alt Hacker NewsNeither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it but it is close to what people mean when they say they "own" a book or other physical media. Games that are only usable with online license checks are more fragile than DRM free games from GOG but practically there isn't much practical difference for the majority of users. I enjoy the convenience and added features of Steam but GOG serves an important role as a piracy alternative for those demanding fully functional stand alone, offline copies of games.
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for the purposes of the california law:
- Steam must clearly state it is selling you a license
- GOG is not required to say this (because you can download once and play forever)
I'm just sort of amazed that this law got out to benefit the citizens of california where so many others got veto'd or neutered on the way.
> Neither GOG or Steam are selling games. Both are selling licenses. The only people who own copyright works are the rights holders. You can't take a GOG licensed game and sell copies or make a derivative work so you don't own it
Isn't this not the usual way we talk about ownership? If I buy a book at the bookstore, I own the book. I can put the physical object on my bookshelf. If someone breaks into my house and takes the book, they have stolen the book from me. I have the right to give or resell the book to someone else. I have the right to read it when and how I want to. I have the right to bequeath it when I die. That's "ownership" for all intents and purposes, even if the rights to do certain things with the book are reserved to someone else. I can't, for instance, place the book on a photocopier, press the copy button for each page, and give the copies to someone else. I can't read from it into a microphone at a public event.
I don't see how ownership in the digital realm is so different. I don't have a physical artifact, and copies of a digital work are exactly identical, rather than distinguishable. But that doesn't change very much about what ownership ought to mean. It basically means that I'm not limited in my rights to use the (digital) book however I'd like for private use, although certain things I might want to do with the work are illegal. I can't make a copy and give it to someone else. The fact that copying is "easier" doesn't change the fundamental nature of that restriction.
When Steam got in hot water recently for saying that you couldn't give your account to someone else (e.g. through a will), I think the reason people were mad about that because it meant that having a game in your Steam account is definitively not owning the game. On the other hand, having a game on CD-ROM or purchased on GOG might count as ownership.