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Digital ownership rant

Atmos
4 hours ago, SnowWolf370 said:

Today I was unable to login because my account was back on hold apparently.. Made a new ticket with Steam Support, within 20 minutes it was closed as "Solved". Made a new one but it has not gotten a reply yet. Sent a new letter to the Better Business Bureau.

This had to be some kind of clerical issue and compounding miscommunication or probably just lack of communication with account TOS enforcement. It was resolved once, hopefully a second time around it gets fully resolved.

 

I can assume now that the temporary hold wasn't them ensuring that the account wouldnt be billed anymore, but that was again probably the system auto-flagging your account after the chargeback, and then some ground-level TOS enforcement nuking your account again without any idea that you've just gotten it back. Then of course steam support is classically uninformed on whats going on, thinking this is just another chargeback case.

 

 I really do hope this time around you can get everything resolved.

14 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

True,  that's still kinda sucky and probably not needed... 

 

 

I mean,  I said this before,  but companies like steam that sell digital goods shouldn't be allowed to take them away from you that easily - technically that's basically theft - any TOS etc regarding this are thus invalid. (theoretically) 

 

 

I know they're getting away with pretty much everything -  I just don't understand how it's actually legal for them to do so. 

 

So it's really important here to understand where steam is coming from. Even if you break TOS 99% of the time it just results in a ban. You are prevented from buying or selling on steam, and playing on any multiplayer games that run on steam servers, but are inherently still able to play the games you own. Its kinda like being in permanent offline mode.

 

Chargebacks are one of the rare exceptions where they actually terminate accounts essentially. This is likely due in part to two issues around chargebacks. The first being charge backs are typically used by third party grey market vendors, wherein they buy a large amount of keys or items from the market using a stolen credit/debit card, and try to sell or transfer everything before the card owner realizes they've had their info stolen and does a chargeback. This is how a majority of keys and items wind up on third party marketplaces online. The second issue is that chargebacks do greatly impact steam's credit. It is literally stating that they have stolen money from you, and you are telling big papa visa or who/e to take it back. And because steam itself is a corporation, it has its own credit score for securing loans, something very very important in large scale business.

 

In the end while I still dont agree that they can just terminate your account and you lose however many games you had, I understand the reasons at least why they might do so, and that it's not illegal by any means. Remember. On steam you don't own games. You are voluntarily using a private platform and buying access to play games on that platform. If the game you're playing requires a third party launcher to start, then you don't own access to that game. Which, is why I support GOG at every possibility. No DRM and I will always have access to that game, even if GOG bans my account for some reason. 

 

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24 minutes ago, Atmos said:

This had to be some kind of clerical issue and compounding miscommunication or probably just lack of communication with account TOS enforcement. It was resolved once, hopefully a second time around it gets fully resolved.

 

I can assume now that the temporary hold wasn't them ensuring that the account wouldnt be billed anymore, but that was again probably the system auto-flagging your account after the chargeback, and then some ground-level TOS enforcement nuking your account again without any idea that you've just gotten it back. Then of course steam support is classically uninformed on whats going on, thinking this is just another chargeback case.

 

 I really do hope this time around you can get everything resolved.

So it's really important here to understand where steam is coming from. Even if you break TOS 99% of the time it just results in a ban. You are prevented from buying or selling on steam, and playing on any multiplayer games that run on steam servers, but are inherently still able to play the games you own. Its kinda like being in permanent offline mode.

 

Chargebacks are one of the rare exceptions where they actually terminate accounts essentially. This is likely due in part to two issues around chargebacks. The first being charge backs are typically used by third party grey market vendors, wherein they buy a large amount of keys or items from the market using a stolen credit/debit card, and try to sell or transfer everything before the card owner realizes they've had their info stolen and does a chargeback. This is how a majority of keys and items wind up on third party marketplaces online. The second issue is that chargebacks do greatly impact steam's credit. It is literally stating that they have stolen money from you, and you are telling big papa visa or who/e to take it back. And because steam itself is a corporation, it has its own credit score for securing loans, something very very important in large scale business.

 

In the end while I still dont agree that they can just terminate your account and you lose however many games you had, I understand the reasons at least why they might do so, and that it's not illegal by any means. Remember. On steam you don't own games. You are voluntarily using a private platform and buying access to play games on that platform. If the game you're playing requires a third party launcher to start, then you don't own access to that game. Which, is why I support GOG at every possibility. No DRM and I will always have access to that game, even if GOG bans my account for some reason. 

 

Well,  first I don't agree that you basically only rent these games,  they get sold...  Like any other transaction - and even then taking away the online portion - for whatever reason - is in a way breaking the contract,  even if it's in their TOS that they're allowed to do so,  that's exactly what I'm questioning the legality of.  We won't solve this issue now,  or maybe ever,  but I simply don't think it's right,  I think if you buy "digital goods" you should obviously have the same rights as if it were "physical goods"

 

And in the case of taking away access, partly or fully that should not be decided by an obviously partial organization,  that should be decided by law and only by law (unless both sides find an agreement otherwise) 

 

 

And secondly,  in this case they apparently *did* actually steal money from their customer, repeatedly lol. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Well,  first I don't agree that you basically only rent these games,  they get sold...  Like any other transaction - and even then taking away the online portion - for whatever reason - is in a way breaking the contract,  even if it's in their TOS that they're allowed to do so,  that's exactly what I'm questioning the legality of.  We won't solve this issue now,  or maybe ever,  but I simply don't think it's right,  I think if you buy "digital goods" you should obviously have the same rights as if it were "physical goods"

 

And in the case of taking away access, partly or fully that should not be decided by an obviously partial organization,  that should be decided by law and only by law (unless both sides find an agreement otherwise) 

 

And secondly,  in this case they apparently *did* actually steal money from their customer, repeatedly lol. 

