You better line up most of the movie studios and send them off to jail. Disney is a perfect example of this. They take steal stories and turn them in to their newest modern animated movie and laugh all the way to the bank about it. Check out the huge stink that was made when Lion King came out and how they stole the story. Screen writers steal ideas and story lines all the time and no one does a think about it when Hollywood does it.
Also don't forget the reason Hollywood was in California was so they could make their movies far away from the people who owned the stories and the technology and it was harder if not impossible to sue them.
So Hollywood cry me a river. When you guys start to clean up your act and be respectable then I will worry about if you are movies are being pirated or not.
Ever think that it's maybe because of how software companies are treating their customers and how the legal system is screwing us over for buying software. Seems somehow the software and game industry has convinced the legal system that adding an additional legal contract after the sale to software to somehow be legal. I can't imagine that working for cars, music, movies, and it certainly didn't work for books in the past, even though they tried and were legally struck down.
Personally I am not surprised when software companies and gaming companies treat all their customers like they are going rip them off, that people start to behave that way. If you treat everyone like a criminal, then don't be surprised when everyone around you starts to act like a criminal. I personally think the software industry (and this includes gaming companies) have walked all over the legal system and their customers way too much for too long and should be seriously bitch slapped back in to line in to a more reasonable level of dealing with customers. I mean hell look at what happened in Australia recently. If you download software there you get less consumer protections than if you go in to a store to buy it? Wow! Way to push back online buying back in to the stone age, like the software companies didn't screw over their customers enough already.
Please don't give me that crap about how if you don't like it, then don't buy it. If that were the case then why not apply that type of thinking to cars, houses, food, whatever and just let the companies do whatever they want and if you don't like it then don't buy it. Let companies walk all over the public who cares, if you don't like it then don't spend your money on it, after all who needs consumer protection laws. If you don't like what a company does then don't buy it. That line of thinking is just stupid, and smacks of child like thinking. Because after all, every company would behave, since people vote with their money right? I mean we wouldn't need monopoly laws to deal with Standard Oil, Microsoft, IBM, and all the other monopolies that have existed in the past. Which is exactly where such short sighted thinking leads.
I was finally thinking about getting a PS3 now that they have worked out most of the kinks and the price has come down. I thought it might be nice to use it to play around with Linux and run my old playstation games on and not need the other systems hooked up. Also functioning as an A/V system would have been nice. But forget it now. I can't play around with Linux. I would have to be very careful and select a specific model out of what....6-8 different ones, in order to play my older PS1 and PS2 games. Not to mention which media cards are supported depends on which model you get. Forget it.
At least Microsoft got their console a little better/right. They really only have 2 different consoles....1 with HDMI and 1 without. The other models are just what size removable hard drive do you want with it. Doesn't matter which console you buy you can make any of the consoles in to the others with a user replaceable/installable upgraded hard drive that just snaps into place with no tools or expertise needed. The software and the features are the same on all of the Microsoft consoles (XBox 360).
The only features that I have seen that I care about that the PS3 has over XBox 360 is: 1....Ability to run Linux without a hack 2....Ability to play MKV files natively (XBox 360 can do this now with the add-on from Divx via Media Center Extender)
Seems to me that Sony has really shot themselves in the foot with all this here is a great feature....ooops shit never mind we are taking it away. I would rather have XBox 360 now. First they removed PS2 compatibility, now they remove Linux compatibility. And yes both were advertised to me...because I never bought a PS3 but I knew and saw on Sony's web site information pushing both PS2 and Linux as features and reasons to buy a PS3. So yes Sony did advertise those things at least on their web sites to me, so that would count as Ads.
Sony has turned into one of the worst companies to deal with in the last 5 years or so.
BZZZ! Wrong and thank you for playing. If you need an example for the US where a EULA was enforced by the courts, look no further than the BNETD vs. Vivendi/Blizzard Entertainment case.
There are links there to all the court filings and the appealed case. The EULA was argued by Vivendi as enforceable and as preventing BNETD from doing what they did.
I would love to see reference to a court case where in Germany the judge ruled that *ALL* EULAs are invalid, and not just a portion of a EULA. Please post a URL for this information.
ISPs are given "common carrier" status under the DMCA. You have to register your ISP with the FTC I believe with a valid address to mail DMCA complaints to not be held liable for what the customers do with their websites and such.
Read through that and the DMCA laws for more information. ISPs have fought for "common carrier" status, but not for "telecom common carrier" status, just to be clear.
