Question about legality

[Lillowh]

I have a question about a trend that seems to be becoming increasingly popular for game companies. I have wondered about this before, but it was on the Xbox.com Forum and no one had a constructive response.

Anyway, the trend is DLC, in the sense of Disk-Locked Content. The most recent example I can think of Gears of War 3's first "DLC", that they are charging $10 for, includes only things that are already on the disk. This includes 3 maps, upgdades for fortifications in horde, weapon and character skins.

I personally don't have a problem with things like project 10 dollar, because, if I rember right, the content they release for Day 1 DLC you have to download, which I figure is legitimate because it's not on the disk.

I do have a problem with Disk Locked Content that you have to pay for however, because If you bought the disk, shouldn't you own all of the content on disk? Is it not like buying a car that has advertised it has "the full experience,". Then after you buy it, you try to roll down the windows and can't. They then tell you they disconnected the wiring and will not reconnect it unless you pay them extra money, and if you try to do it on your own, it will void the warranty to the car and they have the possibility to sue you. Or Buying a Computer that won't let you log in until you pay the retailer an extra 200, with the same consequences for accessing it without paying the retailer or company who made the computer.

Are we, as consumers, really this unprotected from shady corporation tactics such as these? What legal loophole is there that allows such atrocities?

Edit: Also, there is no other possible reason for Disk locked content like this to happen other than to make more money and screw consumers over. How can you be so sure, you ask? Because it can't be to prevent piracy or pre-owned sales like Project 10 dolalr, which seems like a noble program compared to tactics like, because everybody has to pay for it, not just the people who bought it second hand and it hands the content over to pirates for free while everyone else has to pay for it. That's why I oppose this so much. It is not there for any reason other than to squeeze more money out of the consumer.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Hey now, corperations are people to!

no they arent. thats there whole shtick. if a product kills you, the corporation is liable, but they can say 'who's to blame? the manufacturer, the creator, the owner, the customer, the consumer?'

OT: i think its because the dev wants monies that the preowned sales take from them.

think about this: you make a game, people buy. some money goes to shop, some to you. then people trade in. preowned sales. money to shop, none to you
so you have this, to make the money.

 

[Lillowh]

Hey now, corperations are people to!

no they arent. thats there whole shtick. if a product kills you, the corporation is liable, but they can say 'who's to blame? the manufacturer, the creator, the owner, the customer, the consumer?'

OT: i think its because the dev wants monies that the preowned sales take from them.

think about this: you make a game, people buy. some money goes to shop, some to you. then people trade in. preowned sales. money to shop, none to you
so you have this, to make the money.

I would and am okay with stuff like that. As long as the DLC is not on the disk, and you get it free when you buy it new. Things like this where even if you paid for the top edition of the game, even though you own the disk that has the content, you are denied access unless you mod your console or give them money, and if you mod then Microsoft can ban and/or sue you.

I would be completely ok with Downloadable content even if it was held off from the disk before release and you had to pay for it (even though I would greatly prefer the first one be free if you bought the game new), but having it ready since release, on the disk, and then charging you money for it, is causing you to buy the disk twice, which I don't think is legal, and if it is, what has this world come to.

 

[Lillowh]

darn double posts.

 

[RadiusXd]

i have a relativist legality. I can manipulate it to suit my world view.

 

[Leg End]

Hey now, corperations are people to!

no they arent. thats there whole shtick. if a product kills you, the corporation is liable, but they can say 'who's to blame? the manufacturer, the creator, the owner, the customer, the consumer?'

OT: i think its because the dev wants monies that the preowned sales take from them.

think about this: you make a game, people buy. some money goes to shop, some to you. then people trade in. preowned sales. money to shop, none to you
so you have this, to make the money.

You know he was being sarcastic, right?

OT: I have issue with Project: Fuck My Wallet under most circumstances and on-disc DLC has no excuse whatsoever. :L

 

[gbemery]

Are we, as consumers, really this unprotected from shady corporation tactics such as these? What legal loophole is there that allows such atrocities?

I don't know if there are legal loopholes that let them do it but I do know that they only continue to do it because the consumer is surprisingly willing to say, "meh its just a few extra dollars I'll buy it." So as long as the consumer is willing to fork over the money the locked on disc content will stay.

 

[Twilight_guy]

No. It's not illegal. It might be misrepresenting themselves a bit to not notify you about disc locked content but its not illegal in anyway. Game companies have been including unused and unfinished content in final products for a long time. This content is inaccessible to anyone (by design) through conventional means. The difference is that now there intentionally including locked content that can be unlocked. Until someone sues the company and establishes a new precedent that says companies can't do that then its going to continue to happen. Of course it might be a bad idea to that since its only a step away from declaring off of disk content like DLC illegal and that would lead to publisher simply either not making DLC or releasing new games with the DLC like Game of the Year additions fore everything instead. (I'd rather pay ten bucks then 60 bucks for something I already own plus some new stuff). I honestly don't think the court will ever make that decision though since this content is essentially DLC its just on the disk so you don't need to download it. People keep thinking that once you own the disk you somehow made the company your ***** and own the copyright. You don't, that's why piracy is illegal and why you can't manipulate the data and resell it. Buying a disk does not make the CD suddenly open source. I'll admit that there lots of bullshit being flung around since nobody knows what the hell to do with the uniqueness of digital data and trying to apply conventional laws to it fails miserably but I think that just brings up the issue that we need to establish new rules to avoid lots of threads like this where people just don't know and are angry.

