No, you are incorrect. A license to use is a property even though it's intangible. Whether or not such a property is transferable is another matter. Secondly you are confusing transfer of property title with purchase. I purchase the software package at the retail store. The store is required by law to record it as a legal purchase for income tax purposes and in many instances reporting purposes to investors and possibly suppliers.

Since my purchase of the software constitutes a transfer of title, the software industry developed the EULA to exclude the transfer of title to the software in the sale and limited what the purchaser was receiving to a license for use of the software. The software itself on the media remains the property of the software owner. However, in such an arrangement, unless specifically prohibited by agreement between the parties, the purchaser of such a license would have good reason to legally transfer their property right to use of the software through a subsequent sale. This is why many software companies modified their EULA to limit what was being sold (I can only purchase what is sold afterall) to a "non-transferable" license for use.

It's my contention that they are wanting it both ways. High prices for the product. Limiting what I'm acquiring to be non-transferable. I can buy a book, read it, enjoy it and when done either sell it or give it to someone. The software industry wants the legal right to make my book's pages blank upon transfer. Why are they so restrictive? They already have a monopoly through the copyright laws. Why demand so much from their customers?

And, why demand so much from the legal system? How much obligation do I bare as a taxpayer to protect the profits of a corporation. Why all these efforts to insist on harsher punishments for offenders. Who will bare the burden of ensuring these offenders no longer have access to the net? How will it be enforced? How many internet "probation officers' will be required and who will have to pay for them?

This is the problem, you're wrong.

I buy a game. I do not buy a license to use software. There is no such statement at any store, online or offline, that I have ever seen. I have never been informed of such by any clerk at the time of sale, never found any terms stated on the items. There isn't any indication of any such purchase. You go in, you purchase a nice little box with the materials enclosed, you get home, and then are defrauded by whatever license restrictions they try to pull on you at install.

If it were the license that you were purchasing, the license would be given before sale. But then if they actually gave them to us beforehand, most of them wouldn't be able to sell anything.

What you buy, and what the EULA tells you you're buying, are two separate things. The exchange of legal tender is binding. The DMCA will be ruled as the shit it is the first time it goes before even a remotely honest judge.

What EA is doing is fraud, plain and simple. I buy a game, and after I've got it home, I'm informed that I didn't buy a game, I bought the privilege to play the game until EA arbitrarily decides I can't play it anymore, assuming I actually get to play it at all. The concept of an EULA in general is pure idiocy, it has been from the start. After you give us your money, we'll tell you what you're allowed to do?

The architect comparison Jafo is making would only make sense if someone paid him to draw them a design, and then only after finishing told them they could only use it once, were only allowed to use it on a particular piece of property he wanted them to buy, and had to pay him to build it. What Jafo really does is draw someone a design with the terms known up front, unless he's a fucking crook and just got out of jail after serving time for past attempts.

The digital media industries are the only ones that get away with this shit. I'll stop sympathizing with the pirates more than the pirated when the executives signing off on fraudulent EULA's start being jailed for it.

Spore will be pirated like no game has ever been pirated before. Spore will, drm included, still be sold like no game has ever sold before, with the exception of The Sims which also sold like no game has ever sold before. If it ships with the EULA or the DRM either one, I'll applaud the pirates that steal it and feel sorry for the legitimate customers that pay the thieves to give themselves legal cover to steal it from them.

Agreed. I never get to see the license before I buy the game so I can agree with it. What do I do if I find out I don't accept the EULA? Nothing I can do about it, frankly.

. . . and frankly, this is one of many reasons our EULA system is pretty broken. That along with the poor legibility of them to the common reader. They're so full of legal lingo you need a doctorate to understand them. I'm sure they work great in court systems, but they don't work so well when deciding to buy it or not. Frankly, I don't know anybody who reads every EULA for every piece of software on their system. It's rarely worth the hassle.