So you are incorrect when you say that ISP do not have "common carrier" status, when in fact ISPs have legally recognized "common carrier" status. It is why ISPs are not hauled in to court for copyright, trademark, trade secrets, and libel violations for what their customers do. The ISPs are in fact only "Common Carriers" can *NOT* be held legally liable for what their customers do online.
Japan already has a DJ hero type game. Both in the arcades and on the PS2. How about something original rather than just always copying Japanese game companies.
That's really weird since I use Firefox to manage my Linksys router using the default out of the box software. I'm not using a custom setup/bios/whatever on it.
I think someone forgot that the Xbox 360 version of GTA4 was done first, but due to a contract issue with Sony. They couldn't release the Xbox 360 version ahead of the PS3 version which is why it was delayed.
The guy even made a duplicate cabinet of the game in the movie to house his game. So it looks just like it does in the movie. The plans are all there so you could create one yourself as well.
Sounds like people should start doing packet dumps of the server so that they can create a clone server. According to the 1UP article it's a bank (Comerica Bank - Dallas,TX) that now owns the rights to Hellgate:London. I don't see a bank doing anything with it other than maybe trying to find a buyer for it. I would doubt that any company seriously would by the rights to it from the bank given that it wasn't a great seller. In fact Metacritic shows it only has a rating of 70% which is pretty average, but a number of people have commented on numerous bugs with the game. So I doubt it would be of much value to a game company since they could create a similar IP without having to pay for it and pick up the negative community opinion due to the company going under.
Welcome to the world of judges and courts. They rarely understand the technical cases they rule on, so most of the time it never makes any common sense to the people who understand the technology that is involved in these cases. Just chalk it up to more clueless judges who don't bother to spend the time to learn about the technology.
Interoperability & Reverse Engineering are not freedoms recognized by the court. So companies are free to try and make legally binding contracts that limit your ability to do those things. It is going to take some states or the federal government to step up and pass some laws saying they are freedoms that can't be taken away before you see them disappear from contracts.
Reverse Engineering *IS* specifically allowed in the DMCA if the purpose is inter-operability or research. This exception was one of the key points used in the BNETD vs. Blizzard/Vivindi case as point of defense. So you can violate the encryption or DRM/copy-protection on software or a file, but only under certain conditions in the US, because of the DMCA. If you want more info either read up on the case over at EFF or see some of the articles EFF has written about the DMCA.
You are correct. But my problem is what additional compensation is being offered for the EULA? I mean I made a purchase at the store for the software. I wasn't able to review the license before the purchase to see if it was agreeable. I can't see the license until I open and install the computer software.
Also why is it a license? I purchased the software just like I did a stereo or TV. I wasn't asked to sign a contract like I am with a cell phone purchase with service. So why should computer software suddenly be treated differently? I don't have to agree to a stupid license to play my XBox, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP or Nintendo DS. Why do I have to do this with software? What is so special about a PC game over a console game?
I try to install the software I just purchased, and *BAM* I am presented with a EULA/license that I never saw or agreed to at the time of purchase. If I don't agree to the license during the install process it won't install. Now I try to return it to the store since I didn't agree to the license and they won't take it back since it is opened. Now I am screwed. I bought software that I can't use and I can't return, so it is worthless to me.
How is this even close to fair? Yet it happens hundreds of times a day in retail. People try to return software that they can't run on their machine/computer or that doesn't work like it should or that they don't like the license and they are not able to return it. Don't believe me? Try and return opened software to Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, or any other place that sells software and see how far you get. It has been like this for 15+ years at least, probably longer.
I think it is time the state and federal government would step in and say software is a sale and isn't subject to any extra licenses, just copyright protection period. You want to license software fine, have them sign a contract before they pay, but software sold at retail stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc are sales not licenses.
Actually you are wrong here. The BNETD case specifically revolved around reverse engineering for compatability and at least the courts in that case ruled that the EULA was enforceable that forbade reverse engineering of their products. If you doubt this head over the the EFF site and look up the specific case and the rulings on it. It's the BNETD vs. Vivendi/Blizzard case. http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd
The main problem BNETD ran into was the encryption routine for the password that a user used to login. It was originally code given to the project by a user who said he figured out how it worked. What wasn't known at the time was that the person disassembled the client EXE to see how the password was being encrypted. The project coders knew what type of encryption it probably was based on the wire traffic but there was something hokey about the way Blizzard did it. It eventually came out that this is how it happened. It turned out Blizzard made a mistake in how they tried to do an encryption standard and that is why the developers saw something hokey with the routine.
