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People won't like this, but we at Ultra.io are trying to tackle this exact problem by deploying certificates of ownership to a decentralized ledger as proof of

People won't like this, but we at Ultra.io are trying to tackle this exact problem by deploying certificates of ownership to a decentralized ledger as proof of your owning a game. AKA, we want to mint NFTs for each game sold, which allows a user to prove they own it. People hate those words, but we think that the tech has real value and a use-case in the market for solving inequity between publishers and users. This nonsense of revoking a license after a user bought it is just an extension of the larger problem that the games that you "buy" you don't actually own and can't do anything with.

ummonk 5y ago
Ever heard of a thing called a receipt?
klodolph 5y ago
How do you restore access if a user's private key is lost or compromised?
endisneigh 5y ago
I'm not sure how this would prevent the scenario the article described.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  I think the idea is that NFTs aren't deleteable.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    From the article: > Unfortunately, there’s also a clause in the ToS that no credit will be given back to the user in cases of account termination or suspension. The company’s support page also cites the General Data Protection Regulation compliance and freeing database space as the main reason why they delete unused accounts. Again, how would NFTs fix this problem? A solution to the problem described in the article would be a very trivial service that just logs in on behalf of the user at whatever cadence necessary to preserve account "activity", not NFTs... sigh
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - bozhark 5y ago
    Do you think the file is stored in the blockchain?!
  - SilasX 5y ago
    In theory, sure, it has all the benefits of being immutably on the blockchain. In practice, the whole ecosystem around NFTs is built to trust OpenSea's version of truth, so the records can be manipulated at will. https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1454863786783875075 https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1454863786783875075
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    You can carve your game purchases onto a stone tablet if you want to, but it doesn't make any difference unless there's someone that actually honors that NFT. Is this "Ultra" going to mint NFTs for my Ubisoft account purchases? If it does, who honors my Ubisoft Store NFTs once Ubisoft terminates my account? Is it Ubisoft, is it Ultra or is it even Steam? And if it doesn't, what is it minting? Stuff I buy on Ultra? Because at that point the NFT might just as well be an email receipt, since I'm now relying on Ultra to actually stay alive and honor my NFTs until I die.
bozhark 5y ago
Lovely, way to make a mess of a pile of shit. You solved nothing.
jokowueu 5y ago
But my receipt proves that i own it . It's just that publishers don't care .
- quest88 5y ago
  But it's not ~~decentralized~~.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Receipts aren't proof of ownership in a world where re-selling or trade-ins are possible (as IMO they should be, as they are with physical items).
BoorishBears 5y ago
How does this help even the tiniest bit? You have proof you own a game and the publisher decides they don't want you to have access anymore... now what?
caymanjim 5y ago
Your idea does nothing to force the service provider to retain your account, or even to provide you with access to the game media. Proof of ownership isn't the issue here. Ubisoft isn't denying that the user purchased those games. They almost certainly know exactly which games were purchased. I more or less trust the game services I use to keep a record of what I own in their central ledger. They could still deny me access, as they're doing here. Maybe some regulation should address this, but I think the market will probably handle it.
- derefr 5y ago
  > Proof of ownership isn't the issue here. Wouldn't having legal proof of owning a license to an IP, entitle you to then use a copy of the files covered by those IP rights, regardless of how or where you acquire them? (E.g. if you buy a license to Windows, you don't need to download the installation media for Windows from Microsoft in order for your licensed installation of Windows to be legitimate. You can get the Windows installation media from anywhere.) You don't need a "game service provider" if you have legal dispensation to torrent the game. And, that being the case, you could replace a centralized service like Steam with the game-media equivalent of an app like PopcornTime: just a convenient way to browse for, and download, torrents of the IP you already legally own.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    you already have proof of ownership.
  - ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
    You don't need NFTs for that. The proof of ownership is just a receipt. It could even be made verifiable by adding a digital signature signed by Ubisofts public key. Still, NFTs are not needed here.
    - derefr 5y ago
      You're right, you don't need an immutable ledger of visible IP licensing rights if that's all you want to accomplish. But presumably, in a "legal piracy is commonplace, Steam goes out of business" scenario, the studios producing the games would still want to make the games verify your license ownership against something — e.g. to make sure that you're only using your license for one concurrent "seat", rather than using it to activate thousands of copies of the game (like a regular product keys — which usually are "local digital signatures" — would enable.) Presuming that no central corporate authority could 1. profitably exist in such a market 2. with the right incentives, then a distributed immutable ledger would be a good alternative for storing those licenses in a verifiable manner. (Think of it as an IP licensing activation server run by "everybody." Each time a game wants to run, it would use your signing key to submit a TX incrementing a counter representing the current active uses of the license. Basically, a distributed, cryptographically-verifiable semaphore.)
MattGaiser 5y ago
There is already proof that a user owns it, ranging from company sales records to receipts of purchase. Nobody seriously disputes the purchase and the company would not dispute it in a court of law. The problem is that you own something the company has a right to terminate.
IntelMiner 5y ago
So you've literally reinvented "but I have a receipt!"
- nikanj 5y ago
  But with a MUCH larger carbon footprint
j4yav 5y ago
People aren’t losing their receipts here, the games are being taken away even if they have them and can prove they bought it. More durable receipts won’t fix it.
vital_beach 5y ago
they had a database entry linking his account to a purchase. it's not like his access to the game was forgotten. they just chose not to honor it. a blockchain proof isn't any more compelling than the info they already had + his payment records.
- kosievdmerwe 5y ago
  "We irreversibly logged an entry deactivating your account to the blockchain. Nothing we can do to reactivate it."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
throw_m239339 5y ago
> People won't like this, but we at Ultra.io are trying to tackle this exact problem by deploying certificates of ownership to a decentralized ledger as proof of your owning a game. How do you legally enforce that proof of ownership? How does a NFT change anything to a license agreement between the publisher and the buyers?
MichaelBurge 5y ago
The user can already prove they own the game. Ubisoft accepted the proof. The problem is they've chosen to configure their servers to reject sending the game client messages consistent with this proof. They could, if they wanted, configure their servers to send network messages approving his login. But they choose not to. If a company opts-in to using your NFT as the authority, they can at any time opt-out(just like Ubisoft did here) so it provides no extra guarantee. And companies that don't accept your NFT as proof will ignore it when it's presented as evidence.
twhb 5y ago
Selling ownership, not licenses, is great. Both ownership and licenses can be sold with or without NFTs. How do NFTs help?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
forgotmyoldname 5y ago
What's the tangible difference between this and email confirmations that you made a purchase? If you lose track of the NFT that proves you bought it, that's no different than losing the email evidence. You're boned.

