7 ms·

Valve's defense in this case was puzzling. It appears that they tried to argue that Steam is a subscription service (which are exempt from secondary sales), whi

by jsnell 7y ago

Valve's defense in this case was puzzling. It appears that they tried to argue that Steam is a subscription service (which are exempt from secondary sales), which was just obviously bullshit. From a bit of reading, it seems like there would have been at least two much stronger defenses available. First, the way the 2012 CJEU decision was actually interpreted in practice by other lower courts incredibly strictly[0], requiring outrageous levels of proof that the secondary seller no longer had access to the sold software. And then separate from that, the core of the 2012 court decision was the 2009 "legal protection of computer programs" directive. But in 2014 (in the Nintendo vs. PC Box case) the CJEU basically ended up ruling that games did not fall under that directive due to how heavy they are on non-software (audio-visual) content[1]. I'd be really curious why Valve's lawyers ignored these avenues and went for the ridiculous subscription option. (And equally, I'm curious about why France was going after Valve when PSN, Xbox Live, Apple App Store and Nintendo eShop appear to be softer targets). [0] https://gameslaw.org/the-end-of-the-usedsoft-case-and-its-implications-for-used-software-licences/ https://gameslaw.org/the-end-of-the-usedsoft-case-and-its-im... [1] http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=146686&doclang=en http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=146...

