Sony, Ubisoft scandals lead to California ban on deceptive digital goods sales
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The law may say differently, but you cannot convince me that I don’t own something I bought through a “buy” button. I’ve never seen a book or movie or game or album where the button says “License” instead of “Buy”.
https://www.clarionsolicitors.com/articles/reselling-used-so...
It might be difficult in practice though, with platforms like Steam providing no means to actually resell a game to someone else.
it's all just whatever people agree upon is the correct thing to do, and people don't agree that what you're saying is the correct thing to do.
Other than the current written law (which is very, very, influenced by corporate lobbyists), how are you coming to this conclusion?
I think this is the point. We want to truly buy with a Buy action, and license or subscribe with License and Subscribe actions. I'm sure people would be mad even if a Licensed or Subscribed item would cease to work, but it's more honest, than saying that someone Bought something.
Creating a copy is violation of copyright. Owning a book, reading it, then reselling the copy you own is not.
'Buying' digital goods nowadays means the vendor can take the goods away from you at any time, for any reason, with zero compensation, and absolutely no possible way to recover said goods.
Correction: creating a copy that doesn't follow fair use requirements, is a violation of copyright.
Now, fortunately, it's illegal to mislead customers that way.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services. (And licenses, but don’t obscure that point in the fine print.)
In fact, it'd be even nicer if the legislation explicitly required rental terminology to be used for anything DRM-encumbered, but well, even as-is, this is an extremely welcome development and I hope legislators worldwide are taking note and plan to follow suit as soon as possible. This kind of victory for digital consumer rights has been long overdue!
That is to say, now opponents can't push us to compromise to that level and our worst case scenario in case we pass anything at all is looking better.
We're really happy this is happening because it changes the Overton window for us and makes our case stronger and easier to argue for, as you say.
A lot of change has been happening in the past few months and even weeks with regards to the market and legislative situation around the problematic of SKG and while you can't ever fully attribute something, we hope that it's thanks to our actions. Ubisoft promising end of life offline modes for The Crew 2 and the third game in the series called Motorfest. Capcom bringing back Windows 7 era games that were lost to G4WL.
The "Ubisoft scandal" mentioned in the headline - specifically the unforced shutdown and resulting removal of functioning state from The Crew - is something that SKG have no doubt popularized. Now that we're at 350 000 signatures of a goal of 1 000 000 in our direct democracy initiative, companies and lawmakers are starting to take things seriously. And this is with a $0 budget. We're still in need of more signatures over the next 10 months to reach the goal, so if you're an EU citizen, go click the link Sniffnoy posted above and sign. Worth doing even if you're not a gamer, just to claw back some ownership rights from corporations worth billions of dollars, spreading out to all corners of technology, not just games.
If you want a very short exposition of what Stop Killing Games is, here's a ~1 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGfqef-IqQ
If you want a good, exhaustive intro to what SKG is about, this interview between a game developer and two SKG organizers is worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpFqPGrgDk
Ross Scott is best known for his youtube series "Freeman's Mind" where he plays Half-Life and narrates what Gordon Freeman must be thinking, with a lot of deeply philosophical considerations. It's a staple of YouTube. He's also been running a series called "Dead Game News" and that's how Stop Killing Games was born.
The other organizer, Damian, is a real-deal neckbeard dev and has pretty much done it all from BASIC on 8-bit micros to theorem provers and from video games to cryptography audits.
Here's the original intro to Stop Killing Games by Ross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE
And here's a subsequent FAQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA
If anyone has questions about SKG, I'll be checking the replies now and then.
Also, might I recommend adding embed information to the website so linking it on i.e., Discord shows some information?
Regarding embed information, that's a great idea and I'll pass it on.
If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party library, what is the developer expected to do about that?
This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general: you download the game and then you have the game.
Since the ask is for a reasonably working game, maybe as a developer in that position you can just cut out the functionality that depends on the library or replace the library with something similar or mock it out or use a static cache of request vs response for all possible requests. The technological possibilities are endless.
It's not like as developers we're these helpless infants who have never solved a problem in our lives. It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, that's why you're a professional and not bush league.
Ultimately if someone can't figure out how to do their business without scamming people out of ownership then that's a skill issue. If they're not creative enough to figure it out, the business is doomed to begin with. Legislation often has the additional positive effect of ridding the market of people who shouldn't be there to begin with, like food trucks infested with cockroaches and pizza places that use fake cheese.
Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example. Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio. You might be ok with that, but why are your preferences more important than mine.
