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”.
Indeed, the idea of ownership is a basic natural concept that lawyers are trying to erase with newspeak and nonsensical hidden terms. It's a concept that's been unchanged for millions of years, even before humans existed. If you disagree with me, try taking a bone away from a dog chewing on it. It even goes back to single-cell organisms: even the mitochondrium is just [a cell owned by another cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis).
You should be able to if it is being advertised as “buy”. They should just say gain access to use it or something like that if they are not really selling anything.
If I go to an online store and buy a paperback, they will mail me a copy of it that I may keep for the rest of my life. I can read it 100 times if I want to.
Before this law, I could go through that exact process to get a e-book, but then they could come back later and revoke my ability to read the e-book that I “bought”.
Those two cannot use the same word. They are not the same class of transaction. The latter is more like a rental or lease. They both live behind a “buy” button, though.
If I’m told I’m buying an e-book, and the seller later steals it from me by making it unreadable, I have no qualms about obtaining a replacement copy through other channels. I already paid for it; I’m going to have and enjoy it.
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.
No, like when you buy a book and the vendor isn't allowed to come into your house and take it away from you with no refund and no recourse.
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.
Buying a book means buying the paper the book is printed on, the intellectual content (text) is not bought. You are allowed to resell the paper. And you are in fact not buying a license to use a book when you buy a book, you are literally buying the actual physical book.
If you were buying the paper, then two books of the same page count (even if those pages were blank) would be the same price and interchangeable. They are not. Likewise if you were paying for the paper, then a book with no paper, such as an audiobook, would be free. Again it is not. You are buying some form of media that contains the intellectual content.
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.
Citizens only, and anywhere in the world. If you're not a citizen but are a resident, you can support in another way - go to your friends who are EU citizens and ask them to sign! Even if they're not gamers, remember that it's about ownership in general. There are many other things that can and are being remotely shut down, such as cars, trains, implants for disabled people, etc. This is just the first step in regaining ownership of things you buy. Try asking a few people for support!
No need to show a cookie banner if you are not placing cookies or trackers.
But now that AB 2426 has become law, it moves more in line towards GDPR in terms of transparency. E.g. you have to be transparent of using licenses etc.
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!
If the EU decides to build any legislation around SKG, they will give developers ample warning before things go into effect. Apple had years to prepare for USB C. This is still years out. So the answer is: negotiate compatible terms, or don't use the third party library.
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.
What I don’t like about this argument is that this was originally pitched in the initial video as “All you have to do is release the server you already have, you don’t have to do any extra work”.
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.
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.
Small developers have multiplayer games all the time that aren't affected by issues like the ones SKG is concerned with. Ad-hoc multiplayer and dedicated servers that players can self-host are long-established solutions. A common argument in bad faith is that SKG demands perpetual upkeep of presumed infrastructure that will somehow harm small developers, and it just isn't true.
To be fair they didn't make that argument, but thanks for the support none the less! Agreed, ad-hoc servers are a staple and a worked out problem. 99% of the time you have to go out of your way as a developer to make things not work in this way.
> Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example
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.
> why are you using Oracle for video games? what's wrong with you?
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.
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.
Yes, but up until now it's been (very) rare. At least for games.
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.
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.
It’s just like with cookies. I believe that lawmakers were honest and really wanted for companies to limit amount of tracking in the web. What we did get instead is a lot of „we value your privacy” popups and 5 pages of checkboxes to check if you don’t want to be tracked.
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.
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.
Do you play paid video games now? Do you plan to stop? The idea that this law is going to cause anyone to actually change how they license games is laughable.
"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?
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.
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"?
“Get” sounds good to me. I’ll know not to get any games that have “Get” button. Hopefully this law spreads to Steam across the board so that people outside of California can also benefit from it.
I’d argue that a reasonable person would understand these terms to confer an unrestricted ownership interest.
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.
That’s a good point. The real world experience they’re analogizing is me putting a bottle of ketchup in a shopping cart at a grocery store and checking out at the cashier. Afterward, I own that bottle of ketchup, not a license to ketchup, but that instance of it. “Shopping cart” and “checkout” imply “buying”, and I can’t think of a counterexample.
(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.
Replacing the terminology is the first step to this methinks. You'll always be able to buy a bagel, but not a video game. It's still shitty, but it's not deceptively shitty.
It's weird how a smaller provision of a much larger work (Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) are always trotted out as an argument against regulation. Like if you can't use the majority of the regulation in an argument against it, perhaps it's good regulation.
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.
Prop 65 notices are a useless warning because they are slapped on anything and everything, just like this new law will result in a useless checkbox that people click without thinking.
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”.
"Unlock."
