No analogy is perfect. But in this case GOG most definitely is taking it away. Sure, I have the copy I downloaded earlier, but if I hadn't downloaded it, then it would be gone from my account. Similarly, if I lose my files and need to download them again, I will not get the removed content. So the fact that I have a backup doesn't redress the fact that GOG has taken it away. And in fact, it could be argued that I am not entitled to keep the copy of the files I downloaded earlier, since they are no longer officially part of the product.

In the case of my CD analogy, this would be as if I ripped the CD to MP3s before they took it away from me. I still have the files to personally enjoy, but they are no longer part of the official product that I bought and now own.

Thank you for the clarification, HypersomniacLive.
I suppose that that extra information (what does this run on?), if not provided by GOG, would be on the Wiki? Or can you suggest another simple way to learn that?

What you are quoting there is the opinion of the ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). Of course, they would qualify that as public performance because they collect the royalties for them in the USA.

Whether this can really be considered a public performance or not is up for judges to decide when someone brings a case to court. I don't think such a case has gone to the courts yet.

Also keep in mind that while public performances are covered by copyright basically everywhere in the world the exact definition of a public performance may vary from country to country.

I'd say a game that came with music should still come with the music... Although you mentioned they could produce copies of the game with the music during the 5 year example, the game devs could originally make a million copies and take forever to sell them all, they just can't make more after the 5 years and have to sell what stock they have.

As for DD and steam, it's definitely a gray area, an area that shouldn't have an issue. If the game devs are making enough money on it still, they should just renew it to keep everyone happy unless the prices increase to unbelievable amounts, at which they should be allowed to re-up using the original contract. And we know rockstar can afford it after how many billions they made within 24 hours of selling GTA 5...

It just seems like an utter annoyance, in which the customers ultimately lose out.

Yes, it's an opinion piece encouraging the composers to do something because of what they can benefit.

A case may not have gone to court, but since providers have to abide by ASCAP rules if they want to license through ASCAP...

Of course, things would vary per country and per contract.

I'm not Hypersomniac. :P

GOGwiki is one source, Wikipedia is another and then, there is this GOGmix which mentions some of the games that use DOSBox. Unfortunately, there is currently no official way to determine which games run DOSBox, unless you buy them.
In that case, Steam/Rockstar are already commiting copyright infringement by allowing original buyers of Vice City to keep an unaltered version of the game in their accounts, before it was modified to remove the expired music.

Yeah, but producing and storing a high number of copies that they might not even sell costs a lot of money.

As I already said, music or other entertainment products don't fall under FRAND rules so the people holding the rights to it can charge as much as they want. There is no legal way to renew the old contract if both parties don't agree to renew under the old terms.

And when we specifically talk about Rockstar and GTA, yeah, I'm sure they certainly could afford to renew the contract. But that's not how companies run. The main function of a company is to earn money for its owners or stock holders.

The calculation goes more like this:

A = Number of copies they estimate to sell in the next 5 years with the original music.
B = Number of copies they estimate to sell in the next 5 years with changed music. (because the people either don't care or don't know about the change).
Projected loss = (A - B) * selling price.

C = Cost of original music for the next 5 years.
D = Cost of changed (cheaper) music for the next 5 years.
Projected win = C - D

Projected Total = Projected win - Projected loss

If the Projected Total is positive they make money by changing the music if it is negative they lose money. Whether they can afford the original music or not does not factor into the decision at all.

Sad but true. And yes, it is the customers that lose out. But as I said, the only course of action the customer can take is not to buy games that require Steam.

Maybe. With CD's/DVD's, making bulk disks costs something like 5 cents per, course you're also considering they make 20,000+ at a time too. Yeah storing the discs might take a little work, but otherwise it's fairly cheap while generic cases and stuff doesn't have to be specifically for the game. Covers and manuals (assuming they are needed) can be printed as needed in bulk as well, and don't have the same copyright issue as the music does.

