this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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You buy the license mate. Isn't it how it always is? Isn't it why we call the good ol days license keys? Because we buy those license keys. The problem is not the word "buy" or "purchase" being used. The problem is DRM as its true meaning. Digital Rights Management. How would you enforce a sale of offline single player license keys? When you don't have the keys anymore, you should also uninstall the game. But would you? Hence the need for online DRM. The problem now is that companies don't like it when you resell those licenses and since it is their IP and their right, they can enforce that too with online drm. I am not saying the current state of affairs is good by any means. I am stating how we all came here in the first place. We do need a law for more consumer protection regarding the sale of digital goods. Or fuck, any law regarding digital things. Our law hasn't caught up much with the advancement of technology
First of all, stop equating digital goods with physical goods. If you sell me your bike you cannot use the same bike anymore without my permission. If you sell me your software that you own, I don't know if you are still using the software or not. You can have god knows how many copies stored and I would be none the wiser and frankly not my business either. If you can have the bicycle somehow duplicated, I wouldn't care either. I just want the bicycle, you can use your duplicated bicycle.
And no, the compensation is not the disc. The disc is just a medium of transfer. You can get the data from anywhere bit-by-bit identical and it wouldn't matter. The developer gets compensated by the sale of the license. It's just that in the old days it was more convenient to distribute the data along with the license bundled. Hence the sale of disc is equated with the sale of the license. It doesn't have to be that way.
Then your point about license keys.... That is what is being sold as I stated before. Your license keys is a way to state that you have the right to use the software. If you are somehow planning to sell those license keys, you are technically selling your right to use the software too. Otherwise the software license is meaningless. One person can purchase the keys and sell them for cheaper and cheaper until we get free license keys and freeware. But since people can't be trusted to play nice by the one who made the software, they implement an online DRM.
Haven't seen someone slam dunk themselves in a while
Alright, let's put it this way. You buy a disc with a license key to access its content. You copied the disc content AND the license key. Now, as you said, you own the disc and the software and license. Next, since you own it, you sell your disc for whatever reason. You own it right? So you can sell it. But, do you think you are still entitled to the data that you have copied beforehand?
Yes, that is the actual problem that I really wanted to discuss. A simple DRM like Steam I'd argue is not too obstructive but still solves the easy low hanging fruit of copy and pasting. So DRM can be made just to hinder those low hanging fruit because for people who don't understand technology, they can "accidentally" infringe upon copyright.
As I alluded to before, license keys are a perfect example of simple prevention of copy and pasting in the old days before the internet. At most those licenses will get to what? 50 people? But with the internet, the model breaks down because transferring data is easier than ever.
Those who are still entitled to wanting content for free will just sail the high seas anyways. But at least people will know that they cannot just copy and paste copyrighted digital goods. And this is why I said that I don't have a problem with DRM, it solves a problem of Digital Rights Management. My problem is when the DRM is overly restrictive and hinders actual users.
And yes, people are that ignorant. You and I may be well educated in this topic and the intricacies of the problems, why it exists in the first place, and other nuances. But can you say the same for your parents? Or the newer generations? Heck, if I remember correctly, even lending a movie is technically a copyright infringement (because the movie has to be viewed at the license owner house or something along those lines).
Now, I also said before that I do have problems with not being able to transfer my license but that was the term that I agreed to when purchasing. But I do think it is a problem that needs to be addressed by the law. There are so many things that need to be addressed and that is not my job. But, being ignorant on the topic deliberately is not helping either. Saying you own the software is misleading at best. If licenses can be just ignored, then Linux wouldn't get this far since companies can just copy it and not make the changes public since GPL too is a license.