It doesnt matter if you agree with me or not, because thats just the facts of the case. Much like windows now, you dont own what you're buying. You're just buying access to it, which can be revoked.

 

I dont like the idea of not owning something I've purchased either. Which is why i hate windows 10 with a fiery passion and support GOG whenever possible, but unfortunately if you buy games on pretty much any launcher, you do not own that game. You merely own access to that game for as long as you have an account in good standing. The worst offenders for stuff like this are launchers like origin, uplay, and EGS, which have a history of just up and banning or deleting accounts and revoking entire libraries of expensive games.

 

Luckily steam isnt as bad as others, but the possibility still exists as this thread proves.

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33 minutes ago, Atmos said:

You merely own access to that game for as long as you have an account in good standing.

.... Again de facto, technically this is right... I am questioning the legality of it and you haven't presented anything in that regard yet. 

 

 

As I understand EU laws, the *fact* that you basically only rent these games should be made much more clearer before *purchase*, it's all highly misleading and as such needs to be regulated differently and made much clearer to the customers, imo. 

 

Actually Steam is even worse than Microsoft in this regard as you - to my knowledge - can resell windows keys without many issues - which is btw actually regulated by EU law. 

 

Where also your whole theory of -you own nothing" contradicts itself big time,  how come I can *legally* resell Microsoft software,  but cannot *technically* resell Steam games?

 

What's the difference? (and didn't you say there is no difference) 

 

See what I mean? 

A) legality

 

B) it's all highly contradicting and badly communicated and barely regulated. 

There are also other things about Steam that I highly question the legality there of,  but that is honestly not suited for a forum like this and would also lead to nothing talking about at this point.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

Well,  first I don't agree that you basically only rent these games,  they get sold...  Like any other transaction - and even then taking away the online portion - for whatever reason - is in a way breaking the contract,  even if it's in their TOS that they're allowed to do so,  that's exactly what I'm questioning the legality of.  We won't solve this issue now,  or maybe ever,  but I simply don't think it's right,  I think if you buy "digital goods" you should obviously have the same rights as if it were "physical goods"

That's a matter of how games' sales (or "sales") are regulated, and how courts deal with gray areas. That will make the definite answer country-specific, but there will be an answer - although in some sense it's just starting to happen. More on that below.

 

1 hour ago, Atmos said:

It doesnt matter if you agree with me or not, because thats just the facts of the case. Much like windows now, you dont own what you're buying. You're just buying access to it, which can be revoked.

That may be the way Valve conducts itself, but it doesn't mean it won't get them in legal trouble. And bear in mind that they may have laws and/or courts on their side somewhere, but not necessarily everywhere, and we already have evidence that their "not buying, just licensing" argument does not hold in some countries: the recent ruling by French courts recognizing the right to sell used games, and requiring Valve to allow buyers of used games to use them, was grounded on rejecting Valve's licensing argument and stating that games are sold, and therefore owned. Needless to say, the right to play games you own (and you own them in France) is a much more fundamental ownership right than the right to re-sell them, which means that if OP were in France he could certainly enforce it. He's in Norway, though, so one would need to know what the laws are there, and potentially (as most everywhere) laws will not be as clear-cut for "digital goods", so we won't know for sure until court-tested, as in the case of France.

 

1 hour ago, Atmos said:

 

I dont like the idea of not owning something I've purchased either. Which is why i hate windows 10 with a fiery passion and support GOG whenever possible

That's a sane approach - go with the sellers that outright recognize your ownership rights. But those who don't may just be violating the law of at least some countries they operate in.

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2 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

France

Id like to see them enforce the law. Because what are they going to do? Fine them? Valve makes a truck load of money. On top of that they could just pull out of France all together. Suspending all French steam accounts or at least not allowing them to make any purchases and denying them support. I mean in realtiy what can a French court do to a company thats sole physical opperations are out of the US? Do you really think the US govenrment will help? 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Id like to see them enforce the law. Because what are they going to do? Fine them? Valve makes a truck load of money. On top of that they could just pull out of France all together. Suspending all French steam accounts or at least not allowing them to make any purchases and denying them support. I mean in realtiy what can a French court do to a company thats sole physical opperations are out of the US? Do you really think the US govenrment will help? 

It's quite possible the US will help - France and the US have a mutual legal assistance treaty.

 

Granted, the White House is so adversarial right now that I have no idea whether they would help or not - but there are legal measures in place for France to request US help in the matter.

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4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

 I mean in realtiy what can a French court do to a company thats sole physical opperations are out of the US?

I'm not familiar with the details, but you can check the sentence to see what the punishment, appealed by Valve, was.

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Do you really think the US govenrment will help? 

I don't think you need it to do anything. As in all other examples of US-based corporations getting in trouble in Europe in the past.

It's not a matter of "France destroying Valve" either, just a matter of enforcing your rights as a consumer. Whatever happens to Valve, as long as you get to play the games you bought then the law has been enforced.

Have you ever seen a prompt to choose your browser after installing Windows? It seems to me that European courts do get corporations much bigger than Valve to comply with their rules...

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26 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Id like to see them enforce the law. Because what are they going to do? Fine them? Valve makes a truck load of money. On top of that they could just pull out of France all together. Suspending all French steam accounts or at least not allowing them to make any purchases and denying them support. I mean in realtiy what can a French court do to a company thats sole physical opperations are out of the US? Do you really think the US govenrment will help? 

Any company, regardless of their location has to comply with the laws of the countries that they do business in. If they sell goods in France they have to comply with those consumer laws.  They will do everything they can to avoid it, they will add non enforceable terms in the TOS in an effort to convince people not to take it further and accept whatever 'the company' deems is right.  but when these issues have been brought out into the open and challenged in a court... the majority of the time 'the company' loses.

