Lawyer: Dead Space 3 Resource Exploit Might Be Theft

[hawkeye52]

The english criminal law legal definition of theft is

"Dishonestly appropriating property belonging to another with an intention to permanently deprive"

As far as I can see there is to much of a gap between the resources of which you use to buy guns with since the resources are free and the items which you can get naturally using said resources without paying for them through microtransactions.

This would be closer to fraud in my mind then theft but even debating legal issues in something as benign as this is pointless to begin with

 

[mooncalf]

Interesting that bakeries are mentioned because this reminds me of the case of the begger and the baker.
A baker has a beggar arrested for enjoying the smell of a baker's shop, demanding that he should pay for it. The judge agreed - but not the way the baker expects - ordering the beggar hold his few coins up to the baker's ear and shake them. The sound of the money for the smell of the bread.

 

[TheCaptain]

For the record, according to german law neither the Dead Space situation nor the bakery example wouldn't fit the definition of theft. Once, "theft" only applies to things, not hypothetical damages caused by not buying some in-game items. Second, it's not theft if you've been given the change money willingly, if mistakenly.

 

[Gilhelmi]

I tell you, that lawyers are the bane of any society.

Sure, they occasionally help keep the laws on the books, but more often then not, they take and twist the law however it pleases them to allow them to sue more people for money.

At least EA is not thinking about doing this.

 

[FalloutJack]

I don't even play Dead Space and I find this fucking ridiculous. Someone's looking to be disbarred faster than old Jack Thompson.

 

[Daverson]

If you go into a baker's to buy a bun and they give you the wrong change and you walk away knowing you have been given more change than you handed over in the first place, that's theft,

Not necessarily. While it's a nice thought that in this situation only the baker is capable of error, it's equally as likely that you accidentally give the baker more money than you thought you did, in which case, would taking the "excess" money be theft on the behalf of the baker?

A more accurate analogy would be: I once walked out of the bakery, and the baker didn't charge me for the exercise I got walking around his shop, am I a criminal?

(Capthca - "no brainer", it's always nice when the cosmos agrees with you =p )

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

The important part isn't the lawyers opinions of or knowledge of games, it's whether her interpretation of the applicable laws are correct.

I can understand the argument too, at least for DLC. Games are software, and since software is licenced rather than sold, if you are using features or content that you aren't granted by that license, your breaching the license, which could be ruled as a form of theft.

I think a discussion to do with valuation of digital assets, and what causes that value could be interesting, especially with the advent of trading systems like steam. At the moment trading is only for assets in multiplayer gamese, where items seem to have a more real value than in single. But what happens if items from a single player game are introduced? I think it'd probably cause massive devaluation of all assets from the given game due to their abundance and ease of aquisition, just like flooding a market with money. I think Yanis Varoufakis and valve would probably do a better job of working out such issues though.

However, if a large company believes that it stands to gain money from something, or need a scapecoat to blame the failings of an outdated business model on, and sees people getting around paying them for it, they will pursue whatever legal avenues they can find. We're better off having someone point this out early on, rather than the first thing we heare being one day getting a letter saying that because their game glitched, they will be sued thousands of dollars.

Isn't it a paradox to claim, considering that game software is licensed & supposedly not owned, that anything within the game can even legally be "stolen" as you don't own any of it in the first place? If the publisher still owns the game even after you purchase it, would that not invalidate any argument of ownership or possession of anything therein?

 

[V8 Ninja]

As you have stated Mr. Carter, this isn't stealing in the slightest. Rather, it is taking advantage of the idiocy of another individual/exploiting a broken system. Granted, there are definitely moral conflicts when doing these things, but there is nothing illegal about doing these things.

 

[survivor686]

Perhaps the lawyer is using the wrong imagery. Allow me to post mine

- Think of the game as a car. Other cars give you the basic amneties for free (AC, gearbox, seats, etc...). DS3 is the car that says it'll give you AC after 50 miles....or you could pay an extra $10 and get the AC right here an now. Now you find a button that activates the AC right here and now.

The car is still yours, the AC is still in the car. You haven't gone out and stolen the AC from the dealership.

Its not thievery if its on the damn disc.

 

[Togusa09]

Isn't it a paradox to claim, considering that game software is licensed & supposedly not owned, that anything within the game can even legally be "stolen" as you don't own any of it in the first place? If the publisher still owns the game even after you purchase it, would that not invalidate any argument of ownership or possession of anything therein?

No really. I think the 'theft' would be classed as any breach of the license that deprives the ip holder of income. Take shareware software for instance. Shareware is generally limited use software with either a locked feature set, or limited usage time. By cracking it, or resetting the system clock to get around a time limitation, you're breaching the initial shareware license.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Isn't it a paradox to claim, considering that game software is licensed & supposedly not owned, that anything within the game can even legally be "stolen" as you don't own any of it in the first place? If the publisher still owns the game even after you purchase it, would that not invalidate any argument of ownership or possession of anything therein?

