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General discussion (archive)Do we own our Steam games?(130 posts)(130 posts)
(130 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 02, 2012
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Fred_DM: in other words, even your physical copies don't belong to you and the publisher could take your licence away from you. nobody knows how this could possibly work since it's never been done and it's never been challenged in court.
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lukaszthegreat: no. physical copies of everything you bought (which was legal to be purchased in the first place that is) is yours. Publisher cannot take away your physical copies even if it was technically possible.
Well, it works. It's something like activation limit was reached, go fuck yourself"


SLP2000 thanks for explaining in easy words what I couldn't. And in this case, every one-use CD key or online passes are breaking the law in Poland. Unfortunatelly, there is no any cases background to study the issue further.
Post edited February 02, 2012 by keeveek
Posted February 02, 2012
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Aningan: Yes. But it's exactly the question of the article. Legally. Do we own our game license? And legally it's seems the answer is "nobody knows" since nobody has the resources to take the EULAs in front of a court of law.
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SimonG: There are quite a few examples of people going toe to toe with Steam. And Steam quite often backs down. The problem that people won't enforce their rights is as long as mankind. There a whole businesses established around this. If Steam ever shuts down my account for no good reason, I will gladly drag them to court and I will win. And I know excactly what kind of damages I can make stick.
And how do you present your evidence, given that you have pretty much nothing in your hand and everything relevant is on their servers. can you prove you dint share your account with twenty other people, that you cheated on games in your collection, that you violated forum etiquette?
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SimonG: Most companies avoid courts like the plague, so I guess it will never come this far. And I don't expect any problems with Steam itself.
Most persons wont file a private lawsuit against a company either, even if they are in the right. Question of deep pockets
Post edited February 02, 2012 by Npl
Posted February 02, 2012
I noticed this bit in the article:
Of course, in the case of Steam, or any of its counterparts, this is a somewhat different situation. Steam isn’t a publisher, it’s a shop. This is the equivalent of being suspected of shoplifting from a GAME/GameStop, and having an employee come to your house and remove your entire gaming collection from your shelves.
With Steam it's more like you buy games and they say "Oh no, we'll keep hold of them for you. Don't worry though, we'll give you a way to get here really quickly from any computer so it's fine!" and you think it's really convenient until the day they suspect you of shoplifting and won't let you into the shop. Only then do you realise that it really fucking stupid to buy your games from a shop that retains the right to decide whether you can or can't play your games.


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kavazovangel: No, you don't own the games. And yes, the license can be taken away. GOG can delete your account when they want.
Yes, but GOG deleting your account would simply remove your ability to download the games from them. I don't see how it would revoke the invisible license permanently attached to you.
Post edited February 02, 2012 by SirPrimalform
Posted February 02, 2012
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Antimateria: I should back up everything I own but in steam you can't.
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Fred_DM: why can't you? i have all (or most) of my Steam games backed up on an external hard drive.

after formatting, i just copy everything back and verify the files. done.
Really? how large aka huge your hard drive is? I would like a bit faster and more well bigger thing than this 160 gb drive. I didn't remember that even fear 2 wastes 15 gigs.
I just hate that steam games must be in same hard drive.
Posted February 02, 2012
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lukaszthegreat: no. physical copies of everything you bought (which was legal to be purchased in the first place that is) is yours. Publisher cannot take away your physical copies even if it was technically possible.
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keeveek: Well, it works. It's something like activation limit was reached, go fuck yourself"
indeed. Doesn't mean it is legal (and i doubt it is. the go fuck yourself part. if you can reactivate it then there is no problem)
and it doesn't mean it is illegal too.
Currently law needs to catch up to tech.

at least thats what i heard/read
Posted February 02, 2012
I guess you can legally crack a game when activation limit is reached, lukaszthegreat since activation limits are rather voidable in Poland

activation limits are legal only if they prevent you from using a game/app on multiple PC's at the same time.
Post edited February 02, 2012 by keeveek
Posted February 02, 2012
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SirPrimalform: Yes, but GOG deleting your account would simply remove your ability to download the games from them. I don't see how it would revoke the invisible license permanently attached to you.
if you haven't backed up the installer files yourself, and your account gets locked down, you're out of luck. you've permanently lost your licence(s). so this is very well possible with GoG.