benologist 7y ago
This is the same company who's argument for defrauding 20,000+ Australians through refused refunds was they didn't check what the law was, they just blanket-refused refunds and shut down people's Steam accounts if they got chargebacks, until the government consumer protection watchdog sued them. They even claimed to not be doing business in Australia, despite accumulating 20,000+ refund requests which implies 6 - 7 digit quantities of undisputed transactions. This is the origin of their refund policy today, which is no questions asked within usage limits. Australia is only like 5% of Steam users so they unfortunately got away with the vast majority of their fraud, perhaps several hundred thousand other instances. https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-million-australia-refund-policy/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-mill...
- dannyw 7y ago
  Australian here. I sought a refund for a broken game. Steam refused. I cited the ACL. Steam closed my ticket. I reported it to that ACCC. Along with many other reports, ACCC sued. One year and nine months later, Steam implemented the refund policy. I asked again for a refund. Steam declined it because the purchase was made too long ago.
  - benologist 7y ago
    I'm glad you did. I wanted a refund of Jagged Alliance 2 back in the early 2000s and they refused, despite crippling bugs with unlimited money in the base game and saving crashed in the expansion but only on the Steam versions you could buy it bug-free on other marketplaces. They sold it like that for years, I wish I'd thought of going to the ACCC but oh well. I did go to the ACCC a couple years ago when I wanted a refund on GOG - they're more dishonest than Steam as they market a money back guarantee but the only circumstance they will refund is if you prove to their satisfaction that the game cannot open on your computer. It's a "no refund" policy just like Steam used to have. https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-COM-Money-Back-Guarantee-Policy?product=gog https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-C...
  - fulldecent2 7y ago
    Stop requesting refunds and just take your money back.
    - zbentley 7y ago
      How? With a chargeback request that will get your account shut down?
- koheripbal 7y ago
  I don't see what this has to do with this thread. These "This is the same company that..." type of comments are very low value. Companies operate across dozens of jurisdictions and have to comply with hundreds of laws. I goes without saying that eventually they'll bump up against a law and/or group of people that disagree with their decisions. That's a normal part of doing business and doesn't have any relevance to some other controversy.
nibnalin 7y ago
I think Valve’s defense is one that’s perfectly strong too, in theory, at least. Steam Cloud saves (syncing game state online), steam workshop (for community game mods, maps etc.), achievements/ leaderboards (arguably, steam makes a social network for games) are all features with running costs, aka a subscription, even if their price to the user is included in the sale price of the game. From a developer’s perspective, Steam actually handles many more pain points of building games (voip, playing with friends, build processes, DRM, anti-cheat etc.) so arguably, the user is a subscriber of _steam_, since the developer is a subscriber of those services. I’m curious to know why you find this defense “obviously bullshit”?
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I think most people consider a subscription to be something that you pay for on a recurring basis. obviously you can "subscribe" to channels on YouTube without paying anything, but I'd say this is outside the typical usage of the word. if I bought a game in 2005 and it received some patches, I wouldn't have considered myself a "subscriber" to a "service". no idea how this lines up with the legal definition, though.
- doesnt_know 7y ago
  Steam is a digital store and a consumer buys software from it. You can twist words and describe it using all sorts of other marketing bullshit but it's mostly in bad faith. It's why the NZ's consumer guarantee's act has terms like what is "reasonable" and The Disputes Tribunal (somewhat equivalent to small claims court) will often consider things from an average consumer perspective. HN is full of technical power users so it's common for the comment sections of these stories to devolve into a "well actually" nitpick of language use but most sane countries consumer protection laws are intentionally not designed this way. Otherwise you can probably extrapolate anything into a "subscription" service. Your bank and most credit cards are structured in a way that looks like a subscription, but an average consumer doesn't consider their plastic cards a financial "subscription".
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    > Otherwise you can probably extrapolate anything into a "subscription" service. Your bank and most credit cards are structured in a way that looks like a subscription, but an average consumer doesn't consider their plastic cards a financial "subscription". I do, but I have to pay my bank X EUR a month to use it; therefore a paid subscription service. I don't have to pay Steam X EUR a month to use it. If I don't pay for Steam for a year, my account is still going to work exactly as it did before (sans a few DRM games, maybe, heh). Therefore, Steam is at the very least not a paid subscription service. Whether it is a subscription service or not, well that is a different matter. I'd say a subscription service is only a subscription service if you regularly pay for the subscription (ie. monthly, quarterly, yearly). If the service stays running and working for you without you paying, then it isn't a subscription service. No, the reason Steam stays working is because of the <= 30% tax on all the sales. Which isn't a subscription service but more akin to a communal tax to keep the infrastructure working. Apart from that, I never signed up for a Steam subscription. I did sign up for a World of Warcraft subscription. And that means there's no first sale doctrine, sadly, as this goes against the collector mindset the game stands on.
nolok 7y ago
> I'm curious about why France was going after Valve when PSN, Xbox Live, Apple App Store and Nintendo eShop appear to be softer targets Because "France" is not going after anyone, nor our watchdog, it's UFC Que Choisir (a pro consumer association, similar to eg EFF in their status/legal form) that sued Valve in court. UFC is a regular of first trying mediation and getting companies to change nicely, and if nothing occurs then they do court cases like this, and then use the verdict as a basis for more mediation with other actors in the field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC-Que_Choisir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC-Que_Choisir
- jsnell 7y ago
  Thanks for the correction, but it doesn't actually answer the question. Why did whoever initiated the lawsuit go after Valve, when there would have been stronger cases to be made against closed platforms? (The cases against closed platforms would be stronger, since on those platforms it's far easier for the secondary seller to prove that they no longer have access to the game.)
  - true_religion 7y ago
    How is Valve not a closed platform for the games that it sells? You can't really export the game outside of Steam, or use it with Steam disabled for any significant amount of time.
    - Retric 7y ago
      You can link games you buy outside of Steam to your steam account. This provides users all the upsides of a steam purchase without all of the steam limitations. Further, many games purchased on Steam provide keys that work without using the steam account.
      - jsgo 7y ago
        Linking games to Steam provides the library aspect and social features I believe, but I wouldn't argue it has all of the upsides of a Steam purchase. For example, I would buy Ubisoft releases way back when on Steam instead of Uplay because I could have it manage installing/uninstalling the games (even if I could've purchased it at a cheaper price via Uplay. Ghost Recon Wildlands comes to mind). For library management, GOG 2 (Alpha) is the best solution I've personally seen (have the various storefronts installed, import the connector for GOG 2, all the games from that storefront are imported into GOG 2, can install/play/etc. on a whim).
barkhausen 7y ago
Because, to be clear, what is being sold is a license, which is, in effect, simply permission to install and play the game. It is very much likened to a "subscription" because customers don't actually "own" any part of the game at all. They simply own "permission" to install and play the game. And there are all kinds of restrictions to the license which includes transferring the license, reselling it, etc. which are all covered in the license agreement at the time of purchase or prior to install, which of course, nobody reads. :)
- rasz 7y ago
  > all kinds of restrictions to the license are toilet paper in EU. Thanks to UsedSoft v Oracle I can go to the recycling center and pick up $5 copy of Windows 10 and Microsoft cant deny activation.
  - twobat 7y ago
    In my European country precent has no power. Does in Europe as a whole?
    - zaarn 7y ago
      While in most European countries, precedent doesn't have much power, it can still be used as an indicator on how to interpret law or judge how a court case would go. There is also the higher courts in most countries, which don't set precedent but can set a modus operandi for courts to follow.
- stubish 7y ago
  To be clear, what Valve wants and claims to sell is a license as you describe, and maybe that is the story they sell to the game publishers using their platform, and maybe it is all true in the US. What is actually being sold though depends on the jurisdiction, and Valve's bold claims have no teeth. It is common for US companies to learn the hard way that they cannot revoke legal rights in places like Australia and Europe. There is little point reading the license agreement when most of it is balderdash, falsely claiming a more limited agreement than that granted by law.
dzhiurgis 7y ago
Cross country limitations is what pisses me off the most with App Store... Got a Ryanair flight, but outside EU? Can’t download the app and need to print your boarding pass (or pay half the ticket price to do it in the airport). Got family abroad? Yeah no family sharing for you (even for storage). Edit: did I say most? App reviews are downright fraud.
- ferongr 7y ago
  Can't you use the website and take a screenshot or "Print to PDF" to display on screen during the check-in/boarding process?
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Not sure it matters in practice but in general a printable boarding pass is not equivalent to one issued for digital use. Specifically, printable boarding passes are PDF-417 symbology where mobile boarding passes mostly Aztec and QR symbologies, and occasionally Datamatrix. I could imagine an airline like Ryanair making a point of only accepting mobile boarding passes on phones, to extract additional revenue. This is covered in the IATA BCBP standard. [1] [1] https://tinkrmind.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bcbp-implementation-guide-5th-edition-june-2016.pdf https://tinkrmind.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bcbp-implement...
    - ukoki 7y ago
      I always just save the boarding pass PDF to Dropbox on my phone because I don't want to bother downloading the shitty app for every single airline (plus who knows just what personal data they are scraping from my phone). Never had a problem for ~hundreds of flights with ~dozens of European airlines over the last three years. This includes Ryanair and the other hyper-budget airlines that seem to use flights as a loss leader for their lucrative "extra-charges" business.
      - Liskni_si 7y ago
        It's also possible to import the boarding pass into Google Pay. The "correct" way to do it is through the airline's app, but I couldn't for the life of me get the EasyJet app to do it, and I really don't want to keep a number of budget airline shitty apps installed anyway, so I googled a bit and found https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=color.dev.com.tangerine https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=color.dev.com...., which allowed me to scan the barcode from the PDF boarding pass and import that into Google Pay. Tested it with EasyJet only so far, will try RyanAir later. It's possible to tweak the boarding pass a bit, even change the barcode to QR code, but I haven't tried that and it doesn't seem to be necessary. I think the whole "you must print the PDF boarding pass" thing is just about saving time. Imagine an older person in a hurry trying to zoom the PDF just right and also max the brightness. My wife (30-ish) struggles to do this without slowing down the queue.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Within the EU we just had another ruling that ebooks cannot be resold and a second hand market is illegal infringement on copyright. I don't get why games and books are treated differently here. Personally I understand the economic and technical problems a resale would present, but nevertheless I think putting restrictions of the abilities to resell is an idiotic policy approach.