But it depends on the game. Large AAA games that are more likely to sell in the long term you can make larger bulk copies of stuff, although being console specific takes away from it's value if it doesn't sell within the lifetime of the system; Course you can still sell the disks on ebay or gamespot for $1 apiece and still break even while only needing a single storage room where you store the discs in bulk.

But making bulk copies of a game that totally flops would be a setback for sure, especially if you made a million copies... Hmmm...

That depends. Perhaps they had a better contract for the music in Vice City that allows them to supply the original music for legacy customers.

Or perhaps the game is so old that no one really cares. There is an old proverb here in Austria: Wo kein Kläger, da kein Richter. (Literal translation in English: Where there's no plaintiff, there's no judge.)

Yes, there is. When a business is closed mostly the pending claims are managed by some other people who are dealing with things like bankruptcy. (Hope you understand what I mean - this kind of business English I don't know well).

So they never even mention the possibility - instead telling everybody that you have the games in your library and can download them whenever you want but this tiny information about the fact that it might be too late you don't have to mention? Great!

I don't think it is the same if I (!) lose my stuff or some company I already paid for does.

Which I did - I just find it strange to argue about something you did not even read yourself but you THINK would be there.

I never said something different. I am only saying that usual handling does not make laws. TOS which are complient to the law however is a totally different thing.

It does not matter what they really are referring here. It does matter what any customer might think and why he'd buy things at GOG. This way it simply is false advertizing because they don't keept the promise they use to get people to buy at GOG.

So to get this to an end. I would find it fair if GOG would stop advertizing the way they do now and they should also make more clear that your library is not like a safe but more like a temporal storage which you should backup regularly.

This really isn't the same in this circumstance, but I'm not going to continue down this path...

This is why it's your job to read the TOS that you agree to by joining... it's clearly stated that they can end/remove any service at any time. The ability to download from GOG is a service, plain and simple.


That's not what I meant, it not about who loses the stuff, it's about you can't reasonably expect to re-obtain your stuff months/years later after that sale is final. It's your job to make sure you keep your items safe and that you have obtained them for safe keeping. It's not GOG's job to keep them safe for you indefinitely nor to provide you more than one copy... but of course they *try* to do that to keep their customers goodwill. They just have no obligation too.

Most TOS's are written nearly with the same info especially when it comes to software/games... I have read many of them before so I was pretty sure GOG would have something similar as they are a company that wants to protect there interest.


Actually when your trying to claim false advertising what their referring is what matters the most, you have to prove they meant one thing over another and didn't deliver on it. You simply can't because it's not clear, me reading that I don't see them promising to keep content hosted for you at all, I see them saying you will always be able to access your downloaded content online or offline because there is no DRM.

Perhaps that is true, doesn't mean their legally doing anything wrong. Just ethically/morally for their customers they probably should make that more clear.
True, I agree their taking it away & that's not right. This kind of things should be in a contract to protect consumers who have already bought said content. I just feel comparing this to other digital providers GOG still has the better benefit to the consumer since your getting a DRM free product and it can't be taken away as long as you download it after you buy it. GOG has no obligation to host content indefinitely no matter why it was removed.

Also it might be argued that your not entitled to removed content, but there is nothing that anyone can do about it. And you technically are entitled to it, because as far as I am aware bonus content does not usually come with any license or terms & you have payed for it. Any content you download and backup is going to be safe and yours.

This will probably backfire on me, but come on people, this is "The "what did just update?" thread ", not "The debate on the ethics of online digital distribution thread".

Please open a different thread if you want to dig any deeper into this.

I'm not saying it's not worth debating, but it really clogs up things for people who want to keep up with game/site updates (due to the lack of a better alternative).

You are absolutely right - even if it still has to do something with the thread title (the problem only came up because of the Dracula 4 "update") it still is off topic and probably there will not be a real solution no matter how long we talk about what should or should not be. So I will rest this discussion for now.

Your right, and no problem.

Thanks for the very informative post!