ummonk 5y ago

Ever heard of a thing called a receipt?

klodolph 5y ago

How do you restore access if a user's private key is lost or compromised?

endisneigh 5y ago

I'm not sure how this would prevent the scenario the article described.

josephcsible 5y ago
I think the idea is that NFTs aren't deleteable.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  From the article: > Unfortunately, there’s also a clause in the ToS that no credit will be given back to the user in cases of account termination or suspension. The company’s support page also cites the General Data Protection Regulation compliance and freeing database space as the main reason why they delete unused accounts. Again, how would NFTs fix this problem? A solution to the problem described in the article would be a very trivial service that just logs in on behalf of the user at whatever cadence necessary to preserve account "activity", not NFTs... sigh
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- bozhark 5y ago
  Do you think the file is stored in the blockchain?!
- SilasX 5y ago
  In theory, sure, it has all the benefits of being immutably on the blockchain. In practice, the whole ecosystem around NFTs is built to trust OpenSea's version of truth, so the records can be manipulated at will. https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1454863786783875075 https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1454863786783875075
- Hamuko 5y ago
  You can carve your game purchases onto a stone tablet if you want to, but it doesn't make any difference unless there's someone that actually honors that NFT. Is this "Ultra" going to mint NFTs for my Ubisoft account purchases? If it does, who honors my Ubisoft Store NFTs once Ubisoft terminates my account? Is it Ubisoft, is it Ultra or is it even Steam? And if it doesn't, what is it minting? Stuff I buy on Ultra? Because at that point the NFT might just as well be an email receipt, since I'm now relying on Ultra to actually stay alive and honor my NFTs until I die.

bozhark 5y ago

Lovely, way to make a mess of a pile of shit. You solved nothing.

jokowueu 5y ago

But my receipt proves that i own it . It's just that publishers don't care .

quest88 5y ago
But it's not ~~decentralized~~.
bpodgursky 5y ago
Receipts aren't proof of ownership in a world where re-selling or trade-ins are possible (as IMO they should be, as they are with physical items).