by jsnell 7y ago

benologist 7y ago

This is the same company who's argument for defrauding 20,000+ Australians through refused refunds was they didn't check what the law was, they just blanket-refused refunds and shut down people's Steam accounts if they got chargebacks, until the government consumer protection watchdog sued them. They even claimed to not be doing business in Australia, despite accumulating 20,000+ refund requests which implies 6 - 7 digit quantities of undisputed transactions. This is the origin of their refund policy today, which is no questions asked within usage limits. Australia is only like 5% of Steam users so they unfortunately got away with the vast majority of their fraud, perhaps several hundred thousand other instances. https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-million-australia-refund-policy/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-mill...

dannyw 7y ago
Australian here. I sought a refund for a broken game. Steam refused. I cited the ACL. Steam closed my ticket. I reported it to that ACCC. Along with many other reports, ACCC sued. One year and nine months later, Steam implemented the refund policy. I asked again for a refund. Steam declined it because the purchase was made too long ago.
- benologist 7y ago
  I'm glad you did. I wanted a refund of Jagged Alliance 2 back in the early 2000s and they refused, despite crippling bugs with unlimited money in the base game and saving crashed in the expansion but only on the Steam versions you could buy it bug-free on other marketplaces. They sold it like that for years, I wish I'd thought of going to the ACCC but oh well. I did go to the ACCC a couple years ago when I wanted a refund on GOG - they're more dishonest than Steam as they market a money back guarantee but the only circumstance they will refund is if you prove to their satisfaction that the game cannot open on your computer. It's a "no refund" policy just like Steam used to have. https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-COM-Money-Back-Guarantee-Policy?product=gog https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-C...
- fulldecent2 7y ago
  Stop requesting refunds and just take your money back.
  - zbentley 7y ago
    How? With a chargeback request that will get your account shut down?
koheripbal 7y ago
I don't see what this has to do with this thread. These "This is the same company that..." type of comments are very low value. Companies operate across dozens of jurisdictions and have to comply with hundreds of laws. I goes without saying that eventually they'll bump up against a law and/or group of people that disagree with their decisions. That's a normal part of doing business and doesn't have any relevance to some other controversy.

