SinisterGehe said:
Digital signature is as legally valid and binding as any other agreement. Specially if it is connected to any piece of identification, phonenumber, ID, name, signature, account name... You get the idea. Even oral agreements made front of a witness or recorded is legally binding. (At least by Finnish law and EU standards).
Well if you are a minor you are not allowed to do such contract, this is in the law. But if you do make such contract it is the guardians fault. Basically the contract's terms can not be pressed upon you if you are under 13. And breaking term of contract is not criminal if you are under certain age (15 in Finland). But you guardian can be held accountable for your actions. (Depending on the local law to what extend)
But if you are minor, the generally quite universal idea in Western law is that, you need to consult your guardian, if you don't then it is the guardians fault that you didn't.
Also shops/retailers are not allowed to sell to minors if the game has a contract like that (it is marked on the box if there is) if they sell it to minor it is according to EU standards a criminal act.
On internet there is a reason you need to have a credit card/debit card to purchase ANYTHING. Even Paypal is required to ask for age verification in some countries. Because at least in EU you can not have a card if you are not in a legally binding age. Banks are not allowed to give you one. So that is why it can be used as age verification and digitally sign contracts.
Some banks offer minor cards that are tied to parents accounts but by law usually you can not use it online (Visa does this for example - you can only have a Visa electron that works online if you are over the local legal age (18 in FInland for internet purchases))
Of course kids will always find loopholes but it will always fall to the guardians to make sure they don't do anything illegal - it is called parenting.
Digital signature is valid. Pressing "i agree" button however is not a digital signature. in fact theres quite an encryption in digital signtures that are made to be hard to fake. Minors do not have digital signatures, at least not legally.
You are correct that EU laws do not allow to sell content to bellow the rating age (one of the stupidest laws in my opinion), however elsewhere, for example US, there is no such law and a 8 year old can legally buy GTA5. however at least in US the retail shops seems to self-regulate that to the point of being equally enforced sadly.
Our banks here in Lithuania (which is part of EU) give credit cards from the age of 16. Granted they are limited credit cards, but they work with paypal from what i heard. Legal binding age is 18 here. Its true that a guardian must sign agreement to give this card, but the card is given in your name.
The most famosue loophole i heard of (not available in my country) is pre-paid cards, which people can use online. I guess since its pre-paid its not like a kid is going to waste money he doesnt have though.
FoolKiller said:
And that's the point where I would download it from wherever I can find it. It's not piracy as I've already paid to use the license.
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Nielas said:
Ever hear of a verbal contract? They are just as binding as a written contract. They are simply not given the same weight since they are extremely hard to prove without having witnesses. It is also why many jurisdiction require certain types of contracts to be written down and signed (eg real estate sales) since these types of contracts are deemed to be too important to be in a verbal form.
If I tell you that I will pay you $100 for mowing my lawn and you accept the offer, we have a legally binding contract and you can sue me if I refuse to pay after you mowed the lawn.
You have a point with the lunacy introduced couple years ago called verbal contracts. However that is not equivalent to EULAs. Nor can these contracts supersede the current laws.
Nimzabaat said:
That's like saying giving someone the date-rape drug =/= rape. Mods are legal. "Cracking" is the term for illegally removing the copy protection from something. The legal terms for things tend to be more boring.
Examples:
Logging in with your username and password = legal / hacking = illegal
Removing the copy protection with the permission of the softwares owners (ala GoG) = legal / cracking = illegal
Consensual sex = legal / rape = illegal
your false equivalence does not make you any righter.
No, giving somone date-rape drug is not the same as raping somone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug
"The three drugs most commonly used for DFSA are alcohol[8][9] and two prescription-strength sleep aids".
Alcohol is a most commonly used date-rape drug. therefore according to you giving someone alcohol = raping.
sorry, but this makes no sense.
zumbledum said:
Its been 5 years since i bought a game non digitally so i honestly dont have a clue what percentage of modern games require steam, if its up to 100% as you are saying then i think its pretty clear your in a small ie non existent minority.
but you still have choices, if PC gaming isnt for you most of the games can be picked up on consoles, or there are a lot of other hobbies available. there really isnt a gun to your head.
you would be hard pressed buying a PC game released this year that does not force you to use Steam, Origin or Uplay. and i dont mean it gives the choice of the 3. Ubisoft games is Uplay. EA games is Origin only. and plenty of others are Steam only. In fact the discs are a slower install than steam download and since you are FORCED to aknowledged the game via steam key anyway they may as well just sell steam keys in the shop (yes i know they sell the discs for people who have bad internet).
I agree it is quite clear that people like me who does not like steam is a minority. That does not mean we should write off minorities just because there are less than the majority.
Your example of choices are equal to if only way to getting to work was overpriced taxi service and they told you you still got a choice you can quit your job and starve. Hardly a choice of getting to work now is it. I like PC gaming and i want to game on PC. I want choices in gaming on PC, not choices that make me stop playing PC.
Nimzabaat said:
you were given plenty of examples. you are wrong.
Nimzabaat said:
Not sure you're right on that account. Some of the content that Yahtzee reviews is illegal in Australia and has to be acquired through shady means (not gonna rat to anyone that matters though). It stands to reason they have the same restrictions against showing violent content in movies as they have in video games.
Not true. or at least not fully. The Auastralian laws are interesting in that if a videogame is not given a rating and not allowed to be sold in the country, it is still legal to import it from another country. this is a loophole people have been exploiting for years.
Most of the "shady means" you mention is usually done to avoid price discrimination (120 dollars for a new game? yeah...)
Also regions do not fit the law structures like that though. the theory is quite bogus due to how regions are set up. Regions were set up and is still used for simple thing: price discrimination. they know that they can get away with overpricing games on R1 and R2, while on R5 (thats russia and china btw) they know they will sell only if they sell it for less). Thing is, online is slowly but inevitably breaking the regions. When gta 4 came out for PC a lot of people i know bought a russian version at the shop (R5) for less than half of European version (R2), then downloaded installer in english and used the russian key to play it.