 

I'd suggest contacting your local trading standards dept in France (no idea what it's called there) and perhaps asking the EFF (electronic frontier foundation) for some advice... Bring it to the attention of your Euro MP's... the EU is spoiling for a fight with companies that act like this... France in particular has had enough with these digital only companies that avoid paying taxes in the regions they do business.

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35 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

a prompt to choose your browser after installing Windows

No because that doesnt apply to the US. Plus I dont use Windows any longer. 

 

15 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Any company, regardless of their location has to comply with the laws of the countries that they do business in.

Agian I was stating, what if Valve choose to tell France to FUCK OFF. ANd just stop doing busines there? Valve could then just turn all those accounts off or at least not support them and not allow them to buy any more games. Just as a company has to follow the law, the company can choose to not have opperations in that said coutnry. 

 

17 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

France in particular has had enough with these digital only companies that avoid paying taxes in the regions they do business.

Up til recently we had the same issue in the US. Not digital only companies but online retailers as a whole not collecting sales tax. Because legally they didnt have to if they did not have physical presence in the state. Bought a lot of items of Newegg without paying tax. Technically I was suppose to report that to the state, but fuck em. They dont keep track of it, why should I? Recently that changed, due to new laws, plus the Feds got invovled any approved shit. Now states can make all retailers collect sales tax. France just needs to bring their laws up to the 21st century if they want to collect taxes I guess. 

 

43 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I don't think you need it to do anything.

If they wanted to do something like put people in prison then yes, they would need the US governments support. Because fines generally do nothing, not when your making millions or billions of dollars. You know Valve could just pull their opperations out of France entirely. What would all those users do when they go to log in and steam tells them that they no longer have active accounts? Just because Valve chooses to do business in a country today, doesnt mean they have to do bussiness with them tommrow. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

No because that doesnt apply to the US. Plus I dont use Windows any longer. 

Agreed - this prompt is only for EU SKU's ('N' versions, I believe?) Neither Canada nor US sees these prompts.

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

Agian I was stating, what if Valve choose to tell France to FUCK OFF. ANd just stop doing busines there? Valve could then just turn all those accounts off or at least not support them and not allow them to buy any more games. Just as a company has to follow the law, the company can choose to not have opperations in that said coutnry. 

Let's be perfectly honest - Valve isn't just going to "cut off" France - it's a country with a 66 million population. Plus if you piss off France, you risk pissing off the entire EU (500 million people) and Valve sure as hell can't afford to just stop doing business with the EU.

 

Sure they "could" just stop doing business with France. No, they're not going to.

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

Up til recently we had the same issue in the US. Not digital only companies but online retailers as a whole not collecting sales tax. Because legally they didnt have to if they did not have physical presence in the state. Bought a lot of items of Newegg without paying tax. Technically I was suppose to report that to the state, but fuck em. They dont keep track of it, why should I? Recently that changed, due to new laws, plus the Feds got invovled any approved shit. Now states can make all retailers collect sales tax. France just needs to bring their laws up to the 21st century if they want to collect taxes I guess.

France is probably closer than most countries when it comes to "buying" digital games. Their courts already ruled that digital games are eligible for resale, which by definition must mean you own the game (you can't sell something you're renting, because you don't own it).

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

If they wanted to do something like put people in prison then yes, they would need the US governments support. Because fines generally do nothing, not when your making millions or billions of dollars. You know Valve could just pull their opperations out of France entirely. What would all those users do when they go to log in and steam tells them that they no longer have active accounts? Just because Valve chooses to do business in a country today, doesnt mean they have to do bussiness with them tommrow. 

Fines can make a big deal - either through a mass of people each taking Valve to Court and them having to pay many small fines, or a Class Action lawsuit, or if the EU steps in, they're not afraid to throw around $Billion Euro fines.

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1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Id like to see them enforce the law. Because what are they going to do? Fine them? Valve makes a truck load of money. On top of that they could just pull out of France all together. Suspending all French steam accounts or at least not allowing them to make any purchases and denying them support. I mean in realtiy what can a French court do to a company thats sole physical opperations are out of the US? Do you really think the US govenrment will help? 

France is a big market, not worth pulling out of over a disagreement. Plus they would have to pull out of the entire EU to actually make it work. That would be economically disastrous.

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8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Agian I was stating, what if Valve choose to tell France to FUCK OFF. ANd just stop doing busines there? Valve could then just turn all those accounts off or at least not support them and not allow them to buy any more games. Just as a company has to follow the law, the company can choose to not have opperations in that said coutnry. 

 

Up til recently we had the same issue in the US. Not digital only companies but online retailers as a whole not collecting sales tax. Because legally they didnt have to if they did not have physical presence in the state. Bought a lot of items of Newegg without paying tax. Technically I was suppose to report that to the state, but fuck em. They dont keep track of it, why should I? Recently that changed, due to new laws, plus the Feds got invovled any approved shit. Now states can make all retailers collect sales tax. France just needs to bring their laws up to the 21st century if they want to collect taxes I guess. 

 

 

1: What if space aliens came down and decided to abduct all the sheep?

 

Sounds silly no?  Yup.. that's what I got from your argument that Valve would simply refuse to do business in France... you know, that country that's part of the EU along with 27 other countries (used to be 28, but the UK is fucked in a  different way now) with laws that govern a whole heap of consumer issues. Stop doing business in France... oh that's gonna stop you doing business with the other 27 too... What's that... the cost of complying with local laws is a lot less  than the refusal/inability to be able to compete in those markets?

