Is Rockstar's removal of 18 songs from the Steam version of San Andreas legal?

Ambitiousmould

Why does it say I'm premium now?
Apr 22, 2012
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Alma Mare said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for owning our software and not be hurdled by this bullshit, but the fact remains: all Steam (and other digital fronts like it) do is enforce a rule that has always been there. We should get angry at the rule, not at the software that for once works like it was meant to.
Was it not possible before to enforce such rules? Surely as long as updates downloaded from the internet has been possible (even if updating a physical copy, such as with XBL and PSN) it would be possible to deactivate the software, so that even a physical copy is unplayable. Theoretically of course, because I don't suppose it would be possible to find out if a game had been shared. I'm not trying to challenge you here, I'm just a bit under-informed.

Also, the sharing of physical copies of games (and other software) is made impossible by product keys, isn't it? I haven't bought a physical copy of a PC game before, so I don't know, but certainly other software, such as Microsoft Office has these in place to limit the number of intalls/computers on which the software is installed on.
 

-Dragmire-

King over my mind
Mar 29, 2011
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I imagine that a question Rockstar will be asked now is, "How long will the music tracks last in GTA5 on Steam?".

This isn't the best news to come out right before the PC launch.

The San Andreas steam page should be updated with this change to inform potential customers.
 

Cryselle

Soulless Fire-Haired Demon Girl
Nov 20, 2009
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ambitiousmould said:
Was it not possible before to enforce such rules? Surely as long as updates downloaded from the internet has been possible (even if updating a physical copy, such as with XBL and PSN) it would be possible to deactivate the software, so that even a physical copy is unplayable. Theoretically of course, because I don't suppose it would be possible to find out if a game had been shared. I'm not trying to challenge you here, I'm just a bit under-informed.

Also, the sharing of physical copies of games (and other software) is made impossible by product keys, isn't it? I haven't bought a physical copy of a PC game before, so I don't know, but certainly other software, such as Microsoft Office has these in place to limit the number of intalls/computers on which the software is installed on.
Well, here's the trick to this whole thing. The licensing agreements between the publishers and the customers (EULAs) tend to have a lot of clauses in them that have never actually come down to a court challenge. There's been a lot of debate over the years as to what would happen if some of them actually came up in front of a real judge, and no company really seems eager to be the first to find out. That's why pretty much every case you hear about that concerns an EULA gets 'settled out of court' one way or another. If a company ever actually deactivated all the physical copies of their product, even if the EULA says they can, you can be quite certain that it'd create a lot of waves that nobody really wants in their pool.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Alma Mare said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for owning our software and not be hurdled by this bullshit, but the fact remains: all Steam (and other digital fronts like it) do is enforce a rule that has always been there. We should get angry at the rule, not at the software that for once works like it was meant to.
The thing is, this is a "rule" written at a time when such things weren't possible (at least, not remotely on this level). It's one thing to have a rule be theoretical, and another to have it come into play. Should people have complained before? Sure, but people don't pay attention until it directly affects them. That they're becoming aware now and outraged at this is pretty normal given that this is a rule that largely only impacted them in theory until now.

Adam Jensen said:
Here's some legal gibberish for you. If you payed for the version of the game that has those tracks, then you're entitled to that version. You fuckin' payed for it!
Can you demonstrate this legally? Just saying "you're entitled" doesn't actually make it so.

-Dragmire- said:
The San Andreas steam page should be updated with this change to inform potential customers.
I think Eurotrip has a decent analogy for that:

Cooper: [in London, answers his cell phone] Cooper here. Hello Mr. Walters. Uh, yes sir, I'm down in file storage. Oh, just hang on one second.

[lowers phone, picks teeth, puts phone back to ear]

Cooper: No, sir, I can't find the Goodwin file anywhere. Yes sir, I'll keep looking. I don't rest until I find it.

[hangs up]

Scott: You didn't tell your boss you were leaving the country?

