This is excellent news! Remember, if you buy a copy of a good, you’re entitled to enjoy it as long as you wish to. If the seller steals it back from you, it’s ethical to acquire a replacement copy.
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”.
But you bought a license to use the game. If you had truly bought the game you would be within your legal right to resell it (via copying to 100 people), which you are not.
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.
If I buy a book, that does not give me the right to print 100 copies of the book and sell them. Indeed if I buy a lawnmower, that does not give me the right to make 100 identical copies and sell them. The right to manufacture something is not a fundamental part of purchasing an individual item.
I challenge you to find me a major online store where a game's page says you are only buying a license. I just went to https://store.steampowered.com/app/582010/Monster_Hunter_Wor... and the first link says "Buy Monster Hunter: World". By every indication, I'm buying it in the same sense I buy a physical book from an online bookseller.
Now, fortunately, it's illegal to mislead customers that way.
that's like saying if you bought a title to a bridge you would be within your legal right to resell it (via copying the title 100 times with a photo copier).
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.
Extremely welcome legislation, especially since it has an exception for "permanent download that can be accessed offline", ie. DRM-free downloads. It's about time someone actually calls out Big Media on their deceptive practices. As I've been saying for years, it's not "buying" with DRM-encumbered media, merely "renting for an undefined time period".
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!
Hm, wonder if the Stop Killing Games campaign (https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) will be able to make use of this, like they're trying to make use of consumer protection law in France...
Wow, signing that petition was shockingky smooth with my national e-ID. I thought it was just a random petition site, but its an official EU system that verifies your identity. And it just worked with the ID app I have installed. Nice.
SKG organizer here. Something like this CA legislation was our "worst case scenario, everything else failed, at least we could do this much, we've compromised on everything" goal.
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.
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.
Maybe I have misunderstood the article, but for me it looks like another „cookies” law.
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.
> They’ll just replace „Buy” button with „Get Access” or whatever and add some lawyer mumbo-jumbo above it.
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.
Not to pour cold water on anyone but consumers will be just as confused by "get access", because they'll expect that they'll have access indefinitely (which us not guaranteed and this doesn't change that).
Mentally it's not too difficult to throw $60 at a digital "Buy" button, but it's much harder to throw those $60 at a "Get access" button. I wholly welcome a change like this, even if it's just wording on the button.
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.
> Mentally it's not too difficult to throw $60 at a digital "Buy" button, but it's much harder to throw those $60 at a "Get access" button.
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.
They'll either have to change the text in which case digital good sales will be more honest, or they won't want to change the text and therefore will actually commit to letting us download and keep our own copies without interference. Both sound like wins to me. Just TBD which variant ends up more common.
Ownership always had a meaning. Selling things for purchase and then treating it as a limited license is fraud. Even under existing law. How about we hold all these companies accountable for the rug pull?
That's what Stop Killing Games is trying to do via cooperation with DGCCRF and other consumer agencies. If you like that, go to their website and learn how to support them.
If I'm reading the text of the law correctly [0], this does not go nearly far enough.
(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.
- (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.
(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.
That's interesting. I don't for a second think this will actually curtail the harmful business practices, but what do you recon they'll write on their buttons? Maybe just dance around any meaningful verbiage with a button that just has a dollar sign or shopping cart on it? Just "Proceed" or "Confirm"?
It does feel like a lot of this enforcement will need to be in the spirit of the law and/or general deterrence. I would assume any sufficiently specific law in this space would be fairly easy to find a loophole or workaround for in your UI.
"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?
Readit News
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”.
Dead Comment
Money can be exchanged for goods and services. (And licenses, but don’t obscure that point in the fine print.)
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.
Now, fortunately, it's illegal to mislead customers that way.
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.
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.
If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party library, what is the developer expected to do about that?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are already doing it. The Crew is a good example. We are not losing anything here.
Deleted Comment
This law is aimed at preventing deception at point of sale. It doesn’t target business practices.
(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.
[0] <https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792>
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 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.
Deleted Comment
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?