 

When you've got a sensible, sane, rational and logical argument... I'd love to hear it. But if you spout ridiculous scenarios... expect ridicule.  :)

 

 

2: Re: local sales taxes... You broke the law in not declaring it and because people like you continued to break the law the govt decided to step in and level the playing field.. they shifted the burden of tax collection from those law breakers like you onto the corporations selling them to begin with.

 

Now France is looking to change their laws... specifically to target US companies like facebook, google, amazon who thing they don;t have to pay taxes anywhere, and use any slimy loophole they can find, shift money around through intermediaries to reduce tax burdens and in many cases actually manage to claim tax rebates on billions of dollars in sales.

 

Now the tax system in ALL countries is a mess, and it's only the rich and powerful who can afford to manipulate it... whilst the rest of us get stuck with doing things like breaking the law to avoid paying a few extra dollars for some thing we bought on line... The difference is that they exploit loopholes legally (not ethically or morally) and you just broke the law and admitted it in public.  :)

 

You are trying to place the US system of extreme and corrupt capitalism onto a continent that has a deeply help belief in social justice and that it's better to help lift the whole of society up to benefit all of it's society, rather than the concept of 'everyone for themselves, and screw everyone out of as much as we can and if you need help to survive and better yourself... tough shit, should have been born in to a better life' that the US has.

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1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

.... Again de facto, technically this is right... I am questioning the legality of it and you haven't presented anything in that regard yet. 

 

 

As I understand EU laws, the *fact* that you basically only rent these games should be made much more clearer before *purchase*, it's all highly misleading and as such needs to be regulated differently and made much clearer to the customers, imo. 

 

Actually Steam is even worse than Microsoft in this regard as you - to my knowledge - can resell windows keys without many issues - which is btw actually regulated by EU law. 

 

Where also your whole theory of -you own nothing" contradicts itself big time,  how come I can *legally* resell Microsoft software,  but cannot *technically* resell Steam games?

 

What's the difference? (and didn't you say there is no difference) 

 

See what I mean? 

A) legality

 

B) it's all highly contradicting and badly communicated and barely regulated. 

There are also other things about Steam that I highly question the legality there of,  but that is honestly not suited for a forum like this and would also lead to nothing talking about at this point.  

It should be more clear your account and access can be terminated for any number of reasons, I agree.

Im talking more about the microsoft store in terms of games and xbox digital store. In which, microsoft has a much more frivolous ban hammer and a reputation for even sending killcodes to brick consoles of people who break the TOS severely enough.

 

41 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

 

That may be the way Valve conducts itself, but it doesn't mean it won't get them in legal trouble. And bear in mind that they may have laws and/or courts on their side somewhere, but not necessarily everywhere, and we already have evidence that their "not buying, just licensing" argument does not hold in some countries: the recent ruling by French courts recognizing the right to sell used games, and requiring Valve to allow buyers of used games to use them, was grounded on rejecting Valve's licensing argument and stating that games are sold, and therefore owned. Needless to say, the right to play games you own (and you own them in France) is a much more fundamental ownership right than the right to re-sell them, which means that if OP were in France he could certainly enforce it. He's in Norway, though, so one would need to know what the laws are there, and potentially (as most everywhere) laws will not be as clear-cut for "digital goods", so we won't know for sure until court-tested, as in the case of France.

 

That's a sane approach - go with the sellers that outright recognize your ownership rights. But those who don't may just be violating the law of at least some countries they operate in.

I cant disagree with that. Steam may be subject to laws in countries it operates its services in, but just like we're seeing with france and the whole reselling thing, it likely will be region locked rights...

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44 minutes ago, Atmos said:

It should be more clear your account and access can be terminated for any number of reasons, I agree.

Im talking more about the microsoft store in terms of games and xbox digital store. In which, microsoft has a much more frivolous ban hammer and a reputation for even sending killcodes to brick consoles of people who break the TOS severely enough.

Ok we agree on that then I guess... and yeah that Microsoft store thing wasn't what I was talking about,  I only heard about it vaguely, but yeah that sounds bad too - and should be actually a case for law enforcements too but I guess if you're like one of the biggest and influential corporations you get away with even more... 

 

 

 

44 minutes ago, Atmos said:

I cant disagree with that. Steam may be subject to laws in countries it operates its services in, but just like we're seeing with france and the whole reselling thing, it likely will be region locked rights.

See, Germany has exactly the same laws,  but they are not enforced... 

 

 

The right and normal thing for jurisdiction at this point would be to just close shop,  they would if this was a physical store... guaranteed lol.

 

So it's just pretty weird, I think German government kinda sees everything online as *not real* or just doesn't know about it or something - it is certainly remarkable.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

ey shifted the burden of tax collection from those law breakers like you onto the corporations selling them to begin with.

Which is how it is for any business that opperate within the borders of the state. If I go to walmart they charge the sales tax. They dont expect a citizen to report it at the end of the year on thier income taxes. I mean who keeps track of shit they are buying? I dont. Im just suprised it took the states this long to bitch and whine and make the Feds allow them to tax these internet businesses. 

 

1 hour ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Now France is looking to change their laws... specifically to target US companies like facebook, google, amazon who thing they don;t have to pay taxes anywhere, and use any slimy loophole they can find, shift money around through intermediaries to reduce tax burdens and in many cases actually manage to claim tax rebates on billions of dollars in sales.

Good luck with that. I dont see them having much success. 

 

1 hour ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

What if space aliens came down and decided to abduct all the sheep?

Well they like to come down and murder cows. They also like anal probing humans. 

 

1 hour ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

the cost of complying with local laws is a lot less  than the refusal/inability to be able to compete in those markets?