nibnalin 7y ago

I think Valve’s defense is one that’s perfectly strong too, in theory, at least. Steam Cloud saves (syncing game state online), steam workshop (for community game mods, maps etc.), achievements/ leaderboards (arguably, steam makes a social network for games) are all features with running costs, aka a subscription, even if their price to the user is included in the sale price of the game. From a developer’s perspective, Steam actually handles many more pain points of building games (voip, playing with friends, build processes, DRM, anti-cheat etc.) so arguably, the user is a subscriber of _steam_, since the developer is a subscriber of those services. I’m curious to know why you find this defense “obviously bullshit”?

leetcrew 7y ago
I think most people consider a subscription to be something that you pay for on a recurring basis. obviously you can "subscribe" to channels on YouTube without paying anything, but I'd say this is outside the typical usage of the word. if I bought a game in 2005 and it received some patches, I wouldn't have considered myself a "subscriber" to a "service". no idea how this lines up with the legal definition, though.
doesnt_know 7y ago
Steam is a digital store and a consumer buys software from it. You can twist words and describe it using all sorts of other marketing bullshit but it's mostly in bad faith. It's why the NZ's consumer guarantee's act has terms like what is "reasonable" and The Disputes Tribunal (somewhat equivalent to small claims court) will often consider things from an average consumer perspective. HN is full of technical power users so it's common for the comment sections of these stories to devolve into a "well actually" nitpick of language use but most sane countries consumer protection laws are intentionally not designed this way. Otherwise you can probably extrapolate anything into a "subscription" service. Your bank and most credit cards are structured in a way that looks like a subscription, but an average consumer doesn't consider their plastic cards a financial "subscription".
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > Otherwise you can probably extrapolate anything into a "subscription" service. Your bank and most credit cards are structured in a way that looks like a subscription, but an average consumer doesn't consider their plastic cards a financial "subscription". I do, but I have to pay my bank X EUR a month to use it; therefore a paid subscription service. I don't have to pay Steam X EUR a month to use it. If I don't pay for Steam for a year, my account is still going to work exactly as it did before (sans a few DRM games, maybe, heh). Therefore, Steam is at the very least not a paid subscription service. Whether it is a subscription service or not, well that is a different matter. I'd say a subscription service is only a subscription service if you regularly pay for the subscription (ie. monthly, quarterly, yearly). If the service stays running and working for you without you paying, then it isn't a subscription service. No, the reason Steam stays working is because of the <= 30% tax on all the sales. Which isn't a subscription service but more akin to a communal tax to keep the infrastructure working. Apart from that, I never signed up for a Steam subscription. I did sign up for a World of Warcraft subscription. And that means there's no first sale doctrine, sadly, as this goes against the collector mindset the game stands on.

nolok 7y ago

> I'm curious about why France was going after Valve when PSN, Xbox Live, Apple App Store and Nintendo eShop appear to be softer targets Because "France" is not going after anyone, nor our watchdog, it's UFC Que Choisir (a pro consumer association, similar to eg EFF in their status/legal form) that sued Valve in court. UFC is a regular of first trying mediation and getting companies to change nicely, and if nothing occurs then they do court cases like this, and then use the verdict as a basis for more mediation with other actors in the field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC-Que_Choisir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC-Que_Choisir

jsnell 7y ago
Thanks for the correction, but it doesn't actually answer the question. Why did whoever initiated the lawsuit go after Valve, when there would have been stronger cases to be made against closed platforms? (The cases against closed platforms would be stronger, since on those platforms it's far easier for the secondary seller to prove that they no longer have access to the game.)
- true_religion 7y ago
  How is Valve not a closed platform for the games that it sells? You can't really export the game outside of Steam, or use it with Steam disabled for any significant amount of time.
  - Retric 7y ago
    You can link games you buy outside of Steam to your steam account. This provides users all the upsides of a steam purchase without all of the steam limitations. Further, many games purchased on Steam provide keys that work without using the steam account.
    - jsgo 7y ago
      Linking games to Steam provides the library aspect and social features I believe, but I wouldn't argue it has all of the upsides of a Steam purchase. For example, I would buy Ubisoft releases way back when on Steam instead of Uplay because I could have it manage installing/uninstalling the games (even if I could've purchased it at a cheaper price via Uplay. Ghost Recon Wildlands comes to mind). For library management, GOG 2 (Alpha) is the best solution I've personally seen (have the various storefronts installed, import the connector for GOG 2, all the games from that storefront are imported into GOG 2, can install/play/etc. on a whim).

