Gotta agree here as it goes along with what Weclock and I discussed in another thread. I understand the difference between owning the code, which I don't, and owning my copy of the game, which I think I do. I bought it and as long as I don't sell or give away copies, claim that I wrote it, use it in a product that I claim as my own, etc, I should be able to do with it as I please.

I don't know what EULA's you've all agreed to in the past, but many games discount direct reverse engineering of games. This means looking at the code and altering it, for whatever reason. Ports have never been an issue, although most ports are ONLY possible if they use graphic files from the original game or the source code is open source ala Doom or Duke3D. If neither are true then yes - the port is illegal believe it or not.
Now whether the company will do anything is a different picture. Obviously GOG doesn't care or they wouldn't be suggesting fan patches and ports to games which are not open sourced. I think you guys are blowing this way out of proportion.

For the life of me I cannot find the lawsuit that was about trading a purchased product. I cannot remember if it was a CD or video game, nor if it was Sony or Sega, or another company. Any help on this one guys? From what I remember it was a company basically saying that purchasing a game does not mean you can trade or sell that game/CD to someone else. From what I understand the company lost that battle and the judge upheld that the company owns the IP rights, but not the physical aspect of it.
Does anyone remember this and can help me find a link? Or am I just getting old and my memory is going?
Personally I think we need to bring back code wheels, I love those things! :)

Thanks SkullCowboy for cleaning up my words here. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that when we buy something from GOG we should own the Copyright to the product. What I am suggesting is simply that I should own a copy of the product, not that use rights to the product should be licensed to me.
The cool thing about copyright law is that it establishes protections for the copyright owner without requiring that anyone sign/agree to a contract. I would repeat my analogy about books, but I think it's getting a little trite.
Granted, the situation is complicated because GOG doesn't simply sell you a copy, they sell you the rights in perpetuity to download a copy. I don't think it would be unreasonable for GOG to include a passage such as "if you transfer your copy of Fallout, you agree to immediately inform GOG.com or its designated affiliate, and to destroy any copies remaining in your possession." However, using blanket language to prevent me from giving this game to a friend when I am done with it though is a frustrating and unnecessary restriction.
Also, Avatar brings up the issue of how modern games have blocked resale.
A) This is a bad thing - resale rights are important to keeping old games in circulation. I hope that GOG is able to give that circulation a boost, but it would be horrible if they were to stymie the long-term circulation of these games.
B) Modern games have tried, but courts have found thus far in cases where there is physical medium distributed, consumers are protected by the First Sale doctrine, which overrides any terms of the EULA and grants consumers, among other things, the right to resale. You can read about one of the more recent first sale doctrine cases here:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/if-it-looks-duck-seattle-judge-finds-software-was-
If I'm protected by the first sale doctrine, why do I care?
A) it's a matter of principle, and I don't like agreeing to contracts I intend to break, even if I can do so legally.
B) The First Sale doctrine has not been tested in a case where the media in question is never distributed on a physical medium. I don't have the time or money to test this case, so it's quite likely that, for me, the contract could be binding.
Edit: cleaned up a few grammar things. Also, I Qikdraw, if there is a more recent case, you should post it, but I think the most up to date caselaw favours the consumer.

Perhaps, avatar_58, perhaps. And while I will agree that GOG most likely doesn't care, there are enough organizations out there with familiar initials that developers and publishers are members of that just might decide they care sometime down the line. Everybody knows that most EULAs are crap. But it can be VERY expensive to fight litigation to prove that.
Just for thought: Here we are typing about EULAs in a format that is stored and "It's BS, just ignore it, nobody cares about that anyway."
Lawyers have loads of fun with 'evidence' just such as this... ;)

If it isn't discussed, then things could be worse.
I feel lied to. I thought it was MY game. According to the EULA I'm renting it.

Are you referring to Autodesk suing some guy who tried to sell his old copies of their software on E-Bay:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080522/0016171201.shtml
Code wheels.... there's a blast from the past. I always liked the ones where you had to find the fifth word in the second paragraph on page 54 of the manual. You were screwed if you ever lost your manual.