How do you know what the costs are? For them to allow reselling of games it would require a lot of work to get up and running. They have to decide how the market place will be regualted, how pricing will be done, how to protect consumers from fraud. It will probably cost of chunk of change. Shit Ive seen companies here in the US threaten to shut down for less, and it was over fucking contraceptives being covered under Obama care. Also Steam is offered all over the world, last I checked there were 1.4 Billion in China alone, I think they could afford to loose the EU. Also what about the Epic Game Store, GOG, Orgin, or Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony who all sell digital games? Does the EU think they can take them all on? If enough of these companies banded together they could fight the EU. 

 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

How do you know what the costs are? For them to allow reselling of games it would require a lot of work to get up and running. They have to decide how the market place will be regualted, how pricing will be done, how to protect consumers from fraud. It will probably cost of chunk of change. Shit Ive seen companies here in the US threaten to shut down for less, and it was over fucking contraceptives being covered under Obama care. Also Steam is offered all over the world, last I checked there were 1.4 Billion in China alone, I think they could afford to loose the EU. Also what about the Epic Game Store, GOG, Orgin, or Nintendo, Microsoft or Sony who all sell digital games? Does the EU think they can take them all on? If enough of these companies banded together they could fight the EU. 

 

Who cares what the cost is?  That has no bearing what so ever on complying with the laws of the country. The law says you can resell your games, it doesn't define  how that's done, nor does it specify any kind of exemption if it costs the company money to implement.

 

What we are seeing is a correction of something that has been allowed to infiltrate the digital market place... The 'illusion' that you no longer own anything you purchase. Companies have been allowed to get away with this and the market is now pushing back, and countries are playing catch up and saying 'hold on a second'... you sell something, that person owns it and therefore has the right to sell it on if they choose.

 

You are trying to say that's not allowed... because you have bought into that illusion that software for personal use like games are not owned... If we don't own them, why are we paying full price for them? We should be given the games to play for free and have the option to buy cosmetic extras for real money... Because that's the only possible justification for not 'owning' a game you have purchased regardless of what some selfish, greedy company claims they have the right to do in your country...  Just because your govt doesn't give a crap about the consumer getting screwed... doesn't mean others are so gullible to not 'eventually' take a look at the issue and say 'hold on a second, that's not right' and adjust the laws to protect consumer laws that already exist and have done for decades... but have been bypassed in a digital age because such a thing didn't exist as a concept when they were drafted.

 

I've gone from being a person who downloaded games by any means I could in the 2000's (I probably paid for 10% of the games I played) to buying perhaps 90-95% of them... But the way these companies are treating consumers, violating consumer rights (I've had my own battles with ubisoft in the UK and won both times) because they think they can get away with it.... they are pushing me back towards wanting to acquire games by any means I can once more... at a time when my disposable income actually allows me to spend more... I'm pushing back and spending less, and some companies I boycott entirely now and will never purchase another game from them... but that doesn't mean I won't be playing them. :)

 

Copyright infringement is an issue that can be laid entirely at the feet of the companies who punish legitimate buyers, when acquiring a game from an alternative source makes the process of playing it easier than owning a legitimate version.

 

EA/Ubisoft... not getting a penny... EVER!!!... Activision/Blizzard... meh... perhaps if it's on a 75% or more sale inc all DLC I'll consider it... CD Projekt Red... full price no questions asked.

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34 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Who cares what the cost is?

The cost does matter. Do you think companies just eat the cost? FUCK NO. When Fox decides they want more money for their contnet, the cable company doesnt cover the extra cost. they raise prices. You think the prices will stay the same if they have to spend more money to sell them? What this will do is push companies to a subscription model. Can you imagine having to pay a monthly fee to each game you want to play? Because thats how they will get around reselling of games. OR they will implement rediculus fees. Here in the US we pay a lot of them, Broadcast TV fee, charged by most cable providers, Sports fee again cable providers. In the UK i hear they have to pay a fee to use broadcast TV. Trust me, these companies will find a way around this. 

 

First thing they will do is region lock games. So if your in the UK you cant buy a used game from France. No more using a VPN to buy games cheaper from other regions because those codes wont work outside their said regions. Developers may choose not to offer games in ceritan regions. This will cause a spike in Piracy. Look how its affected movies/TV shows. Netflix bans VPN usage to its platform and large parts of their library is missing in diffrent countries. Piracy has increased, which then causes companies to bitch to the government. That causes the government to crack down, and you get stupid polcies like the 6 strike law they tried to implement here in the US. 

 

So if you all want the Steam store to be fractured like Netflix's library. Have to pay addional fees on top of the cost of the game. AND potentially have to deal with crappier DRM then have at it. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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55 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The cost does matter. Do you think companies just eat the cost? FUCK NO. When Fox decides they want more money for their contnet, the cable company doesnt cover the extra cost. they raise prices. You think the prices will stay the same if they have to spend more money to sell them? What this will do is push companies to a subscription model. Can you imagine having to pay a monthly fee to each game you want to play? Because thats how they will get around reselling of games. OR they will implement rediculus fees. Here in the US we pay a lot of them, Broadcast TV fee, charged by most cable providers, Sports fee again cable providers. In the UK i hear they have to pay a fee to use broadcast TV. Trust me, these companies will find a way around this. 

 

First thing they will do is region lock games. So if your in the UK you cant buy a used game from France. No more using a VPN to buy games cheaper from other regions because those codes wont work outside their said regions. Developers may choose not to offer games in ceritan regions. This will cause a spike in Piracy. Look how its affected movies/TV shows. Netflix bans VPN usage to its platform and large parts of their library is missing in diffrent countries. Piracy has increased, which then causes companies to bitch to the government. That causes the government to crack down, and you get stupid polcies like the 6 strike law they tried to implement here in the US. 

 

So if you all want the Steam store to be fractured like Netflix's library. Have to pay addional fees on top of the cost of the game. AND potentially have to deal with crappier DRM then have at it. 