At least that implies that the good is capable of being locked. “Buy” says that I’m buying the thing.
Indeed, the idea of ownership is a basic natural concept that lawyers are trying to erase with newspeak and nonsensical hidden terms. It's a concept that's been unchanged for millions of years, even before humans existed. If you disagree with me, try taking a bone away from a dog chewing on it. It even goes back to single-cell organisms: even the mitochondrium is just [a cell owned by another cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis).
And can you sell it afterwards?
If you're in the EU, you can :
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.
You should be able to if it is being advertised as “buy”. They should just say gain access to use it or something like that if they are not really selling anything.
The gaming industry is not ready for that discussion yet, but you absolutely should be able to.
It's being discussed in courts, see e.g. https://www.eurogamer.net/french-court-rules-steam-users-hav....
case in point amazon kindle and "buy"
"Get."
[flagged]
If I go to an online store and buy a paperback, they will mail me a copy of it that I may keep for the rest of my life. I can read it 100 times if I want to.
Before this law, I could go through that exact process to get a e-book, but then they could come back later and revoke my ability to read the e-book that I “bought”.
Those two cannot use the same word. They are not the same class of transaction. The latter is more like a rental or lease. They both live behind a “buy” button, though.
If I’m told I’m buying an e-book, and the seller later steals it from me by making it unreadable, I have no qualms about obtaining a replacement copy through other channels. I already paid for it; I’m going to have and enjoy it.
You are buying an experience on that night. Similar to buying food at a restaurant
You aren't buying a bad faith argument.
No, you're literally buying an entry ticket. If you were buying an experience, you could sue because the beer was not to your taste.
You’re asking me to remember something that you explicitly state is your personal opinion?
Rather, he’s saying if someone sold something to you, you get to use it. I don’t think any further analysis of this comment will yield anything more.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services. (And licenses, but don’t obscure that point in the fine print.)
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.
>If you had truly bought the game
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.
If I can't make copies I don't own it, is it my book or not?
You bought one license to the game which should be resellable exactly once by the purchaser.
In the physical world you buy physical copies of things. Certainly in the digital world, you could buy digital copies.
I like the distinction - pirating isn't stealing, licensing isn't buying. Clear and concise.
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.
Just like when you buy a book you’re allowed to photocopy it and sell the copies?
No, like when you buy a book and the vendor isn't allowed to come into your house and take it away from you with no refund and no recourse.
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.
> Creating a copy is violation of copyright
Correction: creating a copy that doesn't follow fair use requirements, is a violation of copyright.
Buying a book means buying the paper the book is printed on, the intellectual content (text) is not bought. You are allowed to resell the paper. And you are in fact not buying a license to use a book when you buy a book, you are literally buying the actual physical book.
If you were buying the paper, then two books of the same page count (even if those pages were blank) would be the same price and interchangeable. They are not. Likewise if you were paying for the paper, then a book with no paper, such as an audiobook, would be free. Again it is not. You are buying some form of media that contains the intellectual content.
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.
>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 wasn't talking about written law, i was talking about what people agree with. the law is something separate from that.
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!
It's easier to get a 2.0 law passed as the effects are more well understood.
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.
thank you for supporting it!
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.
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.
Thanks for the work you and others at SKG are doing o7
you're welcome - if you want to thank us, convince one EU citizen to sign the initiative!
I will do that while making sad Canadian sounds :P
Also, might I recommend adding embed information to the website so linking it on i.e., Discord shows some information?
Thank you!
Regarding embed information, that's a great idea and I'll pass it on.
Does it work for citizens only, or legal residence also applies?
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.
Citizens only, and anywhere in the world. If you're not a citizen but are a resident, you can support in another way - go to your friends who are EU citizens and ask them to sign! Even if they're not gamers, remember that it's about ownership in general. There are many other things that can and are being remotely shut down, such as cars, trains, implants for disabled people, etc. This is just the first step in regaining ownership of things you buy. Try asking a few people for support!
No need to show a cookie banner if you are not placing cookies or trackers. But now that AB 2426 has become law, it moves more in line towards GDPR in terms of transparency. E.g. you have to be transparent of using licenses etc.
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!
> Capcom bringing back Windows 7 era games that were lost to G4WL.
At the same time adding the most invasive DRM to even their much older games. Lol, thanks for nothing, you can go.
I can’t view a video at the moment, so I apologise if this has been answered in that.
If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party library, what is the developer expected to do about that?
If the EU decides to build any legislation around SKG, they will give developers ample warning before things go into effect. Apple had years to prepare for USB C. This is still years out. So the answer is: negotiate compatible terms, or don't use the third party library.
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.
