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Steam Now Warns Consumers That They're Buying a License, Not a Game During a Purchase (www.cgmagonline.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

If I back up a DRM-free installer what's the difference?

[-] [email protected] 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Legally, it's still a license, it's just effectively impossible to revoke.

Edit to expand on this: A truly offline forever-purchase of physical goods can be re-sold. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine (this is the US-specific version, other jurisdictions may have similar doctrines).

American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellectual property.

A digital "purchase" is usually non-transferable, even from GOG. It can't be removed from your own HDD once you download the installer, but there are still restrictions attached on what you can do with it, even if those are limited and hard to enforce.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

Just like any game ever sold on a CD.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Technically, probably yes, but you can buy old, opened games on eBay. I doubt you can do the same with GOG games. Digital media is much harder if not impossible to resell.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

If you back up the folder of a steam installed game that doesn't need steam to run, what's the difference?

Owning the copy in a legal sense doesn't affect most of the userbase tbh.

this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024

524 points (98.7% liked)

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