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Comment by hd4 | Hacker News Reader

"acting as a stark reminder of how volatile digital ownership is"

Okay I'm gonna say out loud what people are thinking, just pirate videogames. These companies are comfortable with taking away ownership of a product we paid for when they feel like, they broke the social contract, just take their shit.

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This is wrong, digital ownership isn't volatile at all. I have software I can do whatever I want with, including copy it. The problem is when we're actually renting but it's being marketed as ownership.

We need laws that say "if your software can stop functioning if a company goes under, without a technical reason, you can't say 'buy', you can only say 'rent'".

"The problem is when we're actually renting but it's being marketed as ownership."

which is the primary form of videogame ownership now.

Yep.

The point is these companies should legally be restricted from using terms like “buy” or “purchase” wherever their game is sold. Instead they should be required to use terms like “lease” or “rent”. The common understanding of terms like “buy” or “purchase” is that you own the item. This is clearly not the case for nearly all games consumers lease today.

In a way we are moving towards a more honest/ethical way of marketing and selling/leasing games and software in general: SaaS, or subscriptions.

Purchasing a subscription very clearly conveys the ultimately temporary and ephemeral nature of the purchase.

Note: I'm not saying this is necessarily a good or bad thing nor whether we should like or hate it, I'm merely pointing out a shift in market trends.

I'm not sure I see a difference between renting and subscribing, with regards to software. I do know, however, that I hate both models because both seek to milk the user for all they are worth.

I'm saying they're the same and that it is more honest, relatively speaking.

How does that change anything for consumers other than its more clear that they're allowed to fuck us?

That clarity is the point, though not the ultimate goal. If you understand from the start the ways in which you can be screwed, then you’ll think harder before giving them money and may refrain from doing so. Which in turn hurts their profit, which in turns makes them reconsider the business model.

In theory.

The consumer gets to make a more informed decision about whether they’d like to be fucked.

Basically only truly DRM-free, offline games in GOG/itch.io will be able to show "Buy", giving them an advertising edge.

In a EULA this is usually pointed out early in the text: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/40537/what-does-this...

But it translates to "real world" writing very poorly. "Pay for this game now!" "Revocably license for $N". Hope these examples aren't too contrived, in my head they all sound so if I replace the standard "Buy" as a call-to-action.

The fact they’re allowed to hide information like this in the EULA instead of including it up front in product advertisements is part of the problem.

They’re advertising one transaction, but then holding you to another and hoping you won’t notice the legalese.

If this is the language they use then the “Buy” button in the online store should say “License” instead.

Is it? I know cancerous companies like EA and Ubisoft do that, but are they actually the majority? I’m not a mainstream gamer, so I really can’t tell. None of the games I play require an internet connection.

If the button they pressed said "buy" that should probably override other terms that are imposed afterwards.

However we turn it, the moment you have clear split between the common perception and the actual state of things, something has to give.

I'd agree with the parent in letting business models break, instead of people's sanity. Changing labelling laws would be more of a bandaid.

I disagree, piracy is a bandaid to better laws. I support both, though.

It's not "piracy", but copyright infringement. One is not comandeering a ship, its crew or its freight through the use of violence.

Oh, sorry, then count me out. If there's no plank to make people walk, I'm staying home.

So I'm renting the bonus features on this old blu-ray

If it requires some kind of internet connection to check, then yes.

And I'm renting fresh fruit

How about they being obliged to give you money back if it's been less than five years of rent before they bailed out?

Also, being obliged to archive the whole thing properly.

I've been saying for years that copyright should have a mandatory escrow, just like patents. If you want to apply for long-term copyright, an original copy should be stored somewhere like a national library. That copy is not allowed to be encrypted or otherwise protected either (at least not with a key that's not available to the escrow party).

I might go a step further in that N years without general availability, is abandonment and the work becomes public domain.

> We need laws that say "if your software can stop functioning if a company goes under, without a technical reason, you can't say 'buy', you can only say 'rent'".

