simultaneously having monetarily supported valve and using their platform for years.

I don't really see any hypocrisy or contradiction for people aware of their legal rights buying from Steam. Just as they had to start offering refunds, just as they'll lose the regional restriction battle within the EU, they'll be made to follow the law here ultimately.

GAMERS
RISE
UP

Imagine being so butthurt about consumers being acknowledged and granted their rights by courts after years long legal battles, you start spamming a dumb SJW Meme and thinking you're being clever.

 

[panda]

How is that retarded?

Your entire argument is based on false assumption that "There is no physical product".
I don't even know why people end up with this idea. Just becasue you can't see files with a naked eye or touch and alter them with bare hands and require special instrument?

 

[DeepOcean]

THE WORLD WILL LITERALLY END FROM OWNERSHIP AND CONSUMER RIGHTS BEING ENFORCED! NOOOOO! WHY FRANCE, WHY?!?

This is actually great, if the EU recognize games sales on Steam as purchases and not as "subscriptions" as Valve was trying to BS consumers, that means that on the eventual closing of Steam on the future, they will be forced to support a transition period while people remove their games from the service and download them into a safe place, otherwise they will be charged with fraud from millions of consumers. Subscription means something you can cut the service any time you want with zero responsibility, Valve was trying to weasel their way but with physical goods = digital goods, they can't act free of responsibility as they wished.

About the subscription model fear mongering some people are pushing, remember that Stadia still wishes for you to buy and pay full price for a game, and while that remains, you are buying a copy and will have the same rights as when you buy a physical copy, only because a company name their service as "subscription", it doesnt mean that will be recognized on law, meaning, Stadia and other similar platforms, because physical copy = digital copy, maybe on the future, such platforms will be forced to allow you to download a local copy of your game you just purchased.

Unless they completely remove that option of paying upfront but I'm very skeptical that you can make a sustainable business model of charging 10 dollars a month and be able to pay dozens and dozens of developers and publishers.

 

[Mortmal]

I'm not rich by any means, but I'm far less interested in the cost of games over actually having games made that I want to play.

I'm scared this will kill off smaller developers who might be able to produce something worth playing in the future.

You can still buy indies on their site,good stuff like minecraft, rimworld, they will still sell. As for the sea of mediocre indie devs.. They will die of starvation, so thats all for the best!

 

[passerby]

About the subscription model fear mongering some people are pushing, remember that Stadia still wishes for you to buy and pay full price for a game, and while that remains, you are buying a copy and will have the same rights as when you buy a physical copy, only because a company name their service as "subscription", it doesnt mean that will be recognized on law, meaning, Stadia and other similar platforms, because physical copy = digital copy, maybe on the future, such platforms will be forced to allow you to download a local copy of your game you just purchased.

Unless they completely remove that option of paying upfront but I'm very skeptical that you can make a sustainable business model of charging 10 dollars a month and be able to pay dozens and dozens of developers and publishers.

They'll offer multiple tiers of subscription, including very expensive ones like 100 - 200$/month which would be an equivalent of D1P everything and with time publishers could move games to lower tiers as new shit gets released and the game loose playerbase.
Or charge per hour, which you'd pay for with virtual currency, buy 10h + 1h FREE !!! :D

 

[mogwaimon]

Spoiler

in reality what we're purchasing with a Steam game isn't just the game

There is no physical product, so in a way you don't really own anything

it's a fact that Steam will not be around forever, leaving you without access to games that you've paid for (this has already happened with the Wii and original DS)...

First, this is contradictory, either you're purchasing the game or "you don't really own anything". Both things cannot be true at once.

What you're saying is neither de facto true, nor de jure (e.g. this court judgment based on EU law or some of the rulings dating back to 2011 and earlier as has been amply explained).

It's de facto not true, since there are hundreds if not thousands of games on Steam that will run just fine without even having Steam installed once they are installed themselves: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
Further, almost any game is playable with the replacement of one file and circumventing DRM for personal use to be able to use products one has purchased is generally legal.

It's de jure not true, since Valve or any other Digital retailer claiming that purchasing a piece of software doesn't "actually mean purchase" does not change the legal reality of the matter. It further complicates things for them in any legal challenge that you can also buy a retail game from a store or say Amazon and other Online retailers, which will not function without Steam. If they can't argue that purchases on their own store are "Subscriptions" there will be no way in hell that they can redefine entering a store and purchasing a game box as "buying a Subscription on Steam".

