this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill into law that won't stop companies from taking away your digitally purchased video games, movies, and TV shows, but it'll at least force them to be a little more transparent about it.

As spotted by The Verge, the law, AB 2426, will prohibit storefronts from using the words "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." The law won't apply to storefronts which state in "plain language" that you're actually just licensing the digital content and that license could expire at any time, or to products that can be permanently downloaded.

The law will go into effect next year, and companies who violate the terms could be hit with a false advertising fine. It also applies to e-books, music, and other forms of digital media.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I wonder how many Steam users are going to get a startling wake up call. For all the praise it gets, Steam was a frontrunner in labeling buy and purchase what is essentially an unlimited time rental that can expire when your free subscription service does.

They can ban and suspend your account for, say, adding the "wrong" CD key into your account (they reserve the right to ban false CD keys) or accepting gifts (if fraud ends up being associated with it), along with all your other purchases if they wanted to, and that would be potentially thousands and thousands of dollars down the drown. Steam could collapse, or it could be passed on to a new CEO that say, sold it to EA, and they could decide to put conditions on that subscriptions or even to empty inactive accounts as they did to their own service. They could even just simply start enforcing their guidelines for bans to their fullest extent. Oh, and each game developer can issue a game ban based on their own code of conduct.

It's funny how little interest there has been to treat your purchases as actual digital goods, except by the NFT crowd who are just in it for the money. Actually, ignore that, if anything, most NFT implementations as of now are treated more as subscription options with a buzzword than a digital good, too. So as an aside, it's also funny how the blockchain crowd avoids using the blockchain as a digital good and uses it as confidence game cash grabs instead.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Law’s good and all. But it needs to be enforced.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I like how Factorio packages their game. You pay them $35 and then you can download and install on steam, get an installer through the website, or even just get a portable folder containing all of the game files.

Great game by good people.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I really wish they would do sales occasionally, I played the demo and really liked it but $35 is just a bit more than I want to spend on a single game

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If you look at it as dollars per time spent, it'll probably be far better value than the majority of games you could get cheaper. Assuming you like it of course (but if you think you will, you probably will).

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

It's a steal, even at full price, particularly once you account for the various mods.

FYI, I've several friends who veto playing, or even talking about factorio. They can't afford to lose 100s of hours of their lives again to cracktorio, and dont want to be sucked back in again. Take from this what you will.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

FR, afaik they've never done a sale ever. Also it used to cost 25.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Why isn't this a thing already? I mean, it's USA, companies love to sue against illegal copies. No one got an argument like "I bought it so i was in the assumtion it belongs to me"?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (15 children)

Fun Fact: If you as an individual bought a game, made a copy, and gave it away then you have done nothing wrong.

Also, downloading an "illegal copy" for yourself is also legal. You have not distributed another person's IP for profit, there are no laws against what you did.

If you sold the copy it would be illegal. If you gave away 500 copies it would be illegal. But creating and sharing a backup is fine.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The big company has more money to lawyer up. If a company can't win, they can drain the plaintiff dry of money through legal fees.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I don’t understand why they don’t just charge both parties the average cost when one side has waaay more legal resources than the other. Seems like such an obvious issue with the legal system that even the founding fathers should have realized if they thought for a second.

Or they did and this is the intended system.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If anything, that would be worse. Imagine, you sue, and have a single lawyer, on a discount rate. They respond with a team of 100 highly paid lawyers. Your now paying 50-500x what your own lawyer is actually charging. This could also work in both directions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sorry what I meant is to pool both parties legal budget, divide it in half and give each the same amount.

Basically disarms all corporates from using their army of lawyers because their big army will never give them an advantage. So they would actually avoid legal battles cause it would cost them money with no unfair advantage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Now, how do you define what a reasonable budget is? That basically becomes a fee to sue.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Same as speeding tickets in Nordic countries, it’s a parentage of total revenue. Im sure these details can be ironed out but the idea is that a corp can’t use its unlimited resources, it has to share said resources with their opponent to ensure a fair trail, otherwise it’s not justice imo.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Ah right, i forgot the pay to win judicial system of US.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I feel like the Magic The Gathering Online rule should be in play: if somebody sells a digital product you should be able to have them ship you a physical copy of the product at the cost of shipping it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I think you got a you and a them mixed up here

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

How about making a law so we do?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

imagine buying something and not own it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well that sounds fuckin useless. Every place causes cancer too.

California is a large enough economy - especially in the entertainment industry - lead the country and pass a meaningful law!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

this isn't a win imo. instead of actually making it to where you own your games Companies get to play the "well we told them! they should know. Its the consumers fault" card

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Weird how the end stage of capitalism is really just a strange two tiered form of the kind of communism everyone was told to fear. So much for actually owning anything.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Communism? Try fraud.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago

People love the boot as long as the boot is privately owned.

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