3 ms·

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

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.)
    - ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
      Perhaps, but since the premise of the solution is that Ubisoft must be legally required to provide a certain service to the current bearer of the token, then it seems overkill to put this on a distributed database system with a complicated consensus model. If Ubisoft is already legally required to recognize it, then surely they can also be required to host a service for moving ownership or maintaining a usage counter in a publicly verifiable manner. Still, NFTs are not the solution here.
      - derefr 5y ago
        Legally obligating each studio to run a centralized service for license verification would be no better than requiring the publishers/distributors to run such license-verification services; in both cases, the backends would die with the economic actor. The nice thing about an NFT (per se, a deed), is that you still own it, and it still has legal effect, even after the entity that originally created it ceases to exist. A distributed ledger will remember that Ubisoft granted you an IP license for X, even after Ubisoft stops existing as such, with all their assets sold off or lost. And any games built to check that distributed ledger, will continue to find your license there, and start up just fine.
- tirpen 5y ago
  > legal proof of owning a license to an IP Like a receipt and a bank statement for instance?
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  The problem isn't getting the media, the problem is the license. If you get Windows and MS has blocked your key, it doesn't matter that you own the key: Windows will talk to their server and the server will say "that's not a valid license I don't care who owns it" Likewise, it doesn't matter where you get a game from, unless you break the DCMA and modify the binary, DRM enabled games will phone home to the "game service provider" to verify your license. It's been a long time since games locally verified licenses, that's why you don't see keygens and also why they all require launchers to function - If they take down the servers or block you specifically, proof of ownership does literally nothing...
  - derefr 5y ago
    > Likewise, it doesn't matter where you get a game from, unless you break the DCMA and modify the binary, DRM enabled games will phone home to the "game service provider" to verify your license. If you own the license, then downloading a pre-cracked derivative work of the installation media also isn't illegal (provided that the cracker has put the crack itself in the public domain!) To resume the analogy: Microsoft might not like it that you're using a pre-cracked version of Windows that doesn't phone home; but if you're using that pre-cracked version of retail Windows with a valid retail Windows license, then there's nothing they can legally do about that, even if they somehow find out. (This situation has come up many times in the past; pre-cracked versions of software are sometimes used in industry because of other customizations done during the cracking process that make them more robust for embedded use-cases.) Now, of course, the cracking itself may have been illegal under the DMCA, but there's a simple fix for that: the cracking just has to be accomplished by someone who's not a US citizen. The DMCA doesn't apply to things that foreign nationals get up to. (But really, the thing you'd want here is legislation that requires that games that "phone home" to check for IP licensing status, do so to some disinterested third-party IP licensing registry — which could be a blockchain-like immutable ledger, or even just the sort of "IP clearinghouse"-like services that modern commercial music sampling is built on.)
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      This is wrong on so many counts my head is spinning. Your license defines exactly what software it's a license for, I guarantee you "pirated copy" is not part of that. You're also making a copy of illegally distributed software (not just cracking that's a problem, distribution is too...), which opens you up to liability, since again, your license doesn't cover that. And to top it all off, you're still not going to get the full functionality of the game if you just crack the software, multiplayer still requires their servers (and before I get the default reply of "I don't care about multiplayer", the fact the most played games are largely multiplayer indicates most people do)

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.)
  - ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
    Perhaps, but since the premise of the solution is that Ubisoft must be legally required to provide a certain service to the current bearer of the token, then it seems overkill to put this on a distributed database system with a complicated consensus model. If Ubisoft is already legally required to recognize it, then surely they can also be required to host a service for moving ownership or maintaining a usage counter in a publicly verifiable manner. Still, NFTs are not the solution here.
    - derefr 5y ago
      Legally obligating each studio to run a centralized service for license verification would be no better than requiring the publishers/distributors to run such license-verification services; in both cases, the backends would die with the economic actor. The nice thing about an NFT (per se, a deed), is that you still own it, and it still has legal effect, even after the entity that originally created it ceases to exist. A distributed ledger will remember that Ubisoft granted you an IP license for X, even after Ubisoft stops existing as such, with all their assets sold off or lost. And any games built to check that distributed ledger, will continue to find your license there, and start up just fine.
tirpen 5y ago
> legal proof of owning a license to an IP Like a receipt and a bank statement for instance?
BoorishBears 5y ago
The problem isn't getting the media, the problem is the license. If you get Windows and MS has blocked your key, it doesn't matter that you own the key: Windows will talk to their server and the server will say "that's not a valid license I don't care who owns it" Likewise, it doesn't matter where you get a game from, unless you break the DCMA and modify the binary, DRM enabled games will phone home to the "game service provider" to verify your license. It's been a long time since games locally verified licenses, that's why you don't see keygens and also why they all require launchers to function - If they take down the servers or block you specifically, proof of ownership does literally nothing...
- derefr 5y ago
  > Likewise, it doesn't matter where you get a game from, unless you break the DCMA and modify the binary, DRM enabled games will phone home to the "game service provider" to verify your license. If you own the license, then downloading a pre-cracked derivative work of the installation media also isn't illegal (provided that the cracker has put the crack itself in the public domain!) To resume the analogy: Microsoft might not like it that you're using a pre-cracked version of Windows that doesn't phone home; but if you're using that pre-cracked version of retail Windows with a valid retail Windows license, then there's nothing they can legally do about that, even if they somehow find out. (This situation has come up many times in the past; pre-cracked versions of software are sometimes used in industry because of other customizations done during the cracking process that make them more robust for embedded use-cases.) Now, of course, the cracking itself may have been illegal under the DMCA, but there's a simple fix for that: the cracking just has to be accomplished by someone who's not a US citizen. The DMCA doesn't apply to things that foreign nationals get up to. (But really, the thing you'd want here is legislation that requires that games that "phone home" to check for IP licensing status, do so to some disinterested third-party IP licensing registry — which could be a blockchain-like immutable ledger, or even just the sort of "IP clearinghouse"-like services that modern commercial music sampling is built on.)
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    This is wrong on so many counts my head is spinning. Your license defines exactly what software it's a license for, I guarantee you "pirated copy" is not part of that. You're also making a copy of illegally distributed software (not just cracking that's a problem, distribution is too...), which opens you up to liability, since again, your license doesn't cover that. And to top it all off, you're still not going to get the full functionality of the game if you just crack the software, multiplayer still requires their servers (and before I get the default reply of "I don't care about multiplayer", the fact the most played games are largely multiplayer indicates most people do)