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General discussion (archive)Letter to GOG about bundle keys giveaways. (164 posts)(164 posts)
(164 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 18, 2013
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real.geizterfahr: It's just inconsistent... GOG can't ask us not to give away their installers AND allow those bundle key giveaways at the same time, because Humble Bundle asked their customers not to give away those keys. If GOG doesn't give a shit... You know? "Gnah... We know they don't want to see their keys given away, but we don't care. Just go on, as long as you don't give away our installers." That doesn't quite go together...
GOG has expressed the opinion that they'd like people to respect HB's ToS, which is the correct thing to do.

Are you saying they should police it? Should Humble make sure people aren't sending GOG installers to each other?
Posted July 18, 2013
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amok: ...
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SirPrimalform: I know it's against the TOS, but I have no moral objection to people giving away the keys for games they already owned before buying the bundle. If it makes you feel any better, the key they're giving away can represent their earlier purchase and the copy of the game they bought long ago can be considered part of the bundle.

That is to say, the number of copies bought and the number of copies in people's possession are the same. It's equivalent to me having bought a gift copy of the game for someone earlier and then keeping the one in the bundle. It makes no difference.
I would first recognise what tokisto stated before, we still are adjusting to digital and physical comparisons are not quite there. We can not compare physical copies and digital licenses/copies. They are just so very different in nature. We need better analogies.

To add to it - JMich said so something similar before also, and I do admit that morally it is a more grey area. To adjust it to digital he considered it a transfer of licenses. i.e. that he transferred his old game license to the new user, and used is his new bundle license himself (correct me if I am misquoting you). However, I still do not accept it, for two reasons:

1- Pragmatically - it is still not possible to transfer licenses. If this was legally possible (SimonG will kill me), I might reconsider. However I know that it is not, therefore I can also not square this morally (I know, I am strange...)

2 - Ethically - Just the fact that HB and IR very clearly asks the users to please not do this. In this case, my moral convictions of what I think is right and wrong personally are subservient to how I think people / entities should be treated. You go into this contract with open eyes, and even if you do not personally think it is wrong to distribute the keys of games you have, HB and IR think so. You give your word / make a contract, with HB and IR when you buy the bundle, and then you turn around and break your word. This issue is not the same as whether it should be possible to give away games you have got from before. My personal convictions states that I should treat others how they would like to be treated, not how I think they should be treated.... if it makes any sense.
Post edited July 18, 2013 by amok
Posted July 18, 2013
If it makes you feel any better, you bet your ass I'm never going to give away a game here again - GOG or otherwise - because I'm sick and tired of your unceasing whining about this.

Not everyone follows your "moral" code. Deal. The Fuck. With It.
Post edited July 18, 2013 by Foxhack
Posted July 18, 2013
low rated
never mind, not worth it.

Ever wanted to delete own forum posts? Vote for it here - http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/delete_own_forum_post
Post edited July 18, 2013 by amok
Posted July 18, 2013
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amok: 1- Pragmatically - it is still not possible to transfer licenses. If this was legally possible (SimonG will kill me), I might reconsider. However I know that it is not, therefore I can also not square this morally (I know, I am strange...)

2 - Ethically - Just the fact that HB and IR very clearly asks the users to please not do this. In this case, my moral convictions of what I think is right and wrong personally are subservient to how I think people / entities should be treated. You go into this contract with open eyes, and even if you do not personally think it is wrong to distribute the keys of games you have, HB and IR think so. You give your word / make a contract, with HB and IR when you buy the bundle, and then you turn around and break your word. This issue is not the same as whether it should be possible to give away games you have got from before. My personal convictions states that I should treat others how they would like to be treated, not how I think they should be treated.... if it makes any sense.
1 - I disagree here, legality and morality are very separate for me. You can't enforce your own morals on other people. You can make them into laws, but it won't change peoples' own morality - just tell them they're not allowed to do it. But anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that just because your idea of morality is strictly aligned with the legal system doesn't mean that everyone else's is. You can't deem it as universally immoral, just immoral to you.

2 - I do find myself sort of agreeing on this one. Although I think in essence there is nothing morally wrong with giving one licence to someone else, they do indeed ask that you don't give away any keys.

I think 'spirit of the law' is important here though, I am of the opinion that that rule is to discourage the people who buy the bundle, give away the steam keys and keep the DRM-free downloads despite this being their only licence. I fail to see what is wrong with the scenario I outlined in my earlier post and therefore can't see why they'd disallow it.