Um sorry but BNETD authors had to install the software/client (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft) in order to debug the server (BNETD) to make sure the client communicated correctly with the server (BNETD). Thus part of the install of the software/client was the EULA had to be agreed to.
The problem I had was that the software was sold without the knowledge of the EULA at time of purchase and no additional consideration was given for agreeing to the EULA. Which I would have thought would have made the EULA invalid but the courts didn't see it that way. I suspect the judge didn't actually understand what he was ruling on very will since those courts rarely see that many hi-tech computer cases, and tend to rule in favor of the corporations if you look at their ruling records. After all who gives them donations for re-election, corporations. I saw the same problems at the Missouri state office level of Senators and Representatives. They all assumed the corporations were correct and not lying over the small business owner because they delt with the corporations on a regular basis and that's were they got all their campaign contributions.
Judges can be just like other parts of the government they can be swayed by lobbyists and companies that donate large amounts to their election coffers. Not to mention when some of the corporate lawyers happen to deal with a judge all the time and are friends with him/her. It's sad, but it's the way it works. It also doesn't help when a judge has a severe dislike/phobia of computers and complex science and electronic issues. The old, "I don't understand it so the companies must be right because they make lots of money", type of thinking.
The BNETD ruling was some of the worst rulings I have ever seen first hand in my life and I still don't understand how Vivendi/Blizzard was able to such a lousy ruling passed, with such serious far reaching consequences to the computer industry. I also don't understand why more companies who rely on interoperability didn't chime in as friends of the court on this case. I guess they either were asleep at the wheel and didn't care, or had no idea how bad it could have, and did end up going.
BUZZ! You are wrong. Johnny tell our guest what he did not win today.
The BNETD case had *ZERO* to do with World of Warcraft and everything to do with all the other games that you play on Battle.net. It was a server daemon to let you run Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft, Warcraft 2 online with your own ladders and own user accounts. So you didn't need battle.net if you didn't want to use it.
Please before you make yourself look foolish please know what you are talking about.
BNETD does not equal World of Warcraft (WoW).
Battle.net has been just about dead, until Blizzard decided to announce the release of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 which both will use Battle.net presumably.
I call bull on this. Post your proof. It's easy to say they spend less but prove it by showing who voted for what and what pork projects were attached to each vote that they had to vote on, and who added each attachment and which party they belong to.
I think you will find just about everyone in Washington loves to spend the tax payer's money when they think they can get away with it, and when they think no one is looking deep into bills and stuff they just voted on.
Don't forget congress and the senate are so shady that most of them refuse to vote written but prefer a voice vote that is harder to prove who voted what.
Personally I think every single vote in Washington should have to be a written vote that is kept for at least 50 years. So we know exactly who voted for what. Also every thing that comes up for a vote should have every name at the top of who wrote the darn thing and who added what to it, all at the top clearly noted at, say 5-7 grade reading level. So that it is clear who did what and how they voted.
I think all laws/bills of the federal government and the states should have to be written at a 5-7 grade level so anyone in the country can read them and understand exactly what they mean. If a high school graduate can't understand the law as it is written, then it is a bad law. Since ignorance of the law is no excuse legally. For all of you out there saying well our high school students suck and are being graduated stupid. Well then stop graduating them and start flunking them out. Supposedly, according to one ad on TV we are like 27th in world for education at a high school level. We should be a lot higher than that in my opinion, at least in the top 10.
Someone doesn't seem to understand that most drug R&D is funded by the US government anyway and then patented by the drug companies. So explain to me exactly how this is a big risk for the drug companies, when they play with grant money from non-profit groups and government money?
I think some one is forgetting that until maybe 3-5 years ago every cable company in existence had a city/county/state licensed monopoly. Every cable company in existence said that unless you give us a monopoly we won't give you cable because it costs too much to put all this cable out there, and then have to compete with someone else who comes along and undercuts us.
So yes every major public service in America is government funded in one way or another. Gas, Electric, Sewage, Water, Cable, Telephone, Roads, Police, Fire, Libraries, Education, You name it the government (tax payers) pays for it one way or another.
Trash might be the only major service American's get that isn't funding in some way by the governement, but I don't know how the trash storage/land-fill stuff works, maybe that is also governement granted.