If Steam ever tried revoking the rights of any sizable amount of people to their purchased software library it would end up being the mother of all lawsuits, with them either being forced to reverse that decision or likely pay fines to the point that they're litigated into bankruptcy. Which is incidentally also why Steam is generally careful not to "ban" any accounts for any reason other than outright fraud (stolen credit cards and the likes). They have VAC bans for cheaters, they have "forum bans" for "naughty people" not listening to their "community guidelines", they have "account restrictions" for payment issues etc. but you will hardly see anyone get their account locked and deprived of their purchased software, since they don't want to have to argue that in court.

Do you own the files on server? Do you own only the data on your hard drive? What if your HDD breaks and you don't have a backup? With, for example, a book, it's more clear cut.

If we want to compare this to the current situation with gaming media, you only really own the physical paper that the words are printed on and not the words within that book.

This doesn't make any sense. If you want to get into stupid analogies, the argumentation from people ITT is more like being worried about what will happen to the poor/popular Indie <author some people know/like> if people were able to resell their books (or lend it to their friend to read, or any manner of other normal behavior). Thus they apparently came to the conclusion that they should have no rights when they purchase a book and people should be prevented from owning or reselling their books! Because if that ever came to pass, apparently nobody would ever buy a new book again!

since if you owned the 0s and 1s that make up the game code, you'd then own the IP of the game company....

If you were buying the actual data then yes, you would own, in part, the intellectual property of the company that made the game.

This seems to stem from some sort of basic misunderstanding of IP rights, buying one or multiple copies of something doesn't grant someone a right to sub-license, reproduce, commercialize or make derivative works of that something. It also doesn't grant you authorship of its source code like you seem to claim (not that it is being sold or available to a consumer when they buy a copy of a game in the first place).

Just like when you buy a book, you own a copy of said book and can modify or resell your personal copy (or do whatever the fuck else you want to do with it, like use it as toilet paper). In no way does buying a copy of a book or entertainment product "grant you IP rights" of the company selling them and I'm not sure how you even got this abstruse idea.

it's more complicated than one lets on, but I think most of us can agree that the current status quo actually benefits us more than it harms us.

"Most of us" can agree that legally buying something and having the company that sells it to us pretend we haven't actually bought it or own it and have no rights in regards to it (for instance being able to resell) "actually benefits us more than it harms us"? That seems like a rather bold statement.

Well, let's just take this in order...

First, I clearly wasn't talking about Steam actively revoking rights or any sort of bans when I said that it's a fact that Steam will not be around forever; one day Valve will eventually go bankrupt or fail somehow and they will just not be able to provide the service that they do now. So when that happens, where do your games go? You argue that 'Oh, there are hundreds of thousands of DRM-free games on Steam that will run without it' which is absolutely true, but we're not talking about DRM-free games, piracy, or cracking games here, we're talking about the availability of legally purchased games. Of course anyone can just go on IGG or TPB and download the latest games, and gods willing they'll still be able to do that in the future. If Steam goes GaaS/full streaming as a result of the lawsuit, how the hell is anyone supposed to even get the game data on their computers to preserve if everything is stored exclusively serverside?

Second, how does the book analogy not make sense? You're being obtuse because you think I'm arguing against reselling, when in fact I actually support the practice. Hell, almost every single one of my physical games have been purchased used to save a quick buck. But I recognize that there is a distinction between me owning the physical medium and the data encoded on that physical medium, that's all I'm pointing out here. Also it would be nice if small authors and indie devs got a little money for resells; it's highly impractical and it should never happen but, you know, most authors die long before their works are successful and barely see a dime from their work as it is. There's nothing wrong with feeling and expressing some sympathy for that situation, I think.

Third, on IP rights...I know buying something doesn't grant you IP rights! I have no idea where you got that from. You're hung up on my quote. I said 'IF you owned the 0s and 1s...' because the point I was making is that, with digital products, you're just buying a license! If you were buying the data itself, then it would be LIKE buying the intellectual property. Nowhere did I mention source code, either, you brought that up. So say you go and buy a game off Steam right now. What are you actually buying? The game, or a license to use the game for personal applications? The latter, because with Steam and most other software, when you purchase it it's just a LICENSE. That's why I made the book analogy, when you go to the store and buy a copy of, I don't know, Frankenstein, you're not buying that story. Why would you, it's in the public domain so it's free to read or do whatever you want with, right? You're buying the physical book, the paper it's printed on, not the story itself.

and THAT is where everyone is hung up on, because they seem to be hung up on the delusion that they're buying games from Steam when all they've been buying all along is licenses. I buy games from Steam knowing that, and I accept it because it's the nature of gaming on PC. Do I buy on GOG where I can? Sure, I got a bunch of games on GOG. Do I pirate games? Not so much anymore because buying them is more convenient since pirated versions are almost always 3-4 patches behind, but yea I still do it on occasion. Would I rather have all my games on physical media that I can keep archived in case something happens with Steam or my account? Definitely! But this isn't a perfect world, and sometimes if you want something you have to compromise to get it...and I'd much rather keep Steam the way it is if the alternative is full streaming/GaaS because that will ultimately harm me more than it benefits me.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

This thread reeks of jewery.

