Well I am not saying what he is doing is not piracy, but then again, piracy hasn't been defined real well has it? I mean "the industry" would have you thinking buy and seling used games is piracy, but it's not. THey sometimes say P2P is piracy, but it's not always. Piracy is a stupid name for it anyway. The reason I said Iffy is because when he left and didn't take "it" with him (thus creating 2 copies) is when it became wrong, not the fact that he used it while he was there.

I still find it unbelievable that people don't know how software purchases work. When you buy a game, what you are buying is a license to use the game. The disk which comes with it is just media for use in the installation, it is not the product.

When you sell the game to a second hand store, what you are selling is the media not the license. No suprise then when the new owner or the media cannot register the game without purchasing a license...

Simple really

You're missing the point entirely. Just because that is the way it is, doesn't mean it is the way it SHOULD be.

No, you're missing the point. Just because you would like it a different way doesn't mean it's going to happen. Software licensing is made they way it is for a reason, there is no incentive for any software vendor to change that.

In an ideal world the original purchaser would remove the game from their computer completely, leaving them free to sell the software and license to someone else. However, is anyone naive enough to think that would actually happen? More often than not, the original purchaser would still have the software installed when they sold the disk. The only practical solution is to have a non transferrable license, then whatever happens to the disk is irrelevant as the license remains with the original purchaser.

or, we go back to requiring the disk in the drive to play the game, AND, when the game is uninstalled a unique key is generated that allows the game to be reinstalled.

its late where i am so perhaps someone can oblige me with a quick n simple answer, but why are movies and (even more so) games subjected to so much more 'anti-piracy' conditions than other forms of media? for instance, i can buy a book or even a board game (going back ages here =P) and then resell it to a book shop or second hand shop, or even donate it to a library or similar without any sort of DRM or anti-piracy?

i mean, im sure it has something to do with intellectual property and what not... but isnt any creation some sort of intellectual property? a car that uses a revolutionary style or engine or entertainment system or whatnot, is bought by the original owner, then said owner re-sells the car to a car yard or new private owner, why is there no anti-piracy laws? the car manufacturer gets no royalties? if the only reason is that a movie or game can be copied while a car cant, well, fine, create measures that require the original to be 'destroyed' upon selling to a new user. as i said above, if re-selling to a new owner, a new serial key is generated once the original install has been removed, thereby transferring ownership in every sense.

but, like Fuzzy said, why should the companies bother? they wont make any money from it and in the end, its all about money... though if actors etc had a little less money im sure it wouldnt really stop the world revolving...

The problem with that analogy is you cannot retain a copy of the book (unless you copy the whole lot, which is also illegal) or the board game, whereas you can with software.

Of course it's companies protecting their profit, but so much pirating going on what else should be expected? Going back to books, if you were the author/publisher of a book and for every copy sold there were ten copies being distributed free, would you be happy? I suspect not.

Fine, if you prefer the term, I'll use "copyright infringement".  It's still a textbook case.


This has often been rejected in court.  You can't write a contract to say a duck is a goose.  Or, as a more realistic example, if you write a contract saying all your employees are contractors and make them sign it, a court will throw it out because the nature of their work was that of an employee, and you can't just sign a piece of paper agreeing that they're actually contractors.  Could you imagine how many loopholes in a modern legal system there would be if courts allowed bullshit like that!?

Anyways, the key here is the expectation of indefinite ownership.  When I buy the software, I expect that I will retain control over it indefinitely.  If there was a term (such as exists in a lease or rental) that required me to return the product by a fixed date, that would be another matter, but this isn't the case.  This is a sale, and simply calling it a license doesn't change the fact that it's still a sale along with all legal rights that go along with it.

Check out Vernor vs Autodesk. This is certainly not settled in court. I should have added, this discussion on whether software is a purchase or a lease is still going strong as well. Some of you act like this is a cemented issue, done, over with. In the USA, far from it.

In the real world, you are pay is your work is without error... now, game business really game with so much bugs and problem that same using a original disk is a problem... i am lucky, i live in Europe... same game have a minimal 7 days test periode... some case more...

Recently, i have buy Armada but it is so buggy that a good play is difficult... since they have promise a fast patch for resolve the problems, i have keep the game... result is that as today, not yet a patch was released and i cannot more refund...

In fact, it is entirely their fault... they try to fµck us but begin to complain when the fµcked people turn to the piracy...

if your really worried about pirates, quit shipping to areas that has the majority of them or don’t make the product. period.

because there is no way to prevent it in this day and age short of not releasing it.

and pirates were never customers in the first place. so worrying about profit loss due to them is moot.