You want to see the game companies sit up and howl like a howler monkey? Get the federal government to pass a law saying that everything sold at retail has the right to the "doctrine of first sale". That is that if I buy it and don't want it anymore I can legally sell it to whoever I want and companies can't do anything to interfere with that.
You would see most of these DRM schemes disappear over night. This crap of your key tied to your account and you can give it away or sell it would be up in smoke. All these insane EULA's that say your not buying a copy of the software just the right to use it would be gone. Also they wouldn't be able to say hey if this blows up your computer it's not our fault, you can't sue us. Because then they would have to abide by the doctrine of fitness for sale.
As it is right now software companies love to tell you, we own it not you. We're just allowing you to use it for awhile, and we don't promise anything other than there are some bits that your allowed to use that might do something or they might not do something, just be glad we let you look at it at all.
Oh yea and don't you dare try and make anything compatible with our stuff, that's illegal. We sure showed those BNETD guys, and the Overhead garage door, and the printer ink guys not to ever try and be compatible with us. Why should we let you in on our ability to steal...excuse me..get all the money we can get from you? That's our money in your pocket and we'll be dang if we are going to share it with anyone else.
Game companies and software companies in general hate the software resell market, because they aren't get anything from it. They don't want you to buy 1 copy and sell it to another guy who does the same. Dang that could mean like 5-10 people who bought the same copy over a 2+ year period and they only got 1 sale. They sure can't allow that to happen.
Game companies *HATE* EB Game, Gamestop, and your local used game shop. They think they should be criminalized and run out of business for interfering with them making obscene amounts of profit. After all that isn't your money in your pocket it's their's and how dare anyone deprive them of it.
Then the whole thing of telling people what they can and can't do with software once they bought. Oh sorry you can add 5 extra lives and 1000 bullets to the game that effects the balance and by passes our protection, it's not allowed. Also you paid good money for the game, full retail, but you can't put it in your gaming shop or cyber cafe without paying us more. Do car rental places pay special extra price for their cars? What about a library that loans out books? Why is software so special when compared to other fields? It shouldn't be.
CD Key tied to accounts, and updates tied to specific people, and it's all non-transferable. Those are things that block the "doctrine of first sale" and should be out right illegal to do. If I want to sell my game I should be able to do it without any extra fees paid to anyone. I don't pay extra for my books I donate to the local library, or when I sell a book to a friend. Why is software suddenly special and needs to be protected different and given differnt rules?
No game of any kind in anywhere in the world has been left uncracked. You can find copies of every single video game for every single console ever made online, right up to and including the stuff released today for the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360.
You can even find photocopies of every single boardgame you can think of, it is out there somewhere on the internet.
Same is true of books, magazines, movies/DVDs/Blu-ray, CD, records/LPs. You name it, its available as a copy somewhere on the internet.
So now tell me how DRM is actually stopping anyone from copying anything and posting it online? The answer is simple. It isn't. DRM doesn't work to stop pirates. It certainly doesn't stop the huge pirate rings that sell fake DVD, Games, and CDs at little hole in the wall shops, flea markets, and street stalls.
DRM plain and simple doesn't work and doesn't stop anyone from copying anything.
Amen brother. EA and the other gaming companies have been pissed off for years at Gamestop, EB Games, etc that they resell their games used to customers and they don't get any slice of the pie. The gaming companies at one point wanted to make reselling games commercially illegal. They were like why should we only get 1 sale when 4-5 people have bought it from EB Games, played it and sold it back to be resold again. That has really been pissing of the computer game companies and they have slowly been working to make that less and less possible.
If you want to know if it working, just look at the historical data. EB Games used to sell a ton of used PC games, not so much anymore due to online activation keys and other forms of DRM. The PC industry has slowly been able to kill the resale industry of PC games, and now they want to do the same exact thing to console industry if they can.
Game companies want to make it illegal for you to give away or sell your old games you don't play anymore because it cuts in to their profits for them to sell another copy instead of someone getting or buying your old copy. Have you actually read some of the EULAs that they make you agree to? Most of them do not allow you to resell or even give away your game to someone else, only you can use it and play it. It has *ZERO* to do piracy and 100% to do with killing the resell industry.
Don't believe me read some of the old news articles on this and ask the game companies what they think of the used game resell industry.