No, we really don't, because the only thing this will accomplish is make them change the "buy" button to a "rent" or "subscribe" button. People will pay for it anyway, because most of them don't care. Things like Game Pass have already gone a long way in normalizing the renting of digital games, and digital media in general is slowly moving towards a subscription-only future. Almost nobody buys music and movies anymore, for example.

If the problem is to actually be solved, we need to stop this shift towards an online-only subscription-based future entirely. Unfortunately, I don't think that's ever going to happen.

I have a better button. "Add to my Collection". This also hints that you don't own any of it every time you click that button.

How do you make that assumption? I dodn't expect one of a comic collection or classic transformers to disappear in a few years, other than theft. Which is what this more closely resembles in practical terms.

I don’t find that clear at all. “My collection” implies I own it so it’s back to square one. Plus your wording is too long for a button and doesn’t make it clear at all that money will exchange hands.

There's a non-zero chance that a mandatory change in the user-facing language allows them to set reasonable expectations after parting with some of their money will result in more users choosing to support content which they actually will own

The medical industry often has contractual obligations to post the source code, dependencies and instructions for building the software to a third party escrow service. In case of bankruptcy this source code is then released to the customers.

Maybe software copyright should expire when a company dies, making all source code they owned public domain.

> Maybe software copyright should expire when a company dies

Why just bankruptcy? I'd say any software copyright should cease when the owner cannot or will not continue supporting the software to work to the level of functionality from purchase or at discontinuation, whichever is higher.

So even if a company still operates but isn't keeping your purchased software working (as-is operation, not security patches or new features) at least at the level from when you bought it or when it was discontinued, then the software should become open under reasonable conditions. Free for personal use, maybe a reasonable licensing cost for companies who want to keep supporting it commercially.

There are probably many corner cases that would need to be addressed to not become a vehicle for abuse but it would be a good start towards not making software unnecessarily obsolete.

The counter-argument would be that game code includes valuable IP including frameworks, models, and so on, some of which might still be in use in other games.

Software is inherently fragile and dependent on surrounding technology. Buy a hammer, get a hammer. Buy (rent) software, you get something that only works on a specific combination of hardware and OS, perhaps only with certain libraries, packages, and other extras installed.

So even with open code the game will still stop being supported on new platforms, probably quite quickly.

GP's framework already covers that case though. Want to keep the IP? Keep supporting it.

How do they ensure the posted build instructions and software actually work? In case of release, if it turns out to not work, you’re still out of luck. I don’t think this is practical unless “can be made to work independently” is already publicly verifiable when the software is first issued. Which of course won’t happen because it would immediately be pirated.

That's what "digital ownership" is these days. The companies will outright tell you that you are "purchasing an item" and that you "own it" in your library. But will bury deep in ToS that it's a revocable license. That is the status quo of digital ownership. This is what it means in the context of reality.

If you contort the "digital ownership" definition to mean that you properly own things, you are right. But that is not the definition we go by.

And that's the issue. The word "ownership" has a very long history, it existed long before "digital" did. We need to get rid of the twisted terms and go back to calling a spade a spade.

As the meme goes, if buying isn't owning then pirating isn't stealing.

Piracy has never been theft, regardless of what lies the public has been fed.

It's copyright infringement.

The fact that the word "piracy" is somehow re-used for copyright infringement is one of the largest victories in language wars of the 20th century. It's Orwellian double speak at its best. Everyone know we are not talking about actual pirates raiding someone goods, but we use it none the less.

The intense irony of this is that piracy was often sanctioned by nations during times of war in the 18th and 19th century. It gave them an option to conduct commerce raiding without the need for an explicit expansion of their navy. It could even be considered patriotic.

I see some (including RMS) get hung up on the term "piracy", even though for most people the word pirate is not really associated with real-world crime and criminals, its a fun cartoonish thing, Jolly Roger hat, eyepatch, hook hand, wooden leg, parrot on the shoulder, arrr etc. They don't think of pirates on the Somalian coast holding AK47s.

Digital "ownership" isn't really ownership even when the companies aren't being assholes because you can't resell the thing. Hardly anyone noticed this ability being taken away, but back in the day, the secondary market for games on physical media, especially console games, was huge. It was much more affordable to buy a pre-owned game than a new one, with no downsides.