Cooper: They would have stopped paying me. Seemed easier.


Neither Valve nor Rockstar are going to volunteer information that might harm their influx of cash.
 

RICHIERICAN

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Sep 18, 2014
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Well you can always buy the sound track of the game this is a legal issue rockstar is concern about!
 

FirstNameLastName

Premium Fraud
Nov 6, 2014
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Knight Captain Kerr said:
There's nothing to stop something like this from happening or even cutting off access to the game altogether.
It is true that there's nothing legally stopping them from this type of scummy business practice, but from a practical stand point there sort of is. I'm pretty sure there's nothing stopping a store from selling a single bottle of water for $1,000,000, but if you actually did so then the customers will tell you to shove it up your arse.

Considering the not particularly great treatment of PC gamers in regards to GTA V, i would suspect R* has officially burned what little good will they had left. If you check the steam forums you'll find at the moment it's nothing but pages of rage and calls for boycotts. Still, this does seem to foreshadow a rather worrying future for more of this type of stuff.
 

Sheen Lantern

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May 13, 2013
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That's fucking stupid. That's like Nintendo sending out a patch that turned all copies of "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" into just "Punch Out" when they lost the rights to his name.
 

OhNoYouDidnt

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Oct 22, 2013
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This sucks, to be sure, but can't you technically put those songs back into the game by adding them to your custom radio station? You don't even need a mod for it, just slap some .mp3 files into the game's folder.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Can you demonstrate this legally? Just saying "you're entitled" doesn't actually make it so.
It doesn't matter because gamers are clueless and can't fight for their rights even if their actual lives depended on it.

I'm not sure about the US, but in continental Europe (UK excluded) this is illegal due to a number of consumer protection acts and general civil rights that can't be excluded regardless of what's in the contract. Things such as EULA and TOS are not legally binding because they go above and beyond the actual laws of most countries. You can't do that in most Europe. That's one of the reasons all of these corporations are trying to write these trans-atlantic trade agreements. They want to put themselves above the law.
EULA and TOS literally violate some of the civil and constitutional rights, which renders them legally powerless. For example, clicking to accept the TOS can't be considered a legally binding act because it happens after you already payed for a product. There are a lot of things wrong with this. Another interesting thing is that you can't give up any of your rights by signing or clicking something. That clause would immediately be without any legal consequences. Like it was never there. Sometimes the existence of a certain clause can be so damaging to the contract, it would kill the contract entirely. And it's always in the service of the weaker party (the consumer). So if you were to sign a contract that says you can't file a class action lawsuit, in most of Europe that wouldn't mean a god damn thing. It's your consumer right to file a class action lawsuit, and no amount of legal wordplay can take that away from you. Unless these TPP things become our reality. So there isn't just one way to protect yourself from these practices. You can do it in several ways. Just look through the EULA or TOS and compare it to the laws of your country and international laws if they apply instead.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Adam Jensen said:
It doesn't matter because gamers are clueless and can't fight for their rights even if their actual lives depended on it. [/.quote]

Probably, but not giving out info because people won't use it is one of the best ways to guarantee people won't use it.

To borrow from a YouTuber I follow, if I had a surefire piece of evidence I wouldn't hesitate to show it.

I'm not sure about the US, but in continental Europe (UK excluded) this is illegal due to a number of consumer protection acts and general civil rights that can't be excluded regardless of what's in the contract.
Meanwhile, in the US, courts ruled that removal of advertised features from the Playstation 3 via software update did not constitute a violation of advertising laws or the rights of the consumer.
 