OK... you're trying to change your argument to suit your specific agenda now. The cost of implementing the law has no bearing on the law itself... If that leads to costs to the consumer rising... that is not the same thing and in a competitive market with a level playing field for all... Prices will remain competitive. It's only when you get monopolistic behaviour that thee consumers suffer... and that's the case here. Companies have created a monopoly where they think and have convinced a great number of people that their way is the only way... the legal and right way.  It's not and I keep trying to explain that to you. You are trying to extrapolate a bunch of what ifs and but this could happen without any basis in fact... So I can and will dismiss those things as irrelevant and without any merit.

 

Region locking used to be a thing, it's been receding for many years now... You can't buy a region locked DVD player any more, and are free to purchase stuff from anywhere you like. I never actually owned a region locked one, I bought one that could be unlocked back in the late 90's and used to buy my region 1 movies from a company in Canada called DVDsoon. But this was back when the exchange rate was really good and you could have 2 or 3 movies delivered to the UK from Canada for about the same price as buying a single movie here. But you can buy a game code from another part of the world and download the game and save some money already. there are entire services out there (some legit, some not so legit)

 

Also, once again you are forgetting that France is part of the EU and they cannot region lock a single part of the EU countries... and even after the UK leaves the EU, those common laws have already been enshrined into UK law.

 

Now I'm not arguing with every point, both netflix, prime video and bbc iplayer won;t play anything for me when my VPN is connected... I've got my shield TV box setup to allow those apps to bypass the VPN and everything else goes through it. But I can't do that on my PC... it's all or nothing.  It's not even geo blocking either as I'm using UK based VPN servers to access UK based services.  So on that issue... we agree. It's a clusterfuck of a mess.... But because it was being abused by people to avoid price discrepancies in different regions, because it was being used to let people watch shows that are region locked for whatever reason (some shows have music that isn't licensed in some regions for example).. Quantum Leap the old TV show had music removed from the DVD sets for release over here because the license for those tracks had expired.

 

But your argument actually favours a global position on the issue... one that allows for everyone to access the same material at a similar price. Netflix almost single handedly created the streaming market as it now stands. Every company now wants their slice and the market is being fragmented and divided that makes it bad for the consumer... not better. This does push people towards copyright infringement (please use the correct term, piracy is a marketing term pushed by media companies to imply evil acts are afoot).

 

But once again... this only favours the stance that people need better consumer protections on a more global scale.. not worse.  Whether you realise it or not, your argument against a lot of my points is actually kinda agreeing with and reinforcing them.

 

I don;t disagree that there are current business practices that do push people towards finding stuff by any means they can... Disney + isn't going to be available in the UK for another 4-5 months... But I can tell you I'm really enjoying The Mandalorian each week.  :)  I pay for Netflix, I pay for Amazon Prime... but as the fragmentation continues I'm not paying for more services. My resources are finite... so I'll need to get my entertainment where I can... But again... that only brings us back to a more global solution that's good for the consumer, that allows more choice, better competition.

 

In an ideal world, I'd like to see something like this... You produce a show/movie for your streaming platform... have at it. You've got 12 months exclusive use on your platform... after that you license it out to other services and those services can choose if they want it or not. Any company with a brain knows that they make their money in the initial period after release... 12 months later, it's been out of dvd/bluray for 6 months already and sales have slowed and the movie is now being found in bargain bins and so forth... so income for a product is low and they now have the opportunity to increase income from it... After all... a company should be able to realise that zero income due to alt downloads is worse than license income from other services.  I'm not dropping netflix or prime any time soon... and I'm not adding more expense to my budget just because of a single show I want to watch.

 

Going of on a tangent, here in the UK years ago.. a company called Sky had a monopoly on the premier league football games... to watch your teams games each season was very expensive and they paid a fortune to secure those exclusive rights. Then the consumer legislators got involved and said that there needed to be more competition and the exclusive contract was broken up between 2 companies. You now have Sky and BT Sports that broadcast those games.

 

unfortunately this had the opposite effect on pricing for the consumer... If you wanted to watch every single game for the team you support... you needed BOTH services, at a greater cost to the consumer.

 

So sometimes, I concede good intentions have unfortunate consequences... but once again... this only leads us back to the logical conclusion that we need a more global, consumer friendly answer and companies that try to manipulate the laws of countries that have stronger consumer protections... need to be reigned in, need to be taught to behave more ethically and morally rather than greedy.

 

As for the final point... here in the UK we have a thing called the TV License, it currently costs about £154 a year (payable, upfront, monthly or quarterly) and this fee pays for the BBC. We do have other broadcast channels that have advertising to cover costs, the BBC is advert free and is impartial (you'll always get people who say there's a bias one way or the other on a specific subject when they don;t agree with the reporting for example... but the BBC mandate is otherwise neutral and impartial). Believe it or not... this is a very good thing.

  1. No adverts shoved down your throats every 10 mins
  2. No advertiser pressure to cover certain things in a certain way, or to only target specific demographics  through fear of losing revenue
  3. Free press, not biased like some stations in the US because of point 2 above.
  4. Regional programming in native languages. We have channels dedicated to the Welsh and Celtic languages (Scotland and Ireland), local news channels and radio stations.
  5. A much wider variety of programming that appeals to the whole demographic. Not just targeted at a specific age group. But drama, action, thrillers, game shows, comedy shows, documentaries, nature programs, historical shows, cooking, diy... you name it and there's quite literally something for everyone.

 

 

Long post I know... I hope you can take some positives away from it. I think we actually want the same thing here... but we're coming at it from different angles and I'm not getting through and making you see the bigger picture.