Hahahaha they can try and they will fail its easy to hack into other peoples connections so it would be blamed on them because it would show as their ip adress plus how do you ban them when they can go to any public place that has computers with internet conections

not all pirates are evil, theres enough people that fix stuff in games where the developers let me hanging i.e. a certain difficulty that makes the game think im using an emulator thus not allowing me to play.... even when im not using an emulator.....

some pirates actually steal, while most do not, theres plenty of games where the guy distributing the software implies that buying it gives more advantages (while sometimes it doesnt thus i would not spend 50euros on something not being worth it)

theres also no good way to get a good idea of the game your after, they sometimes release a demo... but they only show you the good stuff in there any minor drawbacks are being filterd out, ni most cases i download a game before buying it, i wanna know how it plays.. if i like it, i buy it. if i dont then i'm happy i didnt waste money, call it illegal if you like... having to pay 50euros for something u would have never liked in the first place, if some company loses money over people that dont buy becuase they dont like it, they make it illegal so that you'll have to buy in order to know the game.. thus making them money,  if i'm stolen 50 euros becuase devs nearly never make a fair demo they keep it legal

pirates also release NO-CD patches etc, without those i wouldnt be able to play more then 40% of the games i Legally bought, thus never buy from the same developers again, so the pirates are actualy making me buy stuff, thus theyre making money for developers.. whats to whine??

so now who's the pirate here?

No.  The difference is that if you are old enough to legally enter a contract with an Architect [in Oz that is 18] you clearly have a greater understanding of tort and contract obligations...or at least what you mean when you say "I want you to design me a house".  I do not say, nor do I need to say "oh, by the way...if you use this to build more than one house I'll have your balls".

They have inherent rights within the 'contract'/agreement/commission implied by its very nature...in SIMPLE English "Me design You house" not "me design You houses".

Combine semantics with teenage-experts in Law and the overwhelming prevalence of piracy and you will see game/software/music companies having to STATE THE BLEEDING OBVIOUS.

The content of the CD is NOT YOURS in exactly the same way as the plan I drew is NOT YOURS.

In BOTH cases you have limited usage rights.

It's called COPYRIGHT.

The only 'fucking crooks" in this thread are the people who try to justify what they are doing by attempting to apply 'spin' to what is quite simple.

Arrrr mateys. Methinks its time the real pirates took over this thread, arrrr...

Argue all you like....it's not going to stand up to scrutiny, logical, legal or otherwise....

The ONLY 'difference' is they [the software/music cos] found it quaintly necessary to spell it out as the modern Net-generation have adopted the notion that socialism must be the norm, not capitalism.

Property Rights clearly need to be spelled out to the 'Me Generation' as it's clearly being lost through the convictions of convenience.

As a citizen of the facist America described by Heinlein, I wonder how piracy survives at all under our decidedly enslaving but efficient social and economic system. Oops. We aren't facists. Too bad.

I didn't attack 'Bob' Heinlein, with or without the Latin....

"arguments that subordinate your rights to copy software...." ....to what rights do you refer?

 

Jafo, there isn't even mention of a license anywhere on the Sins case. There is no mention of a license anywhere on any game case I have at my disposal. Perhaps you should educate yourself on your own industry practices before deciding I'm just some teenager? I have stacks of them sitting around. Some of the 2k games actually have the relevant copyright information written on the backs of the cases, bloody nice of them to specify that the standard copyright protections apply, but they don't say anything extra in their EULA's so it's rather unimportant. Sorta like Stardock doesn't.

Most of my cases are in storage, but from the couple years worth I've collected since packing them up, I have EA, Ubisoft, THQ, Stardock, Valve, Sega, Atari, Egosoft and Lucas Arts original casings, none of which mention any such thing. I have never seen an EULA, let alone the contents of it, listed anywhere.

I do not have X-ray vision, and I cannot read minds. The burden of notification is on the seller, not the buyer. If it doesn't fall under basic copyright law(which everyone should know simply for their own good) and it's not disclosed at sale, it's fraud. Get over it, the pirates aren't the only thieves.

In other words, you want 200% pay for 100% work.

Ok, Whatever.

It does help me to understand your opinions on this issue better though.

If my client receives two licensed sets of my work...for two separate projects I logically expect payment for both.

Being sensible, however, the second being 'mostly' [but not entirely] a repeat of the first the total fee would not be 200% ....but can fairly be around 150% or so.

If a client paid for one...but subsequently built two I can legitimately [and successfully] sue for substantially MORE than the unpaid '50%' we may have agreed to.  I am legally entitled to the profit component of the second, namely about 95% [unused materials are discounted as there was no cost to me].

It's not armchair conjecture....I've been in the industry for 35 years.... kinda know it pretty well by now....