> This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general
This is a naive viewpoint IMO. Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform and this will squeeze out the possibility of small developers having multiplayer games. This sort of red-tape stifles innovation.
why are you using Oracle for video games? what's wrong with you?
> Or it would likely kill games like Rock band which have licensed audio.
Rock Band DOES work offline. Licensed audio in Rock Band is licensed in such a way that once a copy is sold the license allows the use of that copy in perpetuity. 100 years from now I'll still be able to pop in my Rock Band disc and play it, because that's how ownership works and the developer didn't get in the way of my ownership of my own property.
But when I said "It's a tech problem" I was answering someone who mentioned a tech problem.
Coming up with a different, non-tech problem as a counter-point to a whole discussion exclusively about a tech problem is not as smart as you think it is, and the examples you bring up aren't very good at all.
> Another way of looking at it is that only large companies will be able to conform
No, that's unmitigated nonsense. Just your first paragraph showed you have no idea what you're talking about, but now you're just stringing words together. The reason why only the largest companies can have these problems in the first place is because of their legacy technology integrations and pre-existing technology supplier agreements which they would have to re-negotiate. Remember, this is a scenario AFTER the initiative gets a million signatures, which is a year out, and AFTER the EU has legislated, which is another year at least, and AFTER the warning period which is several years. Even with the fastest possible timeline it's probably like 5 years of warning that things are going to change. And at that point anyone entering the space from the bottom as a new player is free to negotiate a deal which conforms with the market regulations going forward; if the technology suppliers don't want to negotiate realistic terms, they go out of business. While we're at it, large companies are also free to renegotiate their contracts to make them legal in the eyes of the legislation because contract survival terms are a standard staple in any technology supply agreement and if changes to market regulations make a contract unfit or illegal then renegotiations commence as a matter of course. But given the timeline of this going into effect they'll have renegotiated YEARS ahead of the deadlines.
This isn't a twitter poll. It's not going to go into effect 5 minutes after it's been posted. There will be AMPLE time for everyone to figure stuff out and change their paperwork, and the only companies really affected are the ones that already spend $1M+/year on legal anyways.
Because my previous project used it. It's an example. There are plenty of others. And I think this sort of attitude is unfair towards people like me who genuinely want to preserve video games, but are concerned that an ideological battle is going to negatively affect the industry.
> Licensed audio is licensed in such a way that once a copy is sold the license allows the use of that copy in perpetuity.
Licensed audio can be licensed in such a way. GTA being a great example of something that doesn't have perpetual licenses to their music.
> Coming up with a different, non-tech problem as a counter-point to a whole discussion exclusively about a tech problem is not as smart as you think it is
> no, that's unmitigated nonsense. Just your first paragraph showed you have no idea what you're talking about, but now you're just stringing words together.
In three paragraphs, you've attacked me three times, when there's no need to have done. If you can't have civil discourse, I'm not interested in discussing this with you.
no, it's not. An example is something that happens. What you brought up is a fantasy.
> GTA being a great example of something that doesn't have perpetual licenses to their music.
that's wrong, because even if Rockstar removed some songs from some versions of their game, if you bought the disc version of the game, then guess what - the songs are still on there.
it is neither the consumers' nor SKG's fault that the richest company in the richest entertainment industry is unwilling to negotiate terms that don't scam the people purchasing their products.
> you've attacked me three times
if you're going to make stuff up and bring up things that don't stand up to the simplest scrutiny then that's going to be brought up. that's not an attack on you, but it definitely is a comment on the quality of points you bring to the discussion. if you want to make better points, it's as simple as: before typing "X" google for "X?" and then read the top result. otherwise it's just whataboutism.
And I took that to mean that you just have to provide the server binaries and no support for them.
And fair enough, as a developer of a large online game myself, could get behind that.
But the moment this extends to needing to find solutions for people to be able to actually run it, I would withdraw my support.
Btw, I'm not sure you should show a cookie banner if you're not tracking people. But you must be more knowledgeable than me.
What I really like about this new law is that it makes (or should make) it easier to unsubscribe. Just Google how difficult it is to unsubscribe several major SaaS players, like e.g. Semrush on SEO. Good luck being compliant to AB 2426 with that 6-10 step!
At the same time adding the most invasive DRM to even their much older games. Lol, thanks for nothing, you can go.
They are not proposing to force media companies to make sure you have access to your media forever. Or force them to give you a downloadable copy when they remove media from store. They’ll just replace „Buy” button with „Get Access” or whatever and add some lawyer mumbo-jumbo above it.