Alma Mare

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Nov 14, 2010
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Zachary Amaranth said:
Alma Mare said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for owning our software and not be hurdled by this bullshit, but the fact remains: all Steam (and other digital fronts like it) do is enforce a rule that has always been there. We should get angry at the rule, not at the software that for once works like it was meant to.
The thing is, this is a "rule" written at a time when such things weren't possible (at least, not remotely on this level). It's one thing to have a rule be theoretical, and another to have it come into play. Should people have complained before? Sure, but people don't pay attention until it directly affects them. That they're becoming aware now and outraged at this is pretty normal given that this is a rule that largely only impacted them in theory until now.
That's true. My point is, I think it's silly to single out Steam as the source of the problem. They didn't invent any of these hurdles or are by any means the most agressive about them. The laws involving digital property have a huge catch-up to do, sadly.

Back on topic, I just took a look at the tracks that were removed. I can't listen to half of those without picturing San Andreas. Huge bummer.
 

Nimcha

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Dec 6, 2010
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I'm wondering, would it be legal to download the game from a 'different source' and play that instead? I mean, isn't it legal to own a backup of a game you already own? Or are licensed to own? Anybody know?
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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Alma Mare said:
That's true. My point is, I think it's silly to single out Steam as the source of the problem. They didn't invent any of these hurdles or are by any means the most agressive about them. The laws involving digital property have a huge catch-up to do, sadly.
It shouldn't be solely about Steam, but now that Steam is a thing, it and services like it hsould be at least partially responsible for such content removal. But I agree. Software laws dating back to the 70s and 80s are not Valve's fault, nor are Valve/Steam/whoever the primary problem here.
 

WeepingAngels

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May 18, 2013
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Fieldy409 said:
Ah, this is where that whole issue of ownership of digital games comes into play. If you actually own the game id think it illegal but I'm under the impression that with digital games you are actually buying a licence to play the game, so Rockstar has been forced to change the terms of the licence.

Also don't get too mad at Rockstar, they'd have no logical reason to do this but for the music rights owners being dicks.
No, a physical copy of the game could be updated to remove those songs too. The difference is that you can reinstall from the disc and not get the update if you wanted where it's trickier on Steam.
 

Dragonbums

Indulge in it's whiffy sensation
May 9, 2013
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Two questions I must ask (since I know fuck all abut GTAV's OST)

1. Were the songs in question original tracks from Rockstar themselves? Or were they licensed music given to them by a third party. It's possible that somewhere down the line the Steam version of GTAV lost rights to it and as such made an update to take them out.

2. Did the patch at least say that this was a thing that's going to happen? (I'm going to assume no otherwise people wouldn't be complaining post update. Granted people have a tendency to not read things as well.)

If the latter is at least true than as far as I know Rockstar didn't do anything illegal.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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Jan 23, 2013
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WeepingAngels said:
Fieldy409 said:
Ah, this is where that whole issue of ownership of digital games comes into play. If you actually own the game id think it illegal but I'm under the impression that with digital games you are actually buying a licence to play the game, so Rockstar has been forced to change the terms of the licence.

Also don't get too mad at Rockstar, they'd have no logical reason to do this but for the music rights owners being dicks.
No, a physical copy of the game could be updated to remove those songs too. The difference is that you can reinstall from the disc and not get the update if you wanted where it's trickier on Steam.
That's what I would do if I had a disc based game lose something I like. But since you need to have the latest updates installed to play the game online or there might be a patch you'd like to get to remove a bug, you would have to choose between losing the cut features or online multi-player/ fixing a major technical issue. That wouldn't matter with an old single player game, but what happens when someone tries this again with a newer thing. (Like the PS3 other OS issue. I'm sure there were a few people out there who tinkered with a Linux distro on their PS3 and used the same machine to legally play PS3 games. They had to either give up the Other OS feature or lose the ability to play any game requiring a higher version of the system software than what an other OS enabled PS3 could have.)

I guess we should be skeptical of any update for an older game and should be fighting back against this particular incident so it doesn't send the overpaid chumps in suits the message that they can do something like this again, only possibly worse than before.
 

the_retro_gamer

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Apr 8, 2013
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Great now you gave pirates more incentive to pirate the game, heck I think they now have the better version of the game now. Good job rockstar, what a great way to burn bridges before the release of GTA 5.