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Sony, Ubisoft scandals lead to California ban on deceptive digital goods sales
- Sniffnoy 2y agoHm, wonder if the Stop Killing Games campaign (https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) will be able to make use of this, like they're trying to make use of consumer protection law in France...
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoSKG organizer here. Something like this CA legislation was our "worst case scenario, everything else failed, at least we could do this much, we've compromised on everything" goal. That is to say, now opponents can't push us to compromise to that level and our worst case scenario in case we pass anything at all is looking better. We're really happy this is happening because it changes the Overton window for us and makes our case stronger and easier to argue for, as you say. A lot of change has been happening in the past few months and even weeks with regards to the market and legislative situation around the problematic of SKG and while you can't ever fully attribute something, we hope that it's thanks to our actions. Ubisoft promising end of life offline modes for The Crew 2 and the third game in the series called Motorfest. Capcom bringing back Windows 7 era games that were lost to G4WL. The "Ubisoft scandal" mentioned in the headline - specifically the unforced shutdown and resulting removal of functioning state from The Crew - is something that SKG have no doubt popularized. Now that we're at 350 000 signatures of a goal of 1 000 000 in our direct democracy initiative, companies and lawmakers are starting to take things seriously. And this is with a $0 budget. We're still in need of more signatures over the next 10 months to reach the goal, so if you're an EU citizen, go click the link Sniffnoy posted above and sign. Worth doing even if you're not a gamer, just to claw back some ownership rights from corporations worth billions of dollars, spreading out to all corners of technology, not just games. If you want a very short exposition of what Stop Killing Games is, here's a ~1 minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGfqef-IqQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGfqef-IqQ If you want a good, exhaustive intro to what SKG is about, this interview between a game developer and two SKG organizers is worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpFqPGrgDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpFqPGrgDk Ross Scott is best known for his youtube series "Freeman's Mind" where he plays Half-Life and narrates what Gordon Freeman must be thinking, with a lot of deeply philosophical considerations. It's a staple of YouTube. He's also been running a series called "Dead Game News" and that's how Stop Killing Games was born. The other organizer, Damian, is a real-deal neckbeard dev and has pretty much done it all from BASIC on 8-bit micros to theorem provers and from video games to cryptography audits. Here's the original intro to Stop Killing Games by Ross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE And here's a subsequent FAQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVBiN5SKuA If anyone has questions about SKG, I'll be checking the replies now and then.
- squigz 2y agoThanks for the work you and others at SKG are doing o7
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoyou're welcome - if you want to thank us, convince one EU citizen to sign the initiative!
- squigz 2y agoI will do that while making sad Canadian sounds :P Also, might I recommend adding embed information to the website so linking it on i.e., Discord shows some information?
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoThank you! Regarding embed information, that's a great idea and I'll pass it on.
- Negitivefrags 2y agoI can’t view a video at the moment, so I apologise if this has been answered in that. If the server software a game uses requires a licence to a third party library, what is the developer expected to do about that?
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoIf the EU decides to build any legislation around SKG, they will give developers ample warning before things go into effect. Apple had years to prepare for USB C. This is still years out. So the answer is: negotiate compatible terms, or don't use the third party library. This is merely an issue to begin with for companies that are absolutely massive, like Sony or Activision. Smaller developers just don't do stuff like that in general: you download the game and then you have the game. Since the ask is for a reasonably working game, maybe as a developer in that position you can just cut out the functionality that depends on the library or replace the library with something similar or mock it out or use a static cache of request vs response for all possible requests. The technological possibilities are endless. It's not like as developers we're these helpless infants who have never solved a problem in our lives. It's a tech problem, tech a solution to it, that's why you're a professional and not bush league. Ultimately if someone can't figure out how to do their business without scamming people out of ownership then that's a skill issue. If they're not creative enough to figure it out, the business is doomed to begin with. Legislation often has the additional positive effect of ridding the market of people who shouldn't be there to begin with, like food trucks infested with cockroaches and pizza places that use fake cheese.
- tifik 2y agoWow, signing that petition was shockingky smooth with my national e-ID. I thought it was just a random petition site, but its an official EU system that verifies your identity. And it just worked with the ID app I have installed. Nice.
- boltzmann-brain 2y agothank you for supporting it!
- tvshtr 2y agoIt was the first time I've used e-id to sign and it felt like sci-fi.
- simoncion 2y agoIf I'm reading the text of the law correctly [0], this does not go nearly far enough. (b)(2)(A) seems to say that all an entity needs to do to comply with the law is to add a checkbox associated with some text that links to the EULA for the software, and also says "By checking this box, you acknowledge that you have read the EULA and know that access to the software will be revoked if you no longer hold a right to the software". Most folks are never going to read the EULA, and no reasonable person would expect that a button that says "BUY" would seal a deal that permits the "seller" to unilaterally revoke the customer's right to the "sold" software. [0] <https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792>
- ccvannorman 2y agoThis is incorrect. Links to EULA are not enough, it must be separate and distinct from any other terms. Words like "BUY" are also expressly forbidden. Quoted from the link in parent comment ( https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792 https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2426/id/2966792 ) - (1) It shall be unlawful for a person to advertise or offer for sale a digital good with the terms “buy,” “purchase,” or any other term which a reasonable person would understand to confer an unrestricted ownership interest (B) The affirmative acknowledgment from the purchaser pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be distinct and separate from any other terms and conditions of the transaction that the purchaser acknowledges or agrees to.