Autodesk. It might be that, and that was one I kept pulling up, but I kept thinking it was a CD or a game, I donno why. So that very well might be the case I heard about.
I never did like the manual ones, as you say if you lost it you were screwed. I think the first game I played that had that was Space Rogue, but I felt that the code wheel just put you into the mood of the game, if you know what I mean. It helped draw me in. Of course if you lost that you were screwed too. lol

Sorry but I find this thread kind of ridiculous, it feels like some peoples never ever reads a single EULA, a any license for that matter, in their entire life, or maybe did they really expect GOG to use a "GPL-like" license ?
Seriously even when you buy a CD you don't "officially" don't own anything except a piece of plastic and a limited, terminable license to listen what's on it, nothing more, the only difference is that this temporary license is linked to a physical object so if you give/sell the object in question the license is automatically transfered, but of course you can't do that for purely virtual digital stuff ... unless you use DRM.
Also what some seems to conveniently forget is that GOG don't own any of the games they sell, the only thing they own is a limited, terminable license to sell those games, they can only give us the rights that the original rights owner allowed them to gave us.
As a result it's perfectly understandable that the GOG's games EULA is the same than 99% of the others game's EULA, the biggest difference is that for all the games you bought on GOG you know that :
- You can create as many copy of them than you like.
- You don't need to have the original CD in the drive to play them
- You don't have any annoying anti-piracy program installing itself as a driver, rendering you computer unstable or even deciding that the original CD is not "original" enough to let you play. And you will never need an "illegal in some country" crack to remove it.
- If GOG ever lose the rights for the games you bought, or if they die, you will still be able to play all of them, you don't have the risk of being unable to "activate" them because the activation server is no longer there.
And the list can continue like that for quite some time, that's what I call "owning" my games, so yes maybe GOG EULA (or Stardock one) isn't perfect, but in the end and if you remain realistic, it's a much better deal than anything we had in all those years of PC gaming.
But if you really want to own 100% of your games then the only thing you can do is forget about commercial games and start downloading GPL games there is no other way.
edit: terrifyingly bad spelling, sorry...

Dunno, not being able to resell your game seems like a reasonable compromise when buying DRM-free, cheap games. I'd take this over DRM, anyway.
You can download the game as many times as you want. Burn it to disc, install it as many times as you want, to any computer in your household. From now to the destruction of the universe.
Does that really sound more like "renting" than "owning" to you? It's a digital product, so obviously, there will be some differences. Still, it's pretty far from a mere rental, I'd say.
EDIT: Oh, Gersen made my post completely redundant, it seems. This is what you get for not refreshing threads.

Healthy dialog is NEVER ridiculous. Let me give you an example.
You are correct about just owning a piece of plastic (or a digital file) and not the content. It is just a form of content, after all. What I DO own (subject to the laws of my country and NOT the license the content owner wants to foist on me) is the right to use that content in certain ways. And the content producers are continually trying to minimize my right to use that content. THAT is what we are really talking about here. The right of first sale. The right to make a backup. The right to move it from device to device. Did you know it is perfectly legal to make backups of your DVD movies? Only problem is is it NOT legal to defeat the copy protection to do it and the copy protection keeps you from making a backup. THAT it what is ridiculous.
Talking about these things? IS. NOT.
edited for spelling probably still missed something :)