 

Companies are not going to do any of this themselves... they're too greedy and can only think of the next quarters profit margin and short term gain... none of them are looking at the bigger picture about sustained long term income. I do, I see what could be rather than what is if we take the initiative and force their hand and that is entirely in the hands of the consumer... We are the ones with the power, we vote with our wallets, we control the fate of these companies... I already dictate who gets my money... what will you do... capitulate and accept whatever they demand of you... or take a stand for some thing better?

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5 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Region locking used to be a thing,

Netflix uses this a lot. Go check out the Netflix Library in Canada vs the US. 

Also: https://www.disneystudioshelp.com/detail_BDRegionCoding__BDDVDHelp.html according the Disney this is still a practice of the studios. 

 

11 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

nt to suit your specific agenda now. The cost of implementing the law has no bearing on the law itself... If that leads to costs to the consumer rising... that is not the same thing and in a competitive market with a level playing field for all... Prices will remain competitive

WHere are the competivie prices? Most the stores sell the games for the same amount. Some have sales here and their. We have had multiple game stores for a while now. Pricing is pretty standard. 

 

17 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

now have Sky and BT Sports that broadcast those games.

Correction you have BT and COMCAST. Because COMCAST bought Sky. Good luck with that. You will soon feel their greed. Also Comcast has deeeeeeeep pockets, Im sure it wont be long before they have members of parliment on the pay roll. 

 

18 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

You produce a show/movie for your streaming platform... have at it. You've got 12 months exclusive use on your platform

Wont happen. Because each of the studios will have their own service. Disney has theirs + Hulu, Comcast will have Peacock, AT&T has HBO + DirectV Go. No such things will ever happen. The EU even doesnt have the power to make this happen. 

 

23 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

Also, once again you are forgetting that France is part of the EU and they cannot region lock a single part of the EU countries

They do it the same way Netflix does. By the address attached to the account. Netflix use this tactic. If you want American Netflix your required to have an American address and bank card. Also not every country in the EU uses the Euro if I understand correctly. So thats another way. Either way, Valve wont cover any costs associated with building a system to resell games. See what they do is take a larger precentage from Devs, Devs in turn raise the prices of games. 

 

On top of that, devs could maybe charge a fee to change ownership of a game. So you pay lets say $10 for Stardew Valley used and the dev or valve charges $1.99 for change of ownership. Trust me bull shit like this happens. A great example of this is my city. You want to pay the water bill? If you use Cash or check no fees, but if you use Credit or Debit your charges a fee or a percentage, what ever is bigger. American companies are smart, they know how to work the system. Either way it will be bad for consumers. Some more evidence are games sold in Alpha status, day ONE DLC, and games that barely work being sold for $60, not to mention micro transactions. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

No because that doesnt apply to the US. Plus I dont use Windows any longer. 

Yet it proves that European users had European rulings enforced.

 

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

If they wanted to do something like put people in prison then yes, they would need the US governments support.

LOL we're talking about a user being allowed to play his games... 9_9

 

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

 You know Valve could just pull their opperations out of France entirely.

So could Microsoft. The key term is "credible threat", threatening other t hurt them while also hurting yourself only works if you're wearing a TNT belt, and even then you'd have to look crazy enough... :P  

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

What would all those users do when they go to log in and steam tells them that they no longer have active accounts? Just because Valve chooses to do business in a country today, doesnt mean they have to do bussiness with them tommrow. 

Yes, and they could also get mad and stop breathing. Now, leaving childish tantrums aside, let's go back to plausible courses of actions by companies with adults in charge, focused on making as much money as they can... I'd say they settle for making less money if the alternative is not making any money at all. Especially since they wouldn't lose any money by giving OP his account back (other than the money they were stealing from him, that is).

Coincidentally, it's exactly what happened with basically every internet/software company in the past, with GDPR, etc...

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30 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

 

I'm not quoting anything you've said because to be honest I stopped reading after the first paragraph... You've not understood anything I've said and can only focus on a tiny, insignificant thing that conforms to your specific point of view.

 

I don't think you are willing to consider anything outside of that... and as such I'm no longer willing to participate in discussing this with you... It's no fun banging your head agaisnt a wall when some one refuses to accept any other opinion than the narrow one they have.

 

have a nice day.

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3 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Yet it proves that European users had European rulings enforced.

It proves Microsoft had to make a speical version of WIndows for the EU. Never had I ever been asked to pick a browser when I installed Windows. Personally I think its a stuipid law. Stop being lazy and install a web browser when you install the rest of your software. 

 

4 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

OL we're talking about a user being allowed to play his games

No we are talking about France being able to enforce their laws on a company that has no physical presense in France. 

 

7 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

So could Microsoft. The key term is "credible threat", threatening other t hurt them while also hurting yourself only works if you're wearing a TNT belt, and even then you'd have to look crazy enough... :P  

Its diffrent with Microsoft. They have the telemetry they are selling to advertisers. They have no reason to pull out, they dont care about reselling of keys, because generally the key it attached to a mainboard (OEM) or if you have a retail key you can either sell it with the hardware or just sell the key its self. 

 

With games, you generally dont have a key when you buy them digitally. Or if you did its only one time use. Also the keys are locked to the platform, meaning the Platform has to have the ability to sell used keys. This costs money. Money that Valve is not just going to pay out. They will find a way to pass the costs on. To the DEVs or to the users of the Platform. KEEP IN MIND, Valve is an American company, American companies dont eat costs. They always pass them on. Also keep in mind, if these laws apply to valve, they apply to Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, UPlay, Orgin and GOG. So collectily prices will rise due to regulations. They always do. Every reguation placed on telecoms in the US, has an associated fee that is charged to the customer. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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3 minutes ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

don't think you are willing to consider anything outside of that

Its just I know how American companies opperate. They are greedy bastards. France will not break the spirt of the American shareholder. They want their money and now. Fuck the law, fuck the customer. Either way they win, we loose and the government makes it worse. 