barkhausen 7y ago

Because, to be clear, what is being sold is a license, which is, in effect, simply permission to install and play the game. It is very much likened to a "subscription" because customers don't actually "own" any part of the game at all. They simply own "permission" to install and play the game. And there are all kinds of restrictions to the license which includes transferring the license, reselling it, etc. which are all covered in the license agreement at the time of purchase or prior to install, which of course, nobody reads. :)

rasz 7y ago
> all kinds of restrictions to the license are toilet paper in EU. Thanks to UsedSoft v Oracle I can go to the recycling center and pick up $5 copy of Windows 10 and Microsoft cant deny activation.
- twobat 7y ago
  In my European country precent has no power. Does in Europe as a whole?
  - zaarn 7y ago
    While in most European countries, precedent doesn't have much power, it can still be used as an indicator on how to interpret law or judge how a court case would go. There is also the higher courts in most countries, which don't set precedent but can set a modus operandi for courts to follow.
stubish 7y ago
To be clear, what Valve wants and claims to sell is a license as you describe, and maybe that is the story they sell to the game publishers using their platform, and maybe it is all true in the US. What is actually being sold though depends on the jurisdiction, and Valve's bold claims have no teeth. It is common for US companies to learn the hard way that they cannot revoke legal rights in places like Australia and Europe. There is little point reading the license agreement when most of it is balderdash, falsely claiming a more limited agreement than that granted by law.

dzhiurgis 7y ago

Cross country limitations is what pisses me off the most with App Store... Got a Ryanair flight, but outside EU? Can’t download the app and need to print your boarding pass (or pay half the ticket price to do it in the airport). Got family abroad? Yeah no family sharing for you (even for storage). Edit: did I say most? App reviews are downright fraud.

ferongr 7y ago
Can't you use the website and take a screenshot or "Print to PDF" to display on screen during the check-in/boarding process?
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Not sure it matters in practice but in general a printable boarding pass is not equivalent to one issued for digital use. Specifically, printable boarding passes are PDF-417 symbology where mobile boarding passes mostly Aztec and QR symbologies, and occasionally Datamatrix. I could imagine an airline like Ryanair making a point of only accepting mobile boarding passes on phones, to extract additional revenue. This is covered in the IATA BCBP standard. [1] [1] https://tinkrmind.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bcbp-implementation-guide-5th-edition-june-2016.pdf https://tinkrmind.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bcbp-implement...
  - ukoki 7y ago
    I always just save the boarding pass PDF to Dropbox on my phone because I don't want to bother downloading the shitty app for every single airline (plus who knows just what personal data they are scraping from my phone). Never had a problem for ~hundreds of flights with ~dozens of European airlines over the last three years. This includes Ryanair and the other hyper-budget airlines that seem to use flights as a loss leader for their lucrative "extra-charges" business.
    - Liskni_si 7y ago
      It's also possible to import the boarding pass into Google Pay. The "correct" way to do it is through the airline's app, but I couldn't for the life of me get the EasyJet app to do it, and I really don't want to keep a number of budget airline shitty apps installed anyway, so I googled a bit and found https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=color.dev.com.tangerine https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=color.dev.com...., which allowed me to scan the barcode from the PDF boarding pass and import that into Google Pay. Tested it with EasyJet only so far, will try RyanAir later. It's possible to tweak the boarding pass a bit, even change the barcode to QR code, but I haven't tried that and it doesn't seem to be necessary. I think the whole "you must print the PDF boarding pass" thing is just about saving time. Imagine an older person in a hurry trying to zoom the PDF just right and also max the brightness. My wife (30-ish) struggles to do this without slowing down the queue.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Within the EU we just had another ruling that ebooks cannot be resold and a second hand market is illegal infringement on copyright. I don't get why games and books are treated differently here. Personally I understand the economic and technical problems a resale would present, but nevertheless I think putting restrictions of the abilities to resell is an idiotic policy approach.