I am curious, what exactly is the spirit of DRM-free, what is the spirit of DRM? You say it goes against it, yet you don't define it. Since you seem to be comming from a different perspective, it is important you define it.
I'll define my perspective: DRM has nothing to do with what you can do with a program, it is purely about enforcement. What you said strikes me as being like saying having seatbelt laws goes against the spirit of not having traffic cops stop and check you at every intersection. This is nonesense. DRM is hated not because it defines rules, it doesn't, but rather because of how it inforces them.
Really? Even books that exist purily in digital form? Also, you ARE aware you can give games to friends, right? If you have, say, a ps1 game, nothing is stopping you from giving that disk to a friend. The reason is because, like paper books, ps1games are neatly contained on a physical media. Many PC games, especially downloadable ones like at GOG, are not. Because of this difference it is simply not practical to treat them the same. You are comparing different products that have important differences that arguably necessitate differences in how they are treated.
Did you really believe "you actually own it" ment you were buying the copywrite itself? Human language is not an exact thing like computer code is, lots of things in it are simply implied or assumed to be understood. "Own" in one case here means something different than it does in the other case. This is why laws can often be twisted or loopholes can so often be found in them. Even with legalise, which is designed to lesson such problems, human language simply does not support expressing ideas in a way that can stand up to nitpicing on every word and technically possible meaning. This is made even worse when you compare legalise to casual language, as you are. If you are unwilling to look beyond each word and actually look at the concepts trying to be expressed with a bit of sense, then it is just not possible to properly communicate with you using human language.
I think you've claimed some rights here you don't have.
As a gamer, I support a situation that allows both me and the companies involved to benefit and protect themselves. I am not comfortable with them holding all the cards, but I also don't expect them to be comfortable with letting me hold all the cards. I do not accept having to deal with huge DRM hassles for only a fraction of benefit for them, and nor do I expect them to give me so much slack that I hardly benefit from it at great cost to their ability to protect themselves or make money. You seem to be upset because there are some limits, I do not see your viewpoint as even remotely fair. They are taking risks as it is, and I'd be surpised if they don't have to eventually tighten some things just to stay in business.
As an honest person, I expect others to not trust me. I expect, and encourage, them to take measures within reason to protect themselves should I turn out to be untrustworthy. I understand how, due to the nature of downloadable services like this one as opposed to solid media ones like paper books and cartridge games, they may need to put on certain limits that those other kinds of media do not have. Restrictions such as limiting each purchase to a specific non-transferable person seem perfectly fair to me, considering all that they do allow.
I am impressed with GOG because it seems to be trying to make money by serving the public good. You might not be comfortable with some of their terms, and if so you have a right not to do business with them. Perhaps you have a good reason to feel this way, but even if so GOG's terms hardly amount to rape.
You want an example of unfair, how about the downloadable content system for the Wii? Never used it, but I've heard if you buy something on it, it is stuck on that system. HDD failure? Too bad, you have to buy your downloadable games again. And yet if you transfer your system to another person you cannot transfer those games, you have to wipe them. So, is it on a per person or per system bases? 'Cause the end user seems to get only the disadvantages of both.
To finish, let me say Direct2Drive and such can shove it. I'll never buy from them, so its not like I'm defending GOG here because my standards are low. I just recognise there is more going on here than just whether or not I get what I want, and that I cannot rightly expect others like GOG to respect my position and cut me some slack if I am unwilling to do the same for them.

Gersen is right here.
A) If you don't like the EULA, don't buy the games.
B) Software is not the same as books. Your analogy does not fit. Copyright and commerce law has not yet caught up to the software age.
What you haven't said is why you have a problem with this EULA. Are you afraid of being arrested? Banned from GOG? What? Its a standard Agreement and I am not sure what the frucas is about.
You should not be able to transfer these games, as they are tied to an account. Transfer the account. If you don't like this rule, don't use GOG.
If the language about altering does not specifically call out modifications, then I do not read it as such. Again, what are you afraid about here?
Finally, the terms of use are universal. There is a lot of debate going on right now about what that is. You will not solve it now, nor should GOG. If you don't like the current software licenses, don't buy the software.
As someone in the software industry, I understand the need to question this. But using hyperbole such as "Unable to agree" and "Most disturbing" seems ludicrous. Really? your 5.99 purchase is disturbing you? Real world is going to be very disturbing if you are losing sleep over this. If you want to discuss the EULA, fine, its a worthy discussion. But trying to make yourself out to be a victim here is just silly.

Don't get me wrong, I never said, or at least it wasn't my intention , that it's ridiculous to talk about consumer rights or complains about their limitation and stuff like that, no, what I find ridiculous is blaming GOG for their EULA while in the end it's a pretty standard EULA and especially while you can hardly expect game companies to accept anything more permissive. (it's already a little miracle that they accept the DRM-free part)
Oh believe me I am perfectly aware of that and I definitely agree with most of it, but it's a much bigger debate that's outside the original scope of this thread.
The biggest problem is that in a lot of countries, most of fair use rights, are not actually rights, they are only exceptions to copyrights law.
For example in France (I don't know if it's also the case in the US), you don't have the right to make a backup copy, copyrights laws forbid you to, but if you do it anyway and that this copy is only for personal backup purpose then you won't be bothered by the law and the rights owner can't do anything against you. But as it's not a "right" if somehow the rights owner manage to find a way to prevent you from doing any copy, they can, and you can't do anything about it.

Which I said I won't :P
Also, as far as 'lol not really renting it.'
Regardless the EULA out right says I do not own it. But the website says 'You buy it, you own it.'
That's lying. Plain and simple.
But I am going to have to inspect this EULA more later, because as I said previously, no access to it. so :P