No really. I think the 'theft' would be classed as any breach of the license that deprives the ip holder of income. Take shareware software for instance. Shareware is generally limited use software with either a locked feature set, or limited usage time. By cracking it, or resetting the system clock to get around a time limitation, you're breaching the initial shareware license.

I suppose my point is that theft implies taking something from someone else. That person no longer has that thing

But licensing (as opposed to sale) shoots that in the foot as the licensee never owns a thing. "Possession is nine tenths of the law" kind of deal.

I'm just thinking out loud here

Additional thought: Insurance companies already had laws passed making it illegal not to buy their product; who's to say someone else (eg: game publishers) won't try to as well? What if EA wrote it into there EULA that you were required to buy the sequel of a game when it came out? They already tried forcing players to work as QA testers for free, lest their accounts be shut down, so why not?

 

[DoveAlexa]

Where do we go to on-mass shame this guy so that he will never ever be allowed to work on a consumer/business case for as long as he lives? Somewhere where we can get him as much bad attention by his peers as possible?

My fear is that he'll convince some authority that they are within their rights to punish someone over in game not-theft without the game makers or publishers even being consulted with. Law makers are increasingly seeing games as an area where they must 'intervene' even if nothing is wrong and no one wants them to.

 

[whyarecarrots]

I think a lot of the people reacting hysterically here need to re-read exactly what was said here:

"So, arguably if you go into this game knowing you are supposed to be paying for these weapons and you notice a glitch allows you to accumulate them without paying, that's theft as well," she said. "But it is arguable because it's a new area."

At no point is it said that this is actually legally theft. Ms Ludlum is merely speculating based on UK law as it stands and making a theoretical application to a potentially interesting legal area. As she says, this is a new area of law, and surely it's necessary, and even wise to speculate as to how it interacts with the law as is?

She is correct that it could be considered as theft (if people really care enough I can provide the names of the cases that have provided the law on this issue), although it depends very much on whether the courts consider that resources in Dead Space come under one of the definitions of property that can be stolen. The fact that EA have said that they are alright with people using the glitch doesn't technically make any difference within the law. If the glitch abuse is held by the courts to be assumption of control of the property of another, then EA's consent doesn't matter.

What does matter is the intent of the individual. The analogy that was used to teach me that issue was this:
'Somebody goes into a shop with the intention of stealing items. They take things from the shelves and put them in their basket, but change their mind and put them back before leaving'
This is still legally theft: by placing the items in their basket with the intention of stealing them (even though the shopkeeper implicitly consents to customers taking items off the shelves), they had assumed control of another's property with dishonest intent. So, in the Dead Space case, if you were to unknowingly use the glitch, then that would be fine, but deliberate abuse may be a different matter.

Ultimately, this is speculation. This is, as she says, a new area of law and there are no explicit judgements from the courts on the matter. Until a case like this is actually decided, all that can be said about how UK law would view this sort of glitch abuse is speculation.

So all this lawyer is doing is her job, to consider how the courts may rule on an issue, and look at possible ways that the law could work. To condemn her for that is, in my opinion, a very short-sighted response to what should be a very interesting debate.

 

[Nuu]

Most EULAs have the stipulation that if you don't agree to it, then you can return the software to the store or manufacturer for a full refund. (This is required by law in most places)

Tell that to physical stores that sell PC games, given they all insist you can't return a PC Game for any reason, not even if your brand new disk is so heavily scratched the game won't install or run properly (yeah I've had that nugget before now).

(I'm aware under legal obligation, they have too. But unless you walk in with the law in print copy, chances are they won't even dignify you).

Actually I think it's "if the EULA changes," then you can get a refund like with cell phone contracts...if one little thing changes and you find out within like a week or month...forget which, then you can leave or get a new contract.

And I think "cheating" & farming resources is fine. People do it all the time in other games & APPARENTLY EA knew about it. I think it's bullsh** to save face & be like, "heyy we're not so bad after all...the DLC was just icing for lazy people." I sincerely think it was a miss-step, but I'm glad it's being left in the game.

P.S. I love having my 3 scavenger bots, deploying at a sweet spot, restarting the. Doing it again with the other 2 I was never gonna buy the DLC packs, but to be honest even without the farming, you do get a fair amount of resources, but scavenging a couple extra times is really nice for some of those new toys you wanna get

 

[marurder]

Honestly...Fuck this guy

He dosent know a single damn thing about Games, so why ask his opinion?

He probably sent his opinion to get his name in the media. Nobody asked him. It's self advertising. And it worked.