I've always downloaded all of my games (+extras) right after purchase and although I didn't expect this behaviour...well, let's say I'm not surprised. GOG might be better than other online shops but that doesn't mean they're good. Actually it feels amateurish at times.

That is not correct.
1) There is a difference if a business is still active (like now) or has to close. In the first case they still have to fullfill contracts in the second they cannot and therefore have not.

2) Where does the offer GOG gave ever say "you may able to download it in a given timeframe"? GOG has always advertized "download as often as you like". No timeframe mentioned.

"I am pretty sure" and "companys often have..." is still assuming. I'd go along with your argument if you can quote those passages you are mentioning.

Usual handling does not make laws. The Steam user agreement is completeley not legal if you apply EU laws but they don't care, they are too big and they are not in EU - still does not make it legal.

Again I'd like to see that in writing and if you can provide such proof I have to buy a whole lot of DVD-ROMs or HDDs to save all my stuff and then I will never again use digital services - because what is the point if you cannot keep what you bought?

Download "as often as you like" does implicate such thinking. But I couldn't find it because they've changed it. I can however quote what they have written now on their front page:

"On GOG.com, no matter if you are online or offline, you will NEVER be locked away from your purchase"

"Never" is a pretty strong word and they are using it here for advertizing.

Edit: I just read the Terms Of Use and this is the only thing I found:

"TerminationThese Terms of Use are effective until terminated.
You agree that GOG may terminate your log in access to the Service, including your user name and password, at any time for any reason without prior notice or liability. GOG may change, suspend, or discontinue all or any aspect of the Service at any time, including the availability of any feature, without prior notice or liability."

But this is just a part where they can close your account or close/change the service. To say that "a change in the availabilty of a feature" could regard that some stuff in your account could not be available anymore imo is pretty far fetched.

Regardless of the EULA, I think it would be fair if GOG makes an announcement on the website when some extras are about to be removed, to at least give people a day or two to backup what they paid for.

There are people that buy hundreds of games here and maybe some of them don't download every purchase right away, It would be nice to give everyone a chance.

I could imagine that GOG war ordered to pull the stuff immediately so even if they WANTED to give users enough time to save "their" stuff they weren't allowed to do.

Exactly. This is definitely not cool.

From MaGog's logs for 5 February:

NOTE! CHANGED Unepic, companies: Francisco Téllez de Meneses / Ninagamers Corp. ***TO*** Francisco Téllez de Meneses

No, the devs had the right to include these songs but these rights expired. That's the problem with copyright law. You don't buy property you but the right to use. While the difference is negligible for end users (The license to use a software is often treated like property by courts in Europe and usually comes without a time restriction.) companies have a much harder time since they do not fall under consumer protection laws.

So if company A (e.g. a game dev) wants to use intellectual property of company B (e.g. music) then company B wants to squeeze as much money from A as they can and there is nothing that prevents them from charging as much as they want. The only recourse that A has is to settle for different music (which they would only do as a last resort because they have a certain artistic vision for their game which the selected music fits perfectly) or try to haggle down the price. And the most commonly used way to get the price down is to only buy restricted (e.g. time restricted) rights to the music.

Now if they bought a license to use the music for 5 years (I just pulled the number out of my hat as an example.) then A would be free to produce as many copies (e.g. on DVD) with the game containing the music during these 5 years as they want. But after the time has passed they would either have to extend the license or produce copies with different music (or no music at all).

And this is where an important factor of digital distribution comes into play: A copy on DVD that was produced during the 5 years stays static and can also be given away or resold thanks to the First Sale Doctrine. However, if you bought a game on Steam every time you install the game from Steam you get a new copy from the distributor. After 5 years have passed these copies simply aren't allowed to include the original music any more.

Sure, A could have extended the license. But this is often easier said than done. If the game is super successful and still sells well after 5 years then B might think about charging more for the next 5 years. Or if the game simply doesn't sell well enough any more paying for another 5 years simply won't pay off. So the music gets removed or replaced.