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You better line up most of the movie studios and send them off to jail. Disney is a perfect example of this. They take steal stories and turn them in to their newest modern animated movie and laugh all the way to the bank about it. Check out the huge stink that was made when Lion King came out and how they stole the story. Screen writers steal ideas and story lines all the time and no one does a think about it when Hollywood does it.
Also don't forget the reason Hollywood was in California was so they could make their movies far away from the people who owned the stories and the technology and it was harder if not impossible to sue them.
So Hollywood cry me a river. When you guys start to clean up your act and be respectable then I will worry about if you are movies are being pirated or not.
Ever think that it's maybe because of how software companies are treating their customers and how the legal system is screwing us over for buying software. Seems somehow the software and game industry has convinced the legal system that adding an additional legal contract after the sale to software to somehow be legal. I can't imagine that working for cars, music, movies, and it certainly didn't work for books in the past, even though they tried and were legally struck down.
Personally I am not surprised when software companies and gaming companies treat all their customers like they are going rip them off, that people start to behave that way. If you treat everyone like a criminal, then don't be surprised when everyone around you starts to act like a criminal. I personally think the software industry (and this includes gaming companies) have walked all over the legal system and their customers way too much for too long and should be seriously bitch slapped back in to line in to a more reasonable level of dealing with customers. I mean hell look at what happened in Australia recently. If you download software there you get less consumer protections than if you go in to a store to buy it? Wow! Way to push back online buying back in to the stone age, like the software companies didn't screw over their customers enough already.
Please don't give me that crap about how if you don't like it, then don't buy it. If that were the case then why not apply that type of thinking to cars, houses, food, whatever and just let the companies do whatever they want and if you don't like it then don't buy it. Let companies walk all over the public who cares, if you don't like it then don't spend your money on it, after all who needs consumer protection laws. If you don't like what a company does then don't buy it. That line of thinking is just stupid, and smacks of child like thinking. Because after all, every company would behave, since people vote with their money right? I mean we wouldn't need monopoly laws to deal with Standard Oil, Microsoft, IBM, and all the other monopolies that have existed in the past. Which is exactly where such short sighted thinking leads.
I was finally thinking about getting a PS3 now that they have worked out most of the kinks and the price has come down. I thought it might be nice to use it to play around with Linux and run my old playstation games on and not need the other systems hooked up. Also functioning as an A/V system would have been nice. But forget it now. I can't play around with Linux. I would have to be very careful and select a specific model out of what....6-8 different ones, in order to play my older PS1 and PS2 games. Not to mention which media cards are supported depends on which model you get. Forget it.
At least Microsoft got their console a little better/right. They really only have 2 different consoles....1 with HDMI and 1 without. The other models are just what size removable hard drive do you want with it. Doesn't matter which console you buy you can make any of the consoles in to the others with a user replaceable/installable upgraded hard drive that just snaps into place with no tools or expertise needed. The software and the features are the same on all of the Microsoft consoles (XBox 360).
The only features that I have seen that I care about that the PS3 has over XBox 360 is:
1....Ability to run Linux without a hack
2....Ability to play MKV files natively (XBox 360 can do this now with the add-on from Divx via Media Center Extender)
Seems to me that Sony has really shot themselves in the foot with all this here is a great feature....ooops shit never mind we are taking it away. I would rather have XBox 360 now. First they removed PS2 compatibility, now they remove Linux compatibility. And yes both were advertised to me...because I never bought a PS3 but I knew and saw on Sony's web site information pushing both PS2 and Linux as features and reasons to buy a PS3. So yes Sony did advertise those things at least on their web sites to me, so that would count as Ads.
Sony has turned into one of the worst companies to deal with in the last 5 years or so.
BZZZ! Wrong and thank you for playing. If you need an example for the US where a EULA was enforced by the courts, look no further than the BNETD vs. Vivendi/Blizzard Entertainment case.
http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd
There are links there to all the court filings and the appealed case. The EULA was argued by Vivendi as enforceable and as preventing BNETD from doing what they did.
I would love to see reference to a court case where in Germany the judge ruled that *ALL* EULAs are invalid, and not just a portion of a EULA. Please post a URL for this information.
ISPs are given "common carrier" status under the DMCA. You have to register your ISP with the FTC I believe with a valid address to mail DMCA complaints to not be held liable for what the customers do with their websites and such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
Read through that and the DMCA laws for more information. ISPs have fought for "common carrier" status, but not for "telecom common carrier" status, just to be clear.
