Re: EA's "Project 10 Dollars"
- From: The alMIGHTY N <natlee75@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:46:50 -0800 (PST)
On Feb 22, 7:00 pm, Doug Jacobs <djac...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The alMIGHTY N <natle...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The company has sold one copy. ?If a customer wants to sell that one
copy on then there should be no issue at all. ? If the customer has
already paid for the right to access DLC (DLC available on release day
is morally suspect IMHO to start with) then those rights should be
passed on with the product. There is no other product on the market that
I can think of where a publisher/manufacturer can impose restrictions on
resale.
It's an interesting debate. A question to consider is whether you're
buying rights to the game or rights for you to play the game? You're
not really purchasing a product like you're purchasing a car or a
television. You're purchasing the ability to view intellectual
material.
It's an iffy scenario. I would love to see how courts rule on it.
The courts have...but either don't understand the situation, or don't
agree with one another, because judgements have been all over the board.
Ultimately, when you transfer a game to someone else, you're engaging
in one of the practices that pirates engage in, which is giving the
ability to play the game without paying the appropriate licensing fee
to the creator.
IF console game licenses were written like the licensing agreement on
movie/concert tickets, or required you to agree to a EULA like PC games,
then you would be mostly right.
No, I'm 100% correct. I didn't say that you would be exactly like a
pirate. I said that you are doing one thing similar to pirates, which
is to allow people to play a game without having paid an appropriate
royalty/licensing fee to the creator. Second hand sales are "lost
sales" much like pirated copies are "lost sales" - and probably to the
same degree as there are many people who would never purchase a game
new and wouldn't bother playing it two years down the line when the
price is $20.
However, according to the license information included with console games
right now, that's not correct. The license information is about the
physical media and how the information contained within may be used. This
is the same license that covers CDs, DVDs, and books.
Legal way: Illegal way:
I buy a game I buy a game
I play the game I copy the game
I lend the game to a friend I give the copy to my friend so we both
can play at the same time
In the illegal column, I've violated copyright law in a couple of ways.
First, in that I've made and distributed an unauthorized copy. Second, one
license was purchsed, but now 2 instances of that license are in use.
Now based on how things seem to be set up right now in the traditional
computer software world, EA is welcome to change the licensing on their
games such that the user has to agree to an EULA which would forbid the
transfer of this license to another person - but that then has a lot of
problems since many users of console games are not 18 years old, and
therefore unable to enter into a binding contract. Even the EULA itself
is on shakey ground if it tries to go against ones legally given rights
and powers under the law.
That entirely depends on how the court interprets the transaction by
which a consumer legally obtained a copy of the software. The First
Sale Doctrine applies only to the sale of a product, and the software
industry has tried to get around that with the whole "granting
licenses not selling products" thing, which some states have agreed
with and some states have not.
At the same time, users are forbidden from transfering ownership of things
like their WoW account by explicit language in Blizzard's EULA.
Problem is, none of this has really been hashed out in courts yet, and as
you say, it will be an interesting day in court when it does.
I'm sure the companies would LOVE to lock everything down into a per-user
state, requiring you to authenticate to some sort of centralized database
before being able to access anything. While this would be quite do-able
if (when) everything becomes purely electronic and virtual, it doesn't work
very well with physical items, like books. And trying to change copyright
laws regarding books is going to be a very very difficult manner.
A centralized database isn't required, at least not for selling used
products. I'm sure that people giving away their games, books and CDs
to friends and family aren't really the focus of the game industry's
wrath.
Therefore, all we have to do is make sure that the courts consider things.
like computer software - even if it has no physical box format (eg. DLC) -
is analogous to a book, and everything will be good for the consumer...or
at least, not as sucky.
--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.
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