Looks like a smokescreen to me.
I just think that this will end up the same way. Nothing really changes, but we’ll just get more useless „lawyer talk” in more and more license documents to click on.
What will change is that I will know not to buy games that don't have "Buy" button.
No, they are trying to make sure that companies don't tell you something is yours that isn't.
> They’ll just replace „Buy” button with „Get Access” or whatever and add some lawyer mumbo-jumbo above it.
Forbidding that would require forbidding rentals.
Sounds like exactly what is needed? Consumers currently think they're buying something when they click a button that says "Buy", when in reality they're getting temporary access to it.
Forcing companies to use clear language might change consumer behavior, or it might not, but at least it's no longer explicitly misleading.
This law is aimed at preventing deception at point of sale. It doesn’t target business practices.
One thing to worry about, perhaps, is how it might make it easier for companies to remove things that we have "Gotten access" to as it would be explicitly stated that we don't actually buy anything.
They are already doing it. The Crew is a good example. We are not losing anything here.
I fear that companies will view a change like this as a door opening wider to remove digital content as they please. Or perhaps worse, only offer strictly time-limited access with a "well, you're getting exactly what you asked for" view of it.
This is especially true when a large number of games do have a buy button. "Get access" stands out as not being the same as buying when you've bought the rest of your game library.
(b)(2)(A) seems to say that all an entity needs to do to comply with the law is to add a checkbox associated with some text that links to the EULA for the software, and also says "By checking this box, you acknowledge that you have read the EULA and know that access to the software will be revoked if you no longer hold a right to the software".
Most folks are never going to read the EULA, and no reasonable person would expect that a button that says "BUY" would seal a deal that permits the "seller" to unilaterally revoke the customer's right to the "sold" software.
Quoted from the link in parent comment ( https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792 )
- (1) It shall be unlawful for a person to advertise or offer for sale a digital good with the terms “buy,” “purchase,” or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest
(B) The affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be distinct and separate from any other terms and conditions of the transaction that the purchaser acknowledges or agrees to.
I’m putting this good into a metaphorical container and taking it to a metaphorical till. This implies a sort of tangibility, a property of physical goods that I’d walk out of the metaphorical store to own.
I strongly disagree.
(b)(1) says that "buy" is not permitted for these goods... EXCEPT
(b)(2)(A) says that it IS permitted, if you follow the rules in subsections i through iii.
> (2) (A) Notwithstanding paragraph (1), a person may advertise or offer for sale a digital good with the terms “buy,” “purchase,” or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest in the digital good, or alongside an option for a time-limited rental, if the seller receives at the time of each transaction an affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser of all of the following:
My read on that is that either (b)(1) controls and you cannot use the words "buy" and friends, OR you do the things in (b)(2) and you CAN use "buy" & etc.
My read on subsection (ii) when combined with (i) is that simply "providing" the EULA for a digital software download and making the customer tick a box saying that they've "received" the EULA would be sufficient. If it's not (and it might not be), then having them scroll through the whole EULA to "prove" that they read it would clearly be sufficient, as it's common practice.
> (B) The affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be distinct and separate from any other terms and conditions of the transaction that the purchaser acknowledges or agrees to.
Yes, but I think that this just means that this acknowledgement is a thing that's separate from the EULA, and separate from extended warranties, and such. The language that says that the customer must acknowledge that they received the license for the thing they're "purchasing" indicates that they must be -at minimum- given a chance to read the EULA... and I'm pretty sure common practice is to either provide a link to the EULA, or force you to scroll through it.
Feels like regulators never were in kindergarten or at least school, could be a freshening experience for them, cause it all works like there.
Also kindle.
"Additionally, it's OK to advertise a digital good if access isn't ever revoked, such as when users purchase a permanent download that can be accessed offline, regardless of a seller's rights to license the content."
I've played steam games offline, only to have something expire at some point, preventing the games from launching.
No such issue with GOG.
This might even differentiate individual games.
For kindle, some books (tor?) have a paragraph "this bookis distributed without digital rights management"
Could a download of this book differentiate buy vs license?
Although to the actually very narrow point raised, would you rather not know what substances were bad for you? Perhaps a lot of this is pointless as you will commonly see people saw materials without masks but at the same point would you buy carrots labeled with "This product is known to the state of CA to cause cancer?".
And to the rest of the regulation that isn't address by OP. It is very good that companies cannot just dump their cancerous waste materials into rivers.