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Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

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Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#241
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, we're not talking about cracking your games. I think every console from at least the last two generations has supported copying game files to external/removable media.

Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Copying doesn't matter if it doesn't produce a usable backup. If you remove the DRM, then you do actually own the thing for practical purposes. And non-ownership of things you buy is unjust, so entertaining the law here is silly.

> Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct.

Don't move the goalposts.

The only thing I am conceding is that conceptually it still ownership if you own the encrypted bits but they work fine with some other hardware that has the keys to decrypt them. I can backup my games on one playstation and play them on another.

Otherwise, we agree ideologically. At the same time I'm rhetorically supporting the point at the top of the thread that this has been a problem long before Sony decided to go digital. I am copyleft and anti-drm and whatever else you can imagine. It doesn't change the fact that there's a precedent that consumers will purchase drm games that require a rootkit to run under ambiguous terms that make it clear they don't own the bytes and it's a true observation that for some reason people allow this to happen on PC but when Sony does it it's the end of the world. I think to make progress here you need to address the root of the issue legally, not attack Sony for doing what society has condoned for decades.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They both communicate the same thing because they both start with “buy.” They communicate Ownership and collapse to the same thing to a normal consumer: implied ownership of the game. Insisting that the ownership is of the license and it says it on the button doesn’t really help, because no reasonable person thinks that a “purchased” license can be revoked for any reason or no reason at all. Why doesn’t anybody think…

Then maybe is should be forced to say: “Buy revocable license” and require the user to answer randomized multiple choice questions regarding the terms of the license that act in opposition to the purchaser. Collect metrics on wrong answers and if greater than say, 15% of people can’t determine what they are actually handing over money for, fine and require additional clarity. Or, just flip the tables and say the hist…

Licenses are commonly understood to have variable duration, as specified by the license.

I get that people want to be able to purchase games forever, but this linguistic argument seems tortured concern trolling. maybe Im wrong, but are there even people confused by what they are getting when they pay for a modern online game? It seems like the bigger issues is people know, but dont like those terms.

There is some string of terms that accurately describes the state of current game sales. Even if it is used, most of the people upset by the issue will not be happy.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Licenses can be revoked. When I buy a hunting license I don't get it forever

You don’t buy a hunting license though. You pay a fee and the government issues you a license.

What kind of logic is this?

99.99% of people say "buy" a hunting license and 0% are confused about the duration.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should have just as much of an issue with Valve as you do Sony since you are signing up for the same legal risk. it's not the same overall risk though. accurate risk assessment includes past incidents in the calculation. sony has a demonstrated pattern, valve does not. if you choose to ignore past behavior in your risk assessments, you are doing it wrong.

People did risk assessments with VMWare and we see how that turned out. Things can change, just because you make your risk assessment doesn't mean you should ignore that there is still something in that contract that could turn on you just as easily. Should we go back 10 years, maybe the risk would have been the same. Did Sony do any of these things then, but the policy was the same. How about 10 years from now, just…

20 years ago Sony was including viruses on their music CDs. They have a very long history of poor behavior.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#245
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the software ecosystem which is the main driver of revenue for consoles and exists largely to support the sale and distribution of products from third parties, all of which is centrally controlled by the platform holder. Someone else in the thread made the comparison to fuel, I'll go with that. Last time I checked, there was no such thing as petroleum DRM.

Sony doesn't DRM the power that you use to run the Playstation either. But to try and meet the comparison: there are different manufacturers of fuel just like there are different publishers of games and while Volkswagen can't force you to not put standard fuel in your car they can certainly void your warranty if you don't use premium (and fuel is still tested and regulated for industry compliance). I'm getting a tad…

> And the average consumer has broad discretion to use cars and consoles from whatever manufacturer they wish to.

Until you actually buy one.

Obviously there are levels of wealth where this is all irrelevant, either because buying every console is a relatively minor expense or because you can't afford any console whatsoever, but for the people in the middle where you can more or less afford a console, once you buy into one, you're now kinda stuck with it.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#246

I know I am in the overwhelming minority and that most people will just continue to buy Sony's stuff anyway, but I decided a few years ago when all the ownership crap came up that I am just not buying stuff that I don't own. Sony's PS4 went to my local electronics recycler and I haven't bought a Sony product since. I can't realistically do it with everything, there are some products I have to buy rather I get to own…

I'm keeping my ps4 as long as the hardware still runs because at least I can still buy discs for it. I have a nice collection of high-replay-value single player games. I know discs are just physical licenses at this point in time, not actual software on disc like the old school days. But even with all this nonsense from Sony I don't think they'll cross the rubicon of terminating licenses that come on physical discs f…

> I know discs are just physical licenses at this point in time, not actual software on disc like the old school days.

I don't understand why people keep repeating this meme when emulation exists, and discs remain the easiest legal format to grab data for emulators to play. You may need an exploit to get game data off a digital-only console.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#247
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software licenses are bought all the time.

Sure, but that's a very different type of license compared to a hunting license, driver license or similar stuff, you know, the context.

Yeah. But we're talking about software licenses here. It was more weird hunting and drivers licenses ever got brought up.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was their rationale for doing nothing?

I would just like to point out that nobody actually answered this question, just inserted their own imaginary cynical commentary. In fact, the federal court case over the issue is ongoing. The case is Mendoza, et al. v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. and you can follow it if you want. [1] https://openclassactions.com/lawsuits/consumer-protection/so...

Thank you!

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#249
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Copying doesn't matter if it doesn't produce a usable backup. If you remove the DRM, then you do actually own the thing for practical purposes. And non-ownership of things you buy is unjust, so entertaining the law here is silly.

> Disabling DRM is required for basic archiving if the issue is someone else having the ability to decide the thing you bought will self-destruct. Don't move the goalposts. The only thing I am conceding is that conceptually it still ownership if you own the encrypted bits but they work fine with some other hardware that has the keys to decrypt them. I can backup my games on one playstation and play them on another. O…

You can't back up your encrypted bits on one machine and use them on another without constant permission from Sony though. Other hardware doesn't have the keys to decrypt them (actually this is it's own issue: it's obviously a very monopolistic, anticompetitive move that you can't run a PS5 game on a commodity PC because of their encryption). As far as I know, Valve's "DRM" just calls into a dll that asks Steam whether you own it, and you can just give it your own implementation of the Steam API dll that says you do. Or many titles on Steam don't have any DRM at all.

There are reasons to criticize Valve (gambling, microtransactions, "achievements"), but they seem to be too busy making money to want to do DRM.

Re: Sony makes bold claim about game ownership

#250

If we're not owning it, you're not selling it, you're leasing it. Terminology on sales pages should reflect this. "Subscribe now" "purchase license" etc. should be mandated if this is the expectation. Terms like "buy" without qualification are misleading in this context, but they won't remove them from store pages because people are more likely to pay higher rates for something if they believe they are actually ownin…

Then the button becomes License and everyone knows that's the one you click to buy. As much as I empathize with (and even support) the reasoning, I wonder if it would have a tangible effect. Is there anyone who was gonna click "buy" but not "license" (presuming they relabel the button and everything else is the same)?

You are being downvoted but your reasoning is absolutely correct. We nerds on the nerdy techie HN love to believe that people will act correctly if they are properly informed but people have repeatedly demonstrated that they don't care. This kind of regulation that only targets wording and nothing tangible will likely just blend into the background noise of 1000 other legally mandated notices in the fine print that people skip over. No surprise this is already a law in California which is littered with useless prop 65 warnings.
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