First, the point of origin for most of the pirated version is the USA... a lot of these pirate torrent are hosted on server outside the US but the game used by the pirate is usually the US version... and why it is so ? Very simply... a lot of game are US only realease... some of them are released to the rest of the world several month after...

A the begin that i was here, when sins was released, i have clearly say that my sins version was a pirated one... because i cannot found it in Europa... but once Kalapso have made a releace of it, i have buy it... Since i have buy a few more version and almost 20 time Entrenchment...

So, you will be surprised that the main part of people using pirate version are honest people, potential customer... people who was screw up in a way or other by game compagny, people who wish buy a product but cannot because they don't live in the right country ( i call this racism )... people who are tired of finish product who are in fact nothing more that a pre-alpha filled with numerous bug and problem... etc ...

Pirates exist because people download their "product"... people turn to pirate version due to various reason... few people are basicly bad people ( they exist ) but mess up with honest people is certainly the right way to put them use illegal product...

While the game itself is a sale, software updates and online matchmaking are a service, which no one is *entitled* to, if they are not compensating the company.

why did that store buy your CD anyway?

 

No store in my area will buy back opened PC games. Hell some wont even buy back 360 games.

 

Stardock does not have an obligation to remove that key from your email. It isn't illegal for them to do that.

 

I..I just can't believe that a store bought a used game that has a Key..wow

Yeah, my friend (he's having serious $$$ issues) managed to sell his copy of Sins.  I was shocked that he found somewhere that would take it.  I've since learned that this very much a systematic problem, and if you're persistant enough you'll find a retailer who will buy used PC games.  Whoever ends up buying the used copy is going to get screwed over...

no i agree, if you think up or 'create' something, you should be paid for every copy bought. if i wrote a book and for every copy bought 10 were going out free... idn, i suppose at the time id be upset, expecially if i didnt sell that many to begin with, but if i sold as many as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings etc, id already be a millionaire, why would i need a gazillion more dollars etc etc... anyway, dont ask me what id do, i often have opinions i find wouldnt apply to me if i were in the same situation... im annoying like that.

however, like i said, and to paraphrase something i read in another thread: instead of making games hard to play to prevent piracy etc, they should make games hard to COPY to prevent piracy etc.

im sure its enforcable, but as long as you are reselling the game in its entirety and not retaining any part of it for your own use once selling it, the next person should be just as free to play the game to its fullest as you are.

im sure someone will come up and say, but then SD etc loses money because the new owner didnt buy directly from SD, while enjoying all the patches etc. well, not entirely, because SD/IC (very generously) allow you to install your copy of the game on multiple computers.... which therefore allows multiple people to use the game even if they havent bought it... its only upon reselling that we hit a snag... why?

Just because you were a potential customer doesn't mean that most of the pirates are potential customers. I know someone who pirates games because he doesn't want to pay for them. Does that mean that all pirates are doing it because they don't want to pay? No, it doesn't.

I believe--and this is Stardock's position as well, as Brad has said before--that most (not all, but most) pirates are not potential customers. You could price the game at anything short of free, offer it around the world, and they will still pirate it. Other companies, like EA, think that pirates are potential customers, and that they will buy the game if it can't be pirated, so they put invasive DRM on their games that ultimately doesn't work.

@Darvin3 Sorry to inflame your thoughs about piracy. Didn't mean to

But my point was that I though it was just a fanmade mod. I didn't know that it was an actual expansion that was made for RETAIL. I probably should have mentioned that the first time around. By the time I found out, it was too late an my friend had gone back to college. Removing entrenchment should be simple right?

Do stores even sell used PC games anymore? I wouldn't know where to find them even if I wanted them (other than Craig's List and eBay).

They stopped selling used games in my area years ago. The only way to get them is online, craigslist, used stores or garage sales. I pretty much stopped buying them when serial numbers were required to get extras. I have no problems with companies requiring accounts for extra stuff, add factions, new stuff. I do take issue with requiring it for multiplayer and patches. I am simply not buying what some companies are selling, that they are offering DRM free products when all they are doing is shifting where players encounter DRM, instead of at Install, it's at the back end. It is not an incentive to require people to acquire an account to pick up patches for games that were shipped with bugs, that's just DRM because a lot of games are pretty much not capable of going from start to finish without some sort of patch. It is an incentive to offer a new map, a new character, a new difficulty level.

And the First Sale Doctrine gives consumers a right that the copyright holders have never liked. It is no surprise, they still don't like it.