So you are incorrect when you say that ISP do not have "common carrier" status, when in fact ISPs have legally recognized "common carrier" status. It is why ISPs are not hauled in to court for copyright, trademark, trade secrets, and libel violations for what their customers do. The ISPs are in fact only "Common Carriers" can *NOT* be held legally liable for what their customers do online.
So in fact you are 100% wrong.
Japan already has a DJ hero type game. Both in the arcades and on the PS2. How about something original rather than just always copying Japanese game companies.
That's really weird since I use Firefox to manage my Linksys router using the default out of the box software. I'm not using a custom setup/bios/whatever on it.
I think someone forgot that the Xbox 360 version of GTA4 was done first, but due to a contract issue with Sony. They couldn't release the Xbox 360 version ahead of the PS3 version which is why it was delayed.
Someone made a windows game based on the arcade game in the movie. So in a way there is a game based on the movie. Go to this web site.
http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php
The guy even made a duplicate cabinet of the game in the movie to house his game. So it looks just like it does in the movie. The plans are all there so you could create one yourself as well.
Sounds like people should start doing packet dumps of the server so that they can create a clone server. According to the 1UP article it's a bank (Comerica Bank - Dallas,TX) that now owns the rights to Hellgate:London. I don't see a bank doing anything with it other than maybe trying to find a buyer for it. I would doubt that any company seriously would by the rights to it from the bank given that it wasn't a great seller. In fact Metacritic shows it only has a rating of 70% which is pretty average, but a number of people have commented on numerous bugs with the game. So I doubt it would be of much value to a game company since they could create a similar IP without having to pay for it and pick up the negative community opinion due to the company going under.
But of course I could be wrong.
Welcome to the world of judges and courts. They rarely understand the technical cases they rule on, so most of the time it never makes any common sense to the people who understand the technology that is involved in these cases. Just chalk it up to more clueless judges who don't bother to spend the time to learn about the technology.
Interoperability & Reverse Engineering are not freedoms recognized by the court. So companies are free to try and make legally binding contracts that limit your ability to do those things. It is going to take some states or the federal government to step up and pass some laws saying they are freedoms that can't be taken away before you see them disappear from contracts.
Reverse Engineering *IS* specifically allowed in the DMCA if the purpose is inter-operability or research. This exception was one of the key points used in the BNETD vs. Blizzard/Vivindi case as point of defense. So you can violate the encryption or DRM/copy-protection on software or a file, but only under certain conditions in the US, because of the DMCA. If you want more info either read up on the case over at EFF or see some of the articles EFF has written about the DMCA.
You are correct. But my problem is what additional compensation is being offered for the EULA? I mean I made a purchase at the store for the software. I wasn't able to review the license before the purchase to see if it was agreeable. I can't see the license until I open and install the computer software.
Also why is it a license? I purchased the software just like I did a stereo or TV. I wasn't asked to sign a contract like I am with a cell phone purchase with service. So why should computer software suddenly be treated differently? I don't have to agree to a stupid license to play my XBox, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP or Nintendo DS. Why do I have to do this with software? What is so special about a PC game over a console game?
I try to install the software I just purchased, and *BAM* I am presented with a EULA/license that I never saw or agreed to at the time of purchase. If I don't agree to the license during the install process it won't install. Now I try to return it to the store since I didn't agree to the license and they won't take it back since it is opened. Now I am screwed. I bought software that I can't use and I can't return, so it is worthless to me.
How is this even close to fair? Yet it happens hundreds of times a day in retail. People try to return software that they can't run on their machine/computer or that doesn't work like it should or that they don't like the license and they are not able to return it. Don't believe me? Try and return opened software to Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, or any other place that sells software and see how far you get. It has been like this for 15+ years at least, probably longer.
I think it is time the state and federal government would step in and say software is a sale and isn't subject to any extra licenses, just copyright protection period. You want to license software fine, have them sign a contract before they pay, but software sold at retail stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc are sales not licenses.
Actually you are wrong here. The BNETD case specifically revolved around reverse engineering for compatability and at least the courts in that case ruled that the EULA was enforceable that forbade reverse engineering of their products. If you doubt this head over the the EFF site and look up the specific case and the rulings on it. It's the BNETD vs. Vivendi/Blizzard case.
http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd
The main problem BNETD ran into was the encryption routine for the password that a user used to login. It was originally code given to the project by a user who said he figured out how it worked. What wasn't known at the time was that the person disassembled the client EXE to see how the password was being encrypted. The project coders knew what type of encryption it probably was based on the wire traffic but there was something hokey about the way Blizzard did it. It eventually came out that this is how it happened. It turned out Blizzard made a mistake in how they tried to do an encryption standard and that is why the developers saw something hokey with the routine.