What I don’t like about this argument is that this was originally pitched in the initial video as “All you have to do is release the server you already have, you don’t have to do any extra work”.
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.
> It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it,
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.
Small developers have multiplayer games all the time that aren't affected by issues like the ones SKG is concerned with. Ad-hoc multiplayer and dedicated servers that players can self-host are long-established solutions. A common argument in bad faith is that SKG demands perpetual upkeep of presumed infrastructure that will somehow harm small developers, and it just isn't true.
To be fair they didn't make that argument, but thanks for the support none the less! Agreed, ad-hoc servers are a staple and a worked out problem. 99% of the time you have to go out of your way as a developer to make things not work in this way.
> Except it's not - it's a business problem. SKG would essentially ban the use of Oracle as an example
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.
> why are you using Oracle for video games? what's wrong with you?
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.
> It's an example
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.
signed already and thank you all for your hard work.
Thank you for your service! If you want to support even more, feel free to talk to others about it!
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.
Looks like a smokescreen to me.
> 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).
> make sure you have access to your media forever.
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.
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.
> One thing to worry about, perhaps, is how it might make it easier for companies to remove things that we have "Gotten access" to
They are already doing it. The Crew is a good example. We are not losing anything here.
Yes, but up until now it's been (very) rare. At least for games.
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.
It's not rare at all. It happens all the time, everywhere. There are hundreds of games nobody can play anymore because servers got shutdown.
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.
You see, I just don’t think more honest wins us anything. I’ve seen too many „We value your privacy” popups already.
I think the old adage, "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" applies here. Some battles are fought one excruciating step at a time
What do you mean? What do privacy pop ups have to do with this?
It’s just like with cookies. I believe that lawmakers were honest and really wanted for companies to limit amount of tracking in the web. What we did get instead is a lot of „we value your privacy” popups and 5 pages of checkboxes to check if you don’t want to be tracked.
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.
Instead of hidden sleaze it's now very much in your face.
> I just think that this will end up the same way.
What will change is that I will know not to buy games that don't have "Buy" button.
That’s the point. It’s a step in the right direction.
This law is aimed at preventing deception at point of sale. It doesn’t target business practices.
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.
Like having a button that says "Rent" instead of "Buy"? That would be crazy
Probably something like "Buy a pass to play"
Sounds good. I’ll know not to ever press that button.
Do you play paid video games now? Do you plan to stop? The idea that this law is going to cause anyone to actually change how they license games is laughable.
How do you know?
I wonder if Steam and GOG will become different.
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?
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.
I think eventually the games industry will settle on something like music royalties. Game companies will get some amount of money per-play.
This is amazing, thank god people are fighting for my rights.
Great, hope this extends elsewhere.
Imagine writing so awful and unethical software that it triggers law to be created to ban it.
Do they charge / pay sales tax on in-game purchases?
the purchase of in-game items or currencies is a purchase like any other.
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.
[0] <https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792>
This is incorrect. Links to EULA are not enough, it must be separate and distinct from any other terms. Words like "BUY" are also expressly forbidden.
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.
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"?
“Get” is already used on iOS for this purpose.
“Get” replaced “free”, because it was misleading to call apps free when most have in-app purchases.
“Get” sounds good to me. I’ll know not to get any games that have “Get” button. Hopefully this law spreads to Steam across the board so that people outside of California can also benefit from it.
"add to cart" and "checkout"
I’d argue that a reasonable person would understand these terms to confer an unrestricted ownership interest.
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.
That’s a good point. The real world experience they’re analogizing is me putting a bottle of ketchup in a shopping cart at a grocery store and checking out at the cashier. Afterward, I own that bottle of ketchup, not a license to ketchup, but that instance of it. “Shopping cart” and “checkout” imply “buying”, and I can’t think of a counterexample.
> Words like "BUY" are also expressly forbidden.
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.
That’s so naive. They’ll just replace terminology industry-wise and continue on the wave of irony about 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.
Replacing the terminology is the first step to this methinks. You'll always be able to buy a bagel, but not a video game. It's still shitty, but it's not deceptively shitty.
When you see FUD, you see FUD, but you chose to ignore it, i can't be the only one to see it, it's in plain text, in the title
Did they have to add a label that the goods may give them cancer?
It's weird how a smaller provision of a much larger work (Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) are always trotted out as an argument against regulation. Like if you can't use the majority of the regulation in an argument against it, perhaps it's good regulation.
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.
What is this comment in relation to?
California prop 65
And how is that related to the post?
Prop 65 notices are a useless warning because they are slapped on anything and everything, just like this new law will result in a useless checkbox that people click without thinking.
How do you know that that's what is going to happen?