Well, you can't gift them, technically, so that's out of the question.
That really made me chuckle. How many people are under the average has nothing to do with how rational they are. Whether everyone is highly rational or everyone is highly irrational, that will be true (assuming normal distribution, ...).

Touche! ;) But I hope you weren't chuckling at me :) though I try to make my rhetoric amusing.

Indeed the implicit argument is not that superficial. Whatever absolute difference in rationality between the upper half and the lower half (and further being sure which one you are is often impossible) the dynamics I expressed still follow naturally. It's a relative dynamic. So your caveat is logically a non sequitur itself, despite being correct that I did make a non sequitur argument myself.

And maybe that was intentional on my part heh? Doesn't it rhetorically prove my point that to make a point, expediency beats precision - sensation beats reason - every, single, time? On average of course. ;) Layers upon layers of meaning. How wonderfully ambiguous this all is...

So which is it. Are you in this for the rational discussion, in which case I gave you a lot of meat higher up? Or are you in it to score points? In which case... well, I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks. :)

this made me spit coffee out my nose laughing

Unfortunately you're the only one. Every once in a while I lay down a joke I actually think is funny and it tanks. This was one of those jokes. :P

aww, i always appreciate your spam, just today was extra special, im still wiping off my monitor. heh heh

I've got a photo of my first daughter aged about 9 months. She's on my lap in front or our massive 17" CRT monitor "playing" quake.

She's now 15, and played most game I've got. Though Witcher 3 is installed she's not played it much. She's waiting till I upgrade and she can get my old GFX card.

Oh sorry. I meant, install on their computer for free or let them play on my computer. That is something I can do technically.

Considering they're able to sign up (with parental consent), I think it's only safe to assume they would indeed be expected to purchase their own copies.

I believe that letting someone else play on your computer is allowed. I think it was said to be okayed by someone at GOG, but I don't really remember. In any case, far as I know it's a pretty standard "right", i.e., it's expected that if you own the device and have a license to what's installed on the device then it's fair use for you to let someone else use your device and access the installed content.

As for installing on someone else's computer, that would tend to fall under creating a new copy, so would go against copyright.

Agreed. But there were posts (old posts) that you should be ok with borrowing the installer to a friend - as long as you uninstall or don't use the game while lent - and obviousy ensure the friend will uninstall it. I would not expect any official statement / policy in that direction - even for household copies.

Basically, there is a grey area of things we can do technically (it's all DRM free) and that we are somewhat tacitly encouraged to do as ethical - GOG's pro consumer mindset is clear to me. But these practices are in fact legally over the line - at least by the contracted terms.

As has probably been understood by implication, I think it's exactly GOG's pro consumer mindset (being nice) that is directly the cause of the unintended ambiguity the OP wanted to clarify. However clarifying the ambiguity either way would piss off the other side - seriously piss off. So it just won't happen - the TOS are legally not ambiguous IMO and pending legislation contravening them are binding. Anything else can / should be dismissed.

Now, since it seems from this post of yours that we are actually at leat 90% in agreement - which I had assumed because I usually read your posts in these discussions and nod my head along - care to PM me what the heck was the matter? Did my rhetoric strike you as disagreeable towards mechmouse?

I think this would surely be reasonable behavior but also it does not become clear from the ToS of GOG. Basically we all interpret it one way or another as we go. It would be much easier if GOG would just clarify their ToS regarding what is allowed and what is not allowed.
I'm not sure the ambiguity really is intentional, but if it is the implications would be clear for the user: Do everything that is not forbidden by the ToS. So sharing among family and maybe close friends / roommates too is not explicitly forbidden, so it must be allowed. Case closed.

Please read me again, I said unintended ambiguity. And further argued the ambiguity is only in the eye of the consumer - not in the contract. If you want to argue that "personal" in the ToS does not mean individual... I think that is bordering on malicious, despite the possible "non-commercial" interpretation ET3D mentioned and I addressed higher up. You seemed to disagree with him that was the meaning then by the way... Anyway, there is no legal ambiguity in the GOG ToS IMO. We do not have the right. The End. Comments in the forums are not contract amendments. Also the GOG ToS is not the be all end all... each product has their own ToS or EULA which supersedes GOG general terms.


Still, your comment is great in how it illustrates precisely where we differ in legal interpretations. With commercial contract law I don't see the operating principle that you have a license to whatever is not explicitly listed. Rather the opposite: You only have the right to what is made explicit in the contract.

It's only with political stuff like National Constitutions and the so called Social Contract that I assume the consumer (ergo the citizen) has all the license to do whatever that is not explicitly disallowed by the government (ergo supplier).

If it needs being expressed explictly that's because I see commercial exchanges as being in principle not coercive - you can always choose to not agree to the contract. Whereas political society is not strictly speaking voluntary, and therefore liberty / license to do whatever needs to be protected more strongly in that sphere. We hold the political legitimacy and politicians are the one contracting with us so to speak, not the other way around.

Ergo. Consumer entitlement broadly defined is strongly caused by conflation of political license / democratic power - which we have grown kind of accustomed to ideologicaly (and a good thing too - despite us handing over the power itself too easily to the authorities IMO) - into the commercial / economical sphere. It boils down to ownership being legitimate or not. We all own society, but we all do not own software - its specific creator does and they have complete right to set whatever terms and conditions.