I'd also like to note that it doesn't mention on the main page where you actually make the purchase that they don't want you to do this, thus it is possible to buy the bundle being unaware of this (they put the "all keys for personal use" on the bundle page itself but you obviously only see that after you've bought it). Your bit about open eyes only applies if someone actually knows this before buying.

The real reason I felt compelled to post though was that I don't believe it is GOG's place to police this. They have expressed opinions on it in line with HB ToS, I don't see how you can expect more of them.
Post edited July 18, 2013 by SirPrimalform
Posted July 18, 2013
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Fictionvision: With people further locked into steam, valve has more opportunities to profit off them from things like selling them games or getting a cut from hat trading. [...] They are used as a loss leader, like dota 2 being free to play, to get people further into the steam ecosystem.
That's... nice for Steam. Really. But I doubt that's what Humble Bundle and participating developers have in mind... They don't add those keys to bring Steam profit.

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Fictionvision: That is why I just roll my eyes when someone says "You are costing poor Valve money for bandwidth by giving away that key!"
I hope you didn't mean me, because that's not what I said. I just said "GOG wouldn't be happy with tons of "Witcher 2 backup key giveaway" threads on Steam's forums". And I wasn't talking about bandwith here... I just wanted to make a comparison that most GOGers should understand. Because the GOG keys every Steam customer got with his purchase of The Witcher 2, are the same as the Steam keys you get in the Humble Bundle. They're not a second license to give away. They're just the key to enable YOU to have the game on another place.

CDPR gave those keys to promote GOG. Getting some licenses "duplicated" was a calculated trade off. But the Humble Bundle isn't promoting Steam. They're not related.
Posted July 18, 2013
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real.geizterfahr: I hope you didn't mean me, because that's not what I said.
I wasn't clear with that statement and apologize as I wasn't referring to you with that part. My viewpoint is I don't think a pirate version of a game and a steam key can be compared in the same way as the key has the same restrictions as any other game on steam where as a pirate version has none of that. And yes I think the same thing that is complained about in this thread would happen if GOG gave away Witcher 2 steam keys.
Posted July 18, 2013
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hucklebarry: illegal game codes
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real.geizterfahr: You're a pirate
Well, hell. If buying something is illegal and makes me a pirate, why don't I just save my money and pirate in the first place?


Anyway, there is nothing wrong with giving something away you buy. Just the other day I got an anime box set from Amazon. Comes with both DVD and Blu-ray copies of the entire series. If I decided to sell/give away one or the other, that is perfectly legal and no one would think I or the person who received it was a pirate.
Walmart sells a lot of DVD collections that include multiple DVDs each with a different movie on it. There's nothing wrong with giving away some of the movies and keeping some others.

Same thing here.

With PS2 collection for PS3, they are all on a single disc. Couldn't give a single game away if I wanted to.


Humble Bundle used to use codes that bundled the games together, now they do it individually. It's their choice which way they want to sell them, but once a consumer buys something they can do whatever they want with it short of breaking the law, which giving a gift to someone is not doing.



The only time people would be in the wrong would be if they never owned the game, gave the Steam key out, and used the DRM-free version or something like that. If they already had the game on Steam/GOG/Desura/Amazon and gave the Steam key out, no problem.
Posted July 18, 2013
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maycett: ... but I will from now on consider it each time a little protest against people who would try to regulate what I'd do with my own stuff :)
Don't you think that's rather childish? Doing something like that just out of spite is quite immature IMO.

.
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IAmSinistar: And according to popular swearing, Jesus's middle name begins with H.
I always thought that it begins with an F...
Post edited July 18, 2013 by Lifthrasil
Posted July 18, 2013
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amok: 1- Pragmatically - it is still not possible to transfer licenses. If this was legally possible (SimonG will kill me), I might reconsider. However I know that it is not, therefore I can also not square this morally (I know, I am strange...)

2 - Ethically - Just the fact that HB and IR very clearly asks the users to please not do this. In this case, my moral convictions of what I think is right and wrong personally are subservient to how I think people / entities should be treated. You go into this contract with open eyes, and even if you do not personally think it is wrong to distribute the keys of games you have, HB and IR think so. You give your word / make a contract, with HB and IR when you buy the bundle, and then you turn around and break your word. This issue is not the same as whether it should be possible to give away games you have got from before. My personal convictions states that I should treat others how they would like to be treated, not how I think they should be treated.... if it makes any sense.
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SirPrimalform: 1 - I disagree here, legality and morality are very separate for me. You can't enforce your own morals on other people. You can make them into laws, but it won't change peoples' own morality - just tell them they're not allowed to do it. But anyway, the point I'm trying to make

2 - I do find myself sort of agreeing on this one. Although I think in essence there is nothing morally wrong with giving one licence to someone else, they do indeed ask that you don't give away any keys.