 

[Kaethar]

Anyone wanna cop Uriel's Chasm off me?

 

[Vault Dweller]

When Valve finds out they can sell the game twice with paying the editor only once, you BET they are going to find a solution.

The solution will likely result in you getting a tiny cut, with the rest going to valve and the publishers.

The publishers will get nothing. You will sell it, Steam will get their comission because you sell it on their platform and you are actually using their service, but since the license usage rights are yours and not the publishers anymore, those will get nothing. Same way if you sell a product on eBay. If the publishers get something out of a second hand sale, then it's not a second hand sale anymore.

That's not the most likeliy scenario. You could buy and sell Steam keys from day one and Steam made it easy to activate third-party keys without asking/demanding any commission for it. So logically, if Steam fails to win the appeal, they'll allow players to sell the keys of the games they've already played outside of Steam as they have no obligation to do it on their platform. So the player can list a key on G2A, sell it, the buyer activates it, once the seller confirms the sale, the game is removed from the seller's list of games and uninstalled, and the buyer installs it. This model will not require any commission and will be sufficiently bothersome for more than a small % of players to do it on a regular basis.

 

[RNGsus]

Good, because I've got about 50 games I don't even want to look at.

 

[Zanzoken]

I don't have any data to support this, but my impression is when the used games market became established in the console space, most people didn't trade peer-to-peer but sold their games back to Gamestop and other retailers for store credit.

So assuming this holds up, I wonder if Valve will get in the market of buying back Steam keys for pennies on the dollar and reselling them for cheaper than the devs themselves are retailing for.

 

[Lyrique]

A crash of the industry has been long overdue anyway.

 

[rashiakas]

Gaben should just ban frogs from steam, problem solved.

 

[passerby]

GOG itself is a DRM platform just like Steam and you also are buying just a lifetime license there which is bound to an account on the platform. So GOG is in fact only a copy protection free platform as your personal copy of game downloaded from it is not protected, not DRM free platform. It's just that publishers started calling copy protection a DRM, because copy protection got bad rep after some atrocious disc copy protections from 2000s and Steam provided both as a single platform so customers were confused, but these should be considered as two different things.

When you buy a game on a DRM platform free physical disc, you also are buying just a license to use the software, it's just bound to the physical disc which you can sell, because according to copyright law if no contract was signed between you and IP owner, you have the right to sell your copy of the IP with the medium it was provided on. License agreements on software boxes were deemed void, because the IP owner can't prove that the owner of the copy had red and agreed to it before he bought the copy of the IP.

On Steam before each purchase, or key activation user is asked to read and confirm license agreement, if he agree it should be legally binding, if he doesn't agree transaction won't go through, or key won't activate and in case of a key he can either sell it, or demand a refund from a retailer he bought it from. This is why publishers were so happy to bound their retail sales to it in the first place. Companies should be able to offer whatever service they want and customers should be free to either use it, or not.

 

[Valky]

Perpetuating the falsehood that EULAs are legally binding is mind blowingly stupid. Almost as retarded as steamfaggots number one argument that "you don't own anything, even your physical copies!". Years of deepthroating valve has caused brain damage.

 

[passerby]

To all "muh rights" people...

All our rights, even so called basic human rights, are not a nature laws, neither were granted by a sky daddy.
They were created, granted and are enforced by people wielding power and never were and will be an ultimate standard for morality.
Each person, or group of people will have their own morality and they all have conflicting interests.

We live in a democracy and are governed by a tyranny of the majority, which usually is less unjust than a tyranny of the minority, or one person.
Politicians and judges represents the majority and have power to create new laws, or ignore, change or interpet in a funny ways existing ones.
They either will do what they believe voting majority wants to get reelected, or they can be bribed with enough money to not care if they'll get reelected.

For example white men used to bo the biggest voting block in Amerikwa, so they voted themseves more rights then other citizens.
But then they decided they'll grant women voting rights because it alligned with their principles. Women and minorites became the biggest voting block and now white men have the least rights.
All this time there was the highest law of Amerikwa called Constitution, that claimed every citizen is equal before the law, but no voting majority has ever gave a shit about that one.
( I'm not against women rights, but for some kind of meritocracy with restricted franchise, like only positive tax payers voting rights, where people voting free shit for themselves automatically vote themselves out of right to vote ).