This has also led to the preservation of many of the games I grew up with. There's still a market for NES and Atari consoles and a market for the cartridges because you can still play and use them.

It's going to be a very different story for modern consoles.

All current-generation consoles do still take physical media, but yeah, there already are some smaller games that only come as digital. For those, I guess, piracy is the only way they could be preserved.

The physical media doesn't matter if shutting down the service makes it unplayable.

I prefer to do the taking shit up front because you never know if you can take their shit later.

(I do pay for it but only after I'm sure I can take it)

"If buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing"

This was online only game.

Then if they are shutting down they should be forced to release a server and let people host themselves

This or else don't sell the software implying people own it

Was it? From TFA:

> [...] despite a large portion of the game being doable in singleplayer [...]

It's a single player game, that requires check-ins to an online server. When Ubisoft shuts down their servers the single player will be unplayable.

I haven't played this game, but the article says:

> despite a large portion of the game being doable in singleplayer, The Crew remained an online-only endeavour throughout its decade-long lifespan.

So it didn't have to be online if it wasn't for corporate greed.

Well, hate to be a devils advocate but the entirety of The Crew was designed from the very start as an MMO-like experience with your session hosted on a server. It's not like the game was built as a single player experience and then Ubisoft HQnsaid "you know what guys, make it online only because that will make us more money". Ivory Tower wanted to build a permanently online car MMO-like game from the start. Arguably they didn't have to build it that way, but if that's the creative vision then I wouldn't say it's wrong. What's wrong is shutting down the servers.

> https://steamcommunity.com/app/241560/discussions/0/38039015...

> Update

> I can now confirm that local save data functionality is indeed built into all our copies and is not absent from the game, we have even obtained a sample save data file. This + the fact that we literally see offline mode in action in the prologue means that there 100% is an offline mode, if anyone was doubting at this point.

Which results in:

> https://steamcommunity.com/app/241560/discussions/0/43060751...

> Save Game Dumper now available

> However, you only have a limited time, after 31 march the servers will go down and your save file will be forever lost.

Not only would most of the game not require an internet connection to function, but people actually found out that the game already contains an official offline mode but Ubisoft couldn't even be bothered to make it available.

> taking away ownership of a product we paid for

If you should ever bother too look into your end user license agreements (EULA), you'd know you never owned anything to begin with. Nothing was ever sold to you. You acquired a license to use the product under the specified terms set forth in the EULA. If the terms of this license agreement don't sit right with you, I suggest you don't take the deal.

EULAs are nearly worthless where I live though, so actually if it says "buy" the product is bought not rented, no matter what the EULA says.

And what exactly have you bought then? I mean beyond hopefully a physical medium, the right to use that software in perpetuity and to transfer that software to others?

You mean like a book? Yes, that would be a natural assumption.

Every time this comes up someone in the comments pops up to smugly remind us that the EULA says we, as consumers, don't have rights. Why are you like this? Everyone knows we don't have rights. That's why we're complaining.

You clearly have rights and you clearly have a choice: You can for example say no to this kind of software and not license it. You could also accept that you will only be able to use the software fully for a limited time and be fine with paying for that.

What is striking me as quite disingenuous though is the loud complaining when the manufacturer does what was made clear right from the start. As if somehow a betrayal or theft was happening here which clearly isn't the case.

Ahh yes, EULAs are known for their stark clarity and ease of reading and understanding. They totally do not employ any dark patterns or intentionally mislead people. That would never happen.

Any agreement can't supersede laws. At least in my country. So I don't really care whatever EULA says, when I have bought something, and it was taken from me, I want it back or a refund.

Is it the EU? A lot of people feel that the particular action of Ubisoft of shutting down their online service and thus making their game unplayable should violate some EU law, but I can't find anyone actually pointing to a particular law.

If the law ever changes you may have a better chance. Or such games will not be published in the first place.

I haven't read it, but someone else here mentioned Directive (EU) 2019/770 (... on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services)

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