I think 'spirit of the law' is important here though, I am of the opinion that that rule is to discourage the people who buy the bundle, give away the steam keys and keep the DRM-free downloads despite this being their only licence. I fail to see what is wrong with the scenario I outlined in my earlier post and therefore can't see why they'd disallow it.

I'd also like to note that it doesn't mention on the main page where you actually make the purchase that they don't want you to do this, thus it is possible to buy the bundle being unaware of this (they put the "all keys for personal use" on the bundle page itself but you obviously only see that after you've bought it). Your bit about open eyes only applies if someone actually knows this before buying.
I may be one of the very few paranoid people who still read things before I sign anything, even if it is a digital signature, to find out what I am getting into. .And I tend to read a FAQ before a ToS :)

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SirPrimalform: The real reason I felt compelled to post though was that I don't believe it is GOG's place to police this. They have expressed opinions on it in line with HB ToS, I don't see how you can expect more of them.
I do not expect anything more of them at all. I just wanted an official GOG policy / stance on this matter, as I feel it have been missing.

The culture of these bundles are against GoG's own statements, and I do feel sad each time I see one here.
Posted July 18, 2013
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SirPrimalform: GOG has expressed the opinion that they'd like people to respect HB's ToS, which is the correct thing to do.

Are you saying they should police it?
I don't say anything. GOG can do as they wish. I just say that amok has a point. Giving away a key is giving out an one time piratable copy. If you want that on your website: go ahead. Who am I to tell you what you have to do?

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SirPrimalform: Should Humble make sure people aren't sending GOG installers to each other?
Let me fix that for you...
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SirPrimalform: Should Humble make sure people aren't sending GOG installers openly to each other on their site?
Yes. Because it's a store and not a site for pirates to get their games.
Posted July 18, 2013
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real.geizterfahr: I don't say anything. GOG can do as they wish. I just say that amok has a point. Giving away a key is giving out an one time piratable copy. If you want that on your website: go ahead. Who am I to tell you what you have to do?
Except if the correct number of licences have been paid for, it's not pirated. In that case the only bad thing happening is that you're doing something they asked you not to do. It's not immoral like splitting licences (buying only one licence and giving the key to someone else and keeping the download for yourself).

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real.geizterfahr: Let me fix that for you...
Yes. Because it's a store and not a site for pirates to get their games.
Right, because sending a GOG installer to someone else would be piracy. Giving one of your paid for licences away in a non-duplicatable way like a Steam key is not piracy. If you can't see the difference then there's no point in arguing further.
Posted July 18, 2013
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Immoli: Walmart sells a lot of DVD collections that include multiple DVDs each with a different movie on it. There's nothing wrong with giving away some of the movies and keeping some others.
If Walmart asked you to sign a contract that specifically said that you could not give away individual movies, then yes, I'd say there's something wrong with giving away individual movies.
Posted July 18, 2013
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Immoli: Walmart sells a lot of DVD collections that include multiple DVDs each with a different movie on it. There's nothing wrong with giving away some of the movies and keeping some others.
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thebum06: If Walmart asked you to sign a contract that specifically said that you could not give away individual movies, then yes, I'd say there's something wrong with giving away individual movies.
Good thing Humble Bundle didn't do that.
Posted July 18, 2013
I'll just say that if GOG ever decide to enforce this situation on blocking accounts I would love if they consider giving you a warning before that, only one plain and concrete warning, so everybody stop such operations, and if blocked, they know why.

I have my reasons, and I'll stop any bundle sharing in this forum if warned by them on blocking me, I'm not risking my 38 earned games account on a bundle key, and I have a decent backlog to keep me going for a while until I move from this hole I live in, so I don't need to abuse bundles anymore.

Thanks Amok for sharing the answer provided by GOG, if they inform you about something else please consider sharing it with us aswell.

Cheers!

Edited.
Post edited July 18, 2013 by Crsldmc
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Letter to GOG about bundle keys giveaways. (164 posts)(164 posts)
(164 posts)