Um sorry but BNETD authors had to install the software/client (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft) in order to debug the server (BNETD) to make sure the client communicated correctly with the server (BNETD). Thus part of the install of the software/client was the EULA had to be agreed to.
The problem I had was that the software was sold without the knowledge of the EULA at time of purchase and no additional consideration was given for agreeing to the EULA. Which I would have thought would have made the EULA invalid but the courts didn't see it that way. I suspect the judge didn't actually understand what he was ruling on very will since those courts rarely see that many hi-tech computer cases, and tend to rule in favor of the corporations if you look at their ruling records. After all who gives them donations for re-election, corporations. I saw the same problems at the Missouri state office level of Senators and Representatives. They all assumed the corporations were correct and not lying over the small business owner because they delt with the corporations on a regular basis and that's were they got all their campaign contributions.
Judges can be just like other parts of the government they can be swayed by lobbyists and companies that donate large amounts to their election coffers. Not to mention when some of the corporate lawyers happen to deal with a judge all the time and are friends with him/her. It's sad, but it's the way it works. It also doesn't help when a judge has a severe dislike/phobia of computers and complex science and electronic issues. The old, "I don't understand it so the companies must be right because they make lots of money", type of thinking.
The BNETD ruling was some of the worst rulings I have ever seen first hand in my life and I still don't understand how Vivendi/Blizzard was able to such a lousy ruling passed, with such serious far reaching consequences to the computer industry. I also don't understand why more companies who rely on interoperability didn't chime in as friends of the court on this case. I guess they either were asleep at the wheel and didn't care, or had no idea how bad it could have, and did end up going.
BUZZ! You are wrong. Johnny tell our guest what he did not win today.
The BNETD case had *ZERO* to do with World of Warcraft and everything to do with all the other games that you play on Battle.net. It was a server daemon to let you run Diablo, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft, Warcraft 2 online with your own ladders and own user accounts. So you didn't need battle.net if you didn't want to use it.
Please before you make yourself look foolish please know what you are talking about.
BNETD does not equal World of Warcraft (WoW).
Battle.net has been just about dead, until Blizzard decided to announce the release of Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 which both will use Battle.net presumably.
I call bull on this. Post your proof. It's easy to say they spend less but prove it by showing who voted for what and what pork projects were attached to each vote that they had to vote on, and who added each attachment and which party they belong to.
I think you will find just about everyone in Washington loves to spend the tax payer's money when they think they can get away with it, and when they think no one is looking deep into bills and stuff they just voted on.
Don't forget congress and the senate are so shady that most of them refuse to vote written but prefer a voice vote that is harder to prove who voted what.
Personally I think every single vote in Washington should have to be a written vote that is kept for at least 50 years. So we know exactly who voted for what. Also every thing that comes up for a vote should have every name at the top of who wrote the darn thing and who added what to it, all at the top clearly noted at, say 5-7 grade reading level. So that it is clear who did what and how they voted.
I think all laws/bills of the federal government and the states should have to be written at a 5-7 grade level so anyone in the country can read them and understand exactly what they mean. If a high school graduate can't understand the law as it is written, then it is a bad law. Since ignorance of the law is no excuse legally. For all of you out there saying well our high school students suck and are being graduated stupid. Well then stop graduating them and start flunking them out. Supposedly, according to one ad on TV we are like 27th in world for education at a high school level. We should be a lot higher than that in my opinion, at least in the top 10.
Someone doesn't seem to understand that most drug R&D is funded by the US government anyway and then patented by the drug companies. So explain to me exactly how this is a big risk for the drug companies, when they play with grant money from non-profit groups and government money?
I think some one is forgetting that until maybe 3-5 years ago every cable company in existence had a city/county/state licensed monopoly. Every cable company in existence said that unless you give us a monopoly we won't give you cable because it costs too much to put all this cable out there, and then have to compete with someone else who comes along and undercuts us.
So yes every major public service in America is government funded in one way or another. Gas, Electric, Sewage, Water, Cable, Telephone, Roads, Police, Fire, Libraries, Education, You name it the government (tax payers) pays for it one way or another.