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Antimateria: Really? how large aka huge your hard drive is? I would like a bit faster and more well bigger thing than this 160 gb drive. I didn't remember that even fear 2 wastes 15 gigs.
I just hate that steam games must be in same hard drive.
i have a 640GB external drive for back-ups, and let me tell you i cannot fit my entire Steam folder onto it...

size has become a problem. i have several Steam games that are 20GB or more in size. they are a pain to back up. with games this large, i tend to purchase phyiscal copies so i have the data (minus patches and DLC, of course) on DVD.

but theoretically, you could back up your entire Steam folder and restore it by copying it back. of course, over a USB2.0 connection it takes forever. eSATA would be the better solution.
Post edited February 02, 2012 by Fred_DM
Posted February 02, 2012
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keeveek: It is still in Poland. I was surprised when I figured out that you can borrow your movies or music to a friend, but you can't do this with games.
You can give that game to your friend, and then he can give it back to you. You are not allowed to borrow, but you can give / sell him that game.
Posted February 02, 2012
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SirPrimalform: Yes, but GOG deleting your account would simply remove your ability to download the games from them. I don't see how it would revoke the invisible license permanently attached to you.
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Fred_DM: if you haven't backed up the installer files yourself, and your account gets locked down, you're out of luck. you've permanently lost your licence(s). so this is very well possible with GoG.
As I said: you've lost the ability to download them, not the licence. You're confusing ability and legal right.
Posted February 02, 2012
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keeveek: It is still in Poland. I was surprised when I figured out that you can borrow your movies or music to a friend, but you can't do this with games.
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SLP2000: You can give that game to your friend, and then he can give it back to you. You are not allowed to borrow, but you can give / sell him that game.
Nice workaround, but you couldn't force him to give it back to you, if you gave it to him, not borrowed.
Posted February 02, 2012
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SLP2000: I added some more info to my previous post, you may be interested in it.
I need to look this up how licences are handled in german law. What you were writing does make a lot of sense, but I'm really not sure about how we handle it here. Actually, quite stupid of me, considering how much time I spend on games, that I never bothered with looking up "licencing law".

My somewhat educated guess would be, that the licence per se would remain untradeable but as it looks like you are "purchasing property" if you buy a disc, you are entitled to resell it like property. So that the licence transfer would be a "fix" and not a "right". And this "fix" would only be applicable to end users/consumers, as only they need this protection.

Do you get what I mean?
Posted February 02, 2012
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Fred_DM: if you haven't backed up the installer files yourself, and your account gets locked down, you're out of luck. you've permanently lost your licence(s). so this is very well possible with GoG.
But you are supposed to download your copy and back it up. GOG could have no accounts at all, and they still could provide the service.
Posted February 02, 2012
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Fred_DM: ownership would mean you have the right to dissect or 'reverse-engineer' the games in your possession, modify with consent and even profit off your modifications. obviously, you're not allowed to do any of that without explicit permission, which is sometimes given but always at the cost of privileges. .
If it's not explicitily allowed none of that falls into a legitimate use of the copy you bought.

You own the copy you bought if when you go about using that copy in a legitimate way and you're faced with no hoops to jump through. Do i onw my gog games ? Yes, the worst that could happen would be loosing the ability to redownload them if gog went tits up, but i could go on forever using the copies of the games i bought here. Do i onw my steam games ? No, not rally, there's a whole set of ocurrences that can lock me out or prevent the use of my steam account and every purchase tied to it even when i'm simply trying to use my purchased copies in a legitimate way.
Posted February 02, 2012
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keeveek: Nice workaround, but you couldn't force him to give it back to you, if you gave it to him, not borrowed.
I would guess that, also in Poland, those workarounds are illegal. In Germany we call something like this "circumventiondeal" and is "illegal" as in, the orignial proceeding is imagined.

Btw, I hate translating legal lingo ....
Posted February 02, 2012
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SirPrimalform: As I said: you've lost the ability to download them, not the licence. You're confusing ability and legal right.
indeed, now i see what you mean. i guess you're right unless getting your GoG account terminated equals loss of your licences.

at any rate, you lose your GoG games if your account is closed and you haven't backed up your games. i doubt it would comfort you to know that you still legally own the licence to play your lost games...

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SLP2000: But you are supposed to download your copy and back it up. GOG could have no accounts at all, and they still could provide the service.
i don't agree. GoG is an account-based service offering unlimited re-downloads. theoretically, it should not be necessary to keep back-ups. i'd guess that most people don't even have the storage space to keep back-ups of all their digital copies unless you have really large HDDs or very few games.

of course, being sane and having the storage space, i back up everything: Steam, GamersGate, GoG. i've run out of back-up space now, though...
Post edited February 02, 2012 by Fred_DM
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Do we own our Steam games?(130 posts)(130 posts)
(130 posts)