- idle_zealot 2y agoThat's interesting. I don't for a second think this will actually curtail the harmful business practices, but what do you recon they'll write on their buttons? Maybe just dance around any meaningful verbiage with a button that just has a dollar sign or shopping cart on it? Just "Proceed" or "Confirm"?
- andyferris 2y ago“Get” is already used on iOS for this purpose.
- givemeethekeys 2y agoDo they charge / pay sales tax on in-game purchases?
- boltzmann-brain 2y agothe purchase of in-game items or currencies is a purchase like any other.
- kstrauser 2y agoThis is excellent news! Remember, if you buy a copy of a good, you’re entitled to enjoy it as long as you wish to. If the seller steals it back from you, it’s ethical to acquire a replacement copy. The law may say differently, but you cannot convince me that I don’t own something I bought through a “buy” button. I’ve never seen a book or movie or game or album where the button says “License” instead of “Buy”.
- montagg 2y ago"Unlock."
- kstrauser 2y agoAt least that implies that the good is capable of being locked. “Buy” says that I’m buying the thing.
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoIndeed, the idea of ownership is a basic natural concept that lawyers are trying to erase with newspeak and nonsensical hidden terms. It's a concept that's been unchanged for millions of years, even before humans existed. If you disagree with me, try taking a bone away from a dog chewing on it. It even goes back to single-cell organisms: even the mitochondrium is just [a cell owned by another cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis).
- dietr1ch 2y agoAnd can you sell it afterwards?
- ozgrakkurt 2y agoYou should be able to if it is being advertised as “buy”. They should just say gain access to use it or something like that if they are not really selling anything.
- 2y ago
- robertclaus 2y agoIt does feel like a lot of this enforcement will need to be in the spirit of the law and/or general deterrence. I would assume any sufficiently specific law in this space would be fairly easy to find a loophole or workaround for in your UI.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoOwnership always had a meaning. Selling things for purchase and then treating it as a limited license is fraud. Even under existing law. How about we hold all these companies accountable for the rug pull?
- boltzmann-brain 2y agoThat's what Stop Killing Games is trying to do via cooperation with DGCCRF and other consumer agencies. If you like that, go to their website and learn how to support them.
- szastamasta 2y agoMaybe I have misunderstood the article, but for me it looks like another „cookies” law. They are not proposing to force media companies to make sure you have access to your media forever. Or force them to give you a downloadable copy when they remove media from store. They’ll just replace „Buy” button with „Get Access” or whatever and add some lawyer mumbo-jumbo above it. Looks like a smokescreen to me.
- dgoldstein0 2y agoThey'll either have to change the text in which case digital good sales will be more honest, or they won't want to change the text and therefore will actually commit to letting us download and keep our own copies without interference. Both sound like wins to me. Just TBD which variant ends up more common.
- szastamasta 2y agoYou see, I just don’t think more honest wins us anything. I’ve seen too many „We value your privacy” popups already.
- beretguy 2y agoWhat do you mean? What do privacy pop ups have to do with this?
- szastamasta 2y agoIt’s just like with cookies. I believe that lawmakers were honest and really wanted for companies to limit amount of tracking in the web. What we did get instead is a lot of „we value your privacy” popups and 5 pages of checkboxes to check if you don’t want to be tracked. I just think that this will end up the same way. Nothing really changes, but we’ll just get more useless „lawyer talk” in more and more license documents to click on.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
- riiii 2y agoImagine writing so awful and unethical software that it triggers law to be created to ban it.
- Daiz 2y agoExtremely welcome legislation, especially since it has an exception for "permanent download that can be accessed offline", ie. DRM-free downloads. It's about time someone actually calls out Big Media on their deceptive practices. As I've been saying for years, it's not "buying" with DRM-encumbered media, merely "renting for an undefined time period". In fact, it'd be even nicer if the legislation explicitly required rental terminology to be used for anything DRM-encumbered, but well, even as-is, this is an extremely welcome development and I hope legislators worldwide are taking note and plan to follow suit as soon as possible. This kind of victory for digital consumer rights has been long overdue!
- throwaway48476 2y agoIt's easier to get a 2.0 law passed as the effects are more well understood.
- 99112000 2y agoDid they have to add a label that the goods may give them cancer?
- beretguy 2y agoWhat is this comment in relation to?
- lesuorac 2y agoIt's weird how a smaller provision of a much larger work (Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) are always trotted out as an argument against regulation. Like if you can't use the majority of the regulation in an argument against it, perhaps it's good regulation. Although to the actually very narrow point raised, would you rather not know what substances were bad for you? Perhaps a lot of this is pointless as you will commonly see people saw materials without masks but at the same point would you buy carrots labeled with "This product is known to the state of CA to cause cancer?". And to the rest of the regulation that isn't address by OP. It is very good that companies cannot just dump their cancerous waste materials into rivers.
- pjmlp 2y agoGreat, hope this extends elsewhere.
- Me000 2y agoThis is amazing, thank god people are fighting for my rights.
- m463 2y agoI wonder if Steam and GOG will become different. Also kindle. "Additionally, it's OK to advertise a digital good if access isn't ever revoked, such as when users purchase a permanent download that can be accessed offline, regardless of a seller's rights to license the content." I've played steam games offline, only to have something expire at some point, preventing the games from launching. No such issue with GOG. This might even differentiate individual games. For kindle, some books (tor?) have a paragraph "this bookis distributed without digital rights management" Could a download of this book differentiate buy vs license?
- phendrenad2 2y agoI think eventually the games industry will settle on something like music royalties. Game companies will get some amount of money per-play.
- WhereIsTheTruth 2y agoWhen you see FUD, you see FUD, but you chose to ignore it, i can't be the only one to see it, it's in plain text, in the title