BoorishBears 5y ago

How does this help even the tiniest bit? You have proof you own a game and the publisher decides they don't want you to have access anymore... now what?

caymanjim 5y ago

Your idea does nothing to force the service provider to retain your account, or even to provide you with access to the game media. Proof of ownership isn't the issue here. Ubisoft isn't denying that the user purchased those games. They almost certainly know exactly which games were purchased. I more or less trust the game services I use to keep a record of what I own in their central ledger. They could still deny me access, as they're doing here. Maybe some regulation should address this, but I think the market will probably handle it.

derefr 5y ago
> Proof of ownership isn't the issue here. Wouldn't having legal proof of owning a license to an IP, entitle you to then use a copy of the files covered by those IP rights, regardless of how or where you acquire them? (E.g. if you buy a license to Windows, you don't need to download the installation media for Windows from Microsoft in order for your licensed installation of Windows to be legitimate. You can get the Windows installation media from anywhere.) You don't need a "game service provider" if you have legal dispensation to torrent the game. And, that being the case, you could replace a centralized service like Steam with the game-media equivalent of an app like PopcornTime: just a convenient way to browse for, and download, torrents of the IP you already legally own.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
  you already have proof of ownership.
- ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
  You don't need NFTs for that. The proof of ownership is just a receipt. It could even be made verifiable by adding a digital signature signed by Ubisofts public key. Still, NFTs are not needed here.
  - derefr 5y ago
    You're right, you don't need an immutable ledger of visible IP licensing rights if that's all you want to accomplish. But presumably, in a "legal piracy is commonplace, Steam goes out of business" scenario, the studios producing the games would still want to make the games verify your license ownership against something — e.g. to make sure that you're only using your license for one concurrent "seat", rather than using it to activate thousands of copies of the game (like a regular product keys — which usually are "local digital signatures" — would enable.) Presuming that no central corporate authority could 1. profitably exist in such a market 2. with the right incentives, then a distributed immutable ledger would be a good alternative for storing those licenses in a verifiable manner. (Think of it as an IP licensing activation server run by "everybody." Each time a game wants to run, it would use your signing key to submit a TX incrementing a counter representing the current active uses of the license. Basically, a distributed, cryptographically-verifiable semaphore.)

MattGaiser 5y ago

There is already proof that a user owns it, ranging from company sales records to receipts of purchase. Nobody seriously disputes the purchase and the company would not dispute it in a court of law. The problem is that you own something the company has a right to terminate.

IntelMiner 5y ago

So you've literally reinvented "but I have a receipt!"

nikanj 5y ago
But with a MUCH larger carbon footprint

j4yav 5y ago

People aren’t losing their receipts here, the games are being taken away even if they have them and can prove they bought it. More durable receipts won’t fix it.

vital_beach 5y ago

they had a database entry linking his account to a purchase. it's not like his access to the game was forgotten. they just chose not to honor it. a blockchain proof isn't any more compelling than the info they already had + his payment records.

kosievdmerwe 5y ago
"We irreversibly logged an entry deactivating your account to the blockchain. Nothing we can do to reactivate it."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

throw_m239339 5y ago

> People won't like this, but we at Ultra.io are trying to tackle this exact problem by deploying certificates of ownership to a decentralized ledger as proof of your owning a game. How do you legally enforce that proof of ownership? How does a NFT change anything to a license agreement between the publisher and the buyers?

MichaelBurge 5y ago

The user can already prove they own the game. Ubisoft accepted the proof. The problem is they've chosen to configure their servers to reject sending the game client messages consistent with this proof. They could, if they wanted, configure their servers to send network messages approving his login. But they choose not to. If a company opts-in to using your NFT as the authority, they can at any time opt-out(just like Ubisoft did here) so it provides no extra guarantee. And companies that don't accept your NFT as proof will ignore it when it's presented as evidence.

twhb 5y ago

Selling ownership, not licenses, is great. Both ownership and licenses can be sold with or without NFTs. How do NFTs help?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

forgotmyoldname 5y ago

What's the tangible difference between this and email confirmations that you made a purchase? If you lose track of the NFT that proves you bought it, that's no different than losing the email evidence. You're boned.