There is not much that can be done about that with the current copyright laws. Unless laws get passed that puts all intellectual property under FRAND terms and not only patents for medication and similar stuff things are going to stay the way they are.

Wow! Thank you very much Geralt there is lot in your post I did not know or realize.

Hmmm i want to disagree but i see what you're meaning.

It would make more sense to create a whole new game that includes all future patches and the older version to be left alone with the original music, rather than forcibly removing music from games working just fine or bought before the license expired.


This brings the same problem where if you bought a game on disc, the disc contains the music but requires steam to work and forces updates to work, they can just disable or delete the music even if you have it in physical form that you originally installed from.

Annoying...

I just hope it gets enough attention to people to fix and change things; But as i'm not a lawyer or with super powers to fix the world, i'll hope influence of the users/customers wins in the long run (although a lot of users are idiots so what do i know?).

1. There really is no difference, and as far as contracts go... GOG has no contract to protect you or that benefits you, rather you have entered into a contract with GOG in which GOG has the power via TOS.

2. GOG doesn't *have* to say that, as long as they have given you ample time then you have no real excuse for not having the ability to obtain it, no sane court is going to hold as company liable to offer a digital good long after the sale has been made.

It's like buying a physical good and losing it years later, do you expect the goods manufacture to provide you with that physical good again... even if you failed to obtain that good is the first place is irrelevant. To much time from when the sale was made has past.

The TOS is something you can read...

I'm not a layer and I can only talk in terms of what I've seen in US law. But generally TOS's are held up unless they infringe on consumer rights. That does not mean that the entire TOS is illegal, or does not apply to you and can be thrown out. Part of the agreement may be but not the entire thing. But until consumers challenge companies on digital goods there are no real laws protecting consumers against unfair treatment because most laws were written for physical goods, at-least here in the US.

The difference is with GOG you can keep what you bought because the stuff is DRM free, were only talking about the time frame in which you should download your stuff. GOG can't reach out and take stuff from your PC that you have installed or backed up. GOG *does* own your account and the server in which your stuff is hosted to which you get a exact digital copy mirrored from the original content via download. If you have not downloaded it you have no forms of ownership over it (well you technically never own software but that's another issue), it's not like a physical good. The simple fix here is to always download you stuff, and back it up yourself via external hard drive or a cloud account ect.

This is no where near as bad as Amazon who removed payed content (ie kindle book) right from costumers kindles in which they own and payed for. Why can Amazon can evoke that license? You pay to access it, not own it. Read this article, you may find it interesting:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-amazon-is-within-its-rights-to-remove-access-to-your-kindle-books/

So GOG is handling digital much better than anyone else...

Well since it says "online or offline" one can assume there referring to DRM here more than anything, because how can you access your account offline? But I get were you coming from and how one can see that.

Not really, the ability to download stuff after purchase is a service... and even "including the availability of any feature, without prior notice or liability" protects them because the ability to download something is a feature. A service is anything they are offering you to improve your experience as a costumer because they are serving you.

That's not exactly apples to apple in this case, because GOG has no DRM so if you have downloaded the content they can't go door to door and take it back. Now if if were talking Steam sure... very true. Digital distribution with DRM is a great weakness, and but as far as GOG goes it defiantly much better for you the consumer.

Should be Amazon, not Apple.

But that would be a breach of copyright whenever you install the game. Not by you since you bought a license to use the game but by the game dev and Steam, since they include content that they don't have a license for any more.

I agree. This is one of the reasons why I don't buy anything that requires Steam.

Erm, yea thanks... fixed it. o.O

xD

Isn't playing a game from an online provider (at least those like Steam and Origin) considered to be a performance for music licensing/royalty purposes? Hence the infamous GTA: San Andreas patch.

Source:
"Internet-based services that now offer streaming of video games are causing the music contained in such games to be publicly performed."

Whether GOG would be affected since it doesn't stream the games, I don't know. My guess is just a too-simplistic backend for the extras.