People that have empathy and imagination to put themselves in place of the other side of a conflicting interest, intelligence to foresee consequence of selfishness and a spine to propose a solution, that is not the best for themselves, but acceptable for both sides, can create a better world. People that scream, I don't care what you need, or want! Give me my free shit! *I* want "muh rights"!, create a clown world.

So, all people that demand "muh right" to pirate, "muh right" to share and "muh right" to resell, will be granted their wish eventually.
If the tech was not ready for always online, game as service and streaming, the revenues would just shrunk few times and we would be playing games with few times smaller budgets and spent few times less money on them for some time. The tech is ready, though.

 

[Valky]

When all else fails, just claim everything is a social construct and you have no rights and don't own nothing, goy. The mind of your average valve cock-holster.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[anvi]

Games cause violence and should be banned anyway.

 

[passerby]

When all else fails, just claim everything is a social construct and you have no rights and don't own nothing, goy.

How is the legal system not a social construct ?

The mind of your average valve cock-holster.

Dude, Valve will be fine, they'll just start to offer monthly subscription plans, or rent individual games with daily fees, or charge per hour of play, or whatever will maximise the revenue. Eventually they'll integrate streaming platform with Steam client.

 

[mogwaimon]

Well, legal rights and natural rights are two separate things entirely, really...America is founded upon principles that acknowledge basic and natural human rights, which is why it's such a special place. The original purpose of America has been distorted and twisted over the centuries by all manner of insidious creatures, but I for one still believe in the spirit of the founding fathers. We're also closer to a republic, BTW, not a democracy.

Also yea, EULAs aren't legally binding at all, it's just that almost no one takes the time to challenge them in a court of law...GOG isn't a 'DRM platform' either, they're a reseller of licenses. If it were a platform that used DRM, you couldn't just copy the installers to any other PC and use them since there would be some sort of system in place to prevent that.

 

[Raghar]

This would really hurt game development as an art.

Kinda like how secondhand book stores totally destroyed writing as an art, eh?

Original intent of copyright was to protect publishing companies to not undercut each other and not ruin each other. The intent was to make for LIMITED period something exclusive to allow COMMERCIAL companies to recoup theirs spend money. Authors were lately made eligible to get SHARE on the ground that COMMERCIAL companies are printing books for PROFIT. As a reward for general public, these books were supposed to become free of copyright in reasonably short time. For books these are printed on paper, 30 years later they should be still readable. PC technology progressed rapidly however. Games made in pre W7 era, are often not compatible with current PCs. Thus basic premise of copyright law has become invalid.


Now obviously pirates are not making copies for profit, thus they should be excerpted from copyright fees, and authors shouldn't see a dime from pirates because pirates are not doing it commercially. In fact there were ruling that radios were allowing to listen without fees and they were basically advertising music thus they are acting in favor of authors anyway. (The same should apply to e-books on internet pirate sites.)

I observed that people who were getting computer games for free, sometimes learned to occasionally do stuff for free as well, I observed that people who were buying stuff second hand for example from a friend, nearly never did stuff for free.


Now lets look at second hand market. From point of view of game developers who are sufficiently educated pirates are happening in parallel with them, and poor shouldn't pay for digital copies of art, ever. Which is satisfied by free availability of pirated games. On the other hand second hand market isn't happening in parallel. Second hand has originator, the person who bought the original game. Then they have the rest of chain.

There could be at least two variation. The rest of chain is the person who is paying the original owner of digital stuff. Did seller paid taxes? Is seller willing to take game back when the second person say, naw I didn't like that type of game? And if the second person is friend of first person, why is the first person such asshole it didn't loan the game for free?

The second variation is the first person comes to some intermediate, either second hand store, or an internet profiteer who would take it and pay some money at certain conditions. Likely they would pay taxes, thought the second possibility is likely a person who is paying taxes in some tax paradise, and state would see nothing. Now, they of course resell that stuff. Aka they would have a profit from work of someone else. Can you see the problem?



Of course there are stores with used books. Which have these rights because of tradition, and ... because they are selling physical objects. There are actually different reasons to sell physical objects than to get money. Space for example. A person has space only for 2000 books, thus least favorite books are going to 1. trash bin. 2. second hand shop. 3. gifts to your relatives. Most people would hate to be assholes to throw a book into a trash, thus they have only two realistic options.

 

[RNGsus]

We need a goddamn cringe button.