I just want to sit back and watch the world burn. 

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18 hours ago, Anomnomnomaly said:

1. What we are seeing is a correction of something that has been allowed to infiltrate the digital market place...

 

2. The 'illusion' that you no longer own anything you purchase. 

 

3. you sell something, that person owns it and therefore has the right to sell it on if they choose.

 

4. You are trying to say that's not allowed... because you have bought into that illusion that software for personal use like games are not owned...

 

5. If we don't own them, why are we paying full price for them?

 

6. We should be given the games to play for free and have the option to buy cosmetic extras for real money...

 

7. Because that's the only possible justification for not 'owning' a game you have purchased regardless of what some selfish, greedy company claims they have the right to do in your country... 

 

8. Just because your govt doesn't give a crap about the consumer getting screwed... doesn't mean others are so gullible to not 'eventually' take a look at the issue and say 'hold on a second, that's not right' and adjust the laws to protect consumer laws that already exist and have done for decades... but have been bypassed in a digital age because such a thing didn't exist as a concept when they were drafted.

 

9. Copyright infringement is an issue that can be laid entirely at the feet of the companies who punish legitimate buyers, when acquiring a game from an alternative source makes the process of playing it easier than owning a legitimate version.

So, theres a lot of misunderstanding here, let me try and lay things out so that it is mostly done with. My edito controls aren't working so bear with me.

First, let me start by saying I agree with whats happening, and I want these changes to happen everywhere. I do not agree with how things have been handled and shifted in the recent years towards less and less ownership. I broke down your post into its bullet points, so I can more easily hit each point head on.

 

1. Allowed to infiltrate because software fits a niche area where laws have yet to catch up. Otherwise I 100% agree, it has only been legal thus far because the laws are out dated.

 

2. Its not an illusion. If you actually sit down and reach the TOS that you are signing every time you install or buy a digital game or piece of software, you literally do not own that software. You are licensing usage of it from the company. You dont need to sign a TOS if you actually fully OWN what you're buying, because the service is said and done when the purchase happens.

 

3. They are not selling the software. They are licensing you key for usage. Again, if you actually read the contracts you're agreeing to this is all in there.

 

4. Its not an illusion. We are literally accepting that we dont own the software we are purchasing access to everytime your agree to a TOS.

 

5. We are paying full price for access through a licensed key to the product. When you go to the movies you pay 12$ to see it, but you don't own it do you? You paid a full price movie ticket, but still dont own the movie and obviously cant record it on a personal device.

 

6. That is a model that does exist and works. However even then you still do not own the game, you still are only licensed access to it for as long as you don't break the TOS.

 

7. Again, this stems from the misunderstanding of software. if there are TOS, you do not own it, you are not free to reproduce or distribute it for the most part. You do not own software unless that software doesn't have a copyright holder. You are 99.99% of the time licensing usage of it from the company that actually owns it. And again, if you actually sit down and read what you're signing up for, this is all stated.

 

8. Its not that the Govn't doesn't care. Its that it takes a very long time for laws to catch up with moving technology. Look back at the era when cars were just arriving on the scene. No one had any idea how laws for cars would work, it took many decades of building up laws to get to where we are now with a quite well regulated automobile industry and driving population.

 

9. Once again, 99.99% of the time you are not buying software. You are licensing usage of it from the company that owns it. Again... this is all not clearly, but certainly laid out if you read the contracts that you are agreeing to.

 

Right with that sorted hopefully you can understand the issue we have a bit more and why it is so tangled. Frances decision was decided NOT that you can resell your games, or that you even own them. Very, very crucially it was that the KEYS can be resold. You can resell the licensing key you OWN, because that is a key that you do infact own, that grants licensing to the software in question. I 100% agree with this court decision. We do own the keys we've purchased, and those should 100% be resellable. Steam, and many many platforms however do not allow us to sell the KEYS we own, which is the underlying issue. 

 

Because software can so easily be copied and duplicated the systems and laws we have for tangible products sometimes cannot be applied. I can go to the store and buy a macbook pro, and actually own it because it is a single product that cannot be duplicated with a simple ctrl+c ctrl+v. I can resell it without any issue because I will never be able to create a copy of it and profit from selling more of them. Software on the other hand, is much harder to justify actually owning as a consumer. If I download photoshop and then just upload it and start selling access to it for 1/2 the price then obviously you can see the issue with that. Its for that precise reason that DRM and the licensing keys and activation systems under it were created. And it was because we cannot truly own software that this whole issue has arisen from.

 

Now, this is mostly a separate issue from what bothers me most about the current software culture and consumer rights. The biggest issue in my opinion is that we are able to modify software that we run on our own personal owned hardware less and less. For online games with a multiplayer I understand the reason to lock down editing of software and protections against unauthorized editing, but for windows 10 once fully activated to stop me from editing it any way I see fit, when doing so can impact others in no literal way I see as morally reprehensible for microsoft to do. If I could run any other OS I would. That I feel is the real issue with software licensing, that because we choose to run certain software we are restricted more and more so from editing how it interacts with our privately own hardware for no good reason.

 

Updated 2021 Desktop || 3700x || Asus x570 Tuf Gaming || 32gb Predator 3200mhz || 2080s XC Ultra || MSI 1440p144hz || DT990 + HD660 || GoXLR + ifi Zen Can || Avermedia Livestreamer 513 ||

New Home Dedicated Game Server || Xeon E5 2630Lv3 || 16gb 2333mhz ddr4 ECC || 2tb Sata SSD || 8tb Nas HDD || Radeon 6450 1g display adapter ||

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