Trash might be the only major service American's get that isn't funding in some way by the governement, but I don't know how the trash storage/land-fill stuff works, maybe that is also governement granted.
You want to see the game companies sit up and howl like a howler monkey? Get the federal government to pass a law saying that everything sold at retail has the right to the "doctrine of first sale". That is that if I buy it and don't want it anymore I can legally sell it to whoever I want and companies can't do anything to interfere with that.
You would see most of these DRM schemes disappear over night. This crap of your key tied to your account and you can give it away or sell it would be up in smoke. All these insane EULA's that say your not buying a copy of the software just the right to use it would be gone. Also they wouldn't be able to say hey if this blows up your computer it's not our fault, you can't sue us. Because then they would have to abide by the doctrine of fitness for sale.
As it is right now software companies love to tell you, we own it not you. We're just allowing you to use it for awhile, and we don't promise anything other than there are some bits that your allowed to use that might do something or they might not do something, just be glad we let you look at it at all.
Oh yea and don't you dare try and make anything compatible with our stuff, that's illegal. We sure showed those BNETD guys, and the Overhead garage door, and the printer ink guys not to ever try and be compatible with us. Why should we let you in on our ability to steal...excuse me..get all the money we can get from you? That's our money in your pocket and we'll be dang if we are going to share it with anyone else.
Game companies and software companies in general hate the software resell market, because they aren't get anything from it. They don't want you to buy 1 copy and sell it to another guy who does the same. Dang that could mean like 5-10 people who bought the same copy over a 2+ year period and they only got 1 sale. They sure can't allow that to happen.
Game companies *HATE* EB Game, Gamestop, and your local used game shop. They think they should be criminalized and run out of business for interfering with them making obscene amounts of profit. After all that isn't your money in your pocket it's their's and how dare anyone deprive them of it.
Then the whole thing of telling people what they can and can't do with software once they bought. Oh sorry you can add 5 extra lives and 1000 bullets to the game that effects the balance and by passes our protection, it's not allowed. Also you paid good money for the game, full retail, but you can't put it in your gaming shop or cyber cafe without paying us more. Do car rental places pay special extra price for their cars? What about a library that loans out books? Why is software so special when compared to other fields? It shouldn't be.
CD Key tied to accounts, and updates tied to specific people, and it's all non-transferable. Those are things that block the "doctrine of first sale" and should be out right illegal to do. If I want to sell my game I should be able to do it without any extra fees paid to anyone. I don't pay extra for my books I donate to the local library, or when I sell a book to a friend. Why is software suddenly special and needs to be protected different and given differnt rules?
No game of any kind in anywhere in the world has been left uncracked. You can find copies of every single video game for every single console ever made online, right up to and including the stuff released today for the PS3/Wii/Xbox 360.
You can even find photocopies of every single boardgame you can think of, it is out there somewhere on the internet.
Same is true of books, magazines, movies/DVDs/Blu-ray, CD, records/LPs. You name it, its available as a copy somewhere on the internet.
So now tell me how DRM is actually stopping anyone from copying anything and posting it online? The answer is simple. It isn't. DRM doesn't work to stop pirates. It certainly doesn't stop the huge pirate rings that sell fake DVD, Games, and CDs at little hole in the wall shops, flea markets, and street stalls.
DRM plain and simple doesn't work and doesn't stop anyone from copying anything.
Amen brother. EA and the other gaming companies have been pissed off for years at Gamestop, EB Games, etc that they resell their games used to customers and they don't get any slice of the pie. The gaming companies at one point wanted to make reselling games commercially illegal. They were like why should we only get 1 sale when 4-5 people have bought it from EB Games, played it and sold it back to be resold again. That has really been pissing of the computer game companies and they have slowly been working to make that less and less possible.
If you want to know if it working, just look at the historical data. EB Games used to sell a ton of used PC games, not so much anymore due to online activation keys and other forms of DRM. The PC industry has slowly been able to kill the resale industry of PC games, and now they want to do the same exact thing to console industry if they can.
Game companies want to make it illegal for you to give away or sell your old games you don't play anymore because it cuts in to their profits for them to sell another copy instead of someone getting or buying your old copy. Have you actually read some of the EULAs that they make you agree to? Most of them do not allow you to resell or even give away your game to someone else, only you can use it and play it. It has *ZERO* to do piracy and 100% to do with killing the resell industry.
Don't believe me read some of the old news articles on this and ask the game companies what they think of the used game resell industry.