 

[DEAD34345]

That's the problem, we don't actually own the video-games we buy any more, so the analogy with the car doesn't work. Basically, video-game companies can do whatever the hell they like and can charge you for anything they want, we have no rights. We're just leasing the ability to play the game from them.

*Edit* Haha, reading this thread caused me to look at the manual of Borderlands (just happened to be in reach).

Spoiler: It says...

"The Software is being licensed to you and you hereby acknowledge that no title or ownership in the Software is being transferred or assigned and this Agreement should not be construed as a sale of any rights in the Software"

Seriously, they can do whatever the hell they want to us. According to this we're not even allowed to sell our games without their written consent (games which we were foolish enough to think we had paid for, ha!).

"LICENSE CONDITIONS. You agree not to:

-snip-

(b)Distribute, lease, license, sell, rent or otherwise transfer or assign the Software, or any copies of the Software, without the express prior written consent of Licensor or as set forth in this Agreement;"

 

[Lillowh]

Are we, as consumers, really this unprotected from shady corporation tactics such as these? What legal loophole is there that allows such atrocities?

I don't know if there are legal loopholes that let them do it but I do know that they only continue to do it because the consumer is surprisingly willing to say, "meh its just a few extra dollars I'll buy it." So as long as the consumer is willing to fork over the money the locked on disc content will stay.

I would agree with that, except for almost nobody realizes it. They have never admitted to the Disk Locked Conent, and they have hidden it well by not making this first "DLC" released until march, and are advertising it like a regular downloadable content pack, meaning they released screenshots today. Nothing in the description for the Season Pass said anything about disk locked content, it said "The Season Pass serves as your pre-order (at a 33% discount!) of four downloadable content packages that you will receive every quarter, starting in November." They have lied about it since, because they are a company and have lots of lawyers, they could probably back it up in court with "You're still downloading a content from the server. It just happens to be a key."

Only the few people who have gone out of their way to look stuff like this up know about it, which is incredibly shady if you ask me.

Edit: Plus, this is this not also false advertising by saying in the description for the season pass that, "The Gears 3 Season Pass is your ticket to brand new Campaign, Horde, Beast, and multiplayer content, including new playable characters." since the content from this first pack is not, in fact, "brand new content" as the description suggests?

 

[AnarchistFish]

This raises the question, would it be illegal to hack into your disk to access the content?

 

[Lillowh]

People keep thinking that once you own the disk you somehow made the company your ***** and own the copyright. You don't, that's why piracy is illegal and why you can't manipulate the data and resell it. Buying a disk does not make the CD suddenly open source. I'll admit that there lots of bullshit being flung around since nobody knows what the hell to do with the uniqueness of digital data and trying to apply conventional laws to it fails miserably but I think that just brings up the issue that we need to establish new rules to avoid lots of threads like this where people just don't know and are angry.

Except that this is different. I said you own the disk. Owning the disk and the content on the disk is, and if it is not it really should be, completely different from owning the copyright for the content. I never said that the content on the disk should be open source since you bought it. They should not however be able to sell you a box of goodies and then tell you you need a key to open it afterwards. Just as you shouldn't be able to buy a lot of cars, remove the Manufacturers and Auto Companies Marks, and sell them as your own brand. Or buy a car, copy the design, build your own and sell it, or distribute it for free.

This is also not the same as Piracy because that's sharing copyrighted data with people who didn't pay for it for free without the Copyright holders permission. That definition of piracy does not apply to this situation in any way. Here you paid for the data and are then told you don't get to access half of it unless you pay them a second time for the content they said you were buying.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Final note: I wish Valve were much, much bigger. They treat customers right, and Gabe Newell can keep buying donuts off of my dollars. Why, oh why, can't corporations copy their business plans?

Valve is much (much, MUCH) bigger than you think and Gabe's well on his way to being a Billionaire, he can buy a lot of donuts.

Unfortunately, Valve's big money maker is selling content to people's PC, a market they have already manipulated to block out second hand sales and also largely negate piracy as a mechanism for 'lost sales,'

That's unfortunate because now that they've done it, the other large publishers are trying to emulate it but centred round their console centric business models. Locked content and CD keys don't seem half as user friendly on a console disc where you have to pay for both.

 

[Something Amyss]

Are we, as consumers, really this unprotected from shady corporation tactics such as these? What legal loophole is there that allows such atrocities?

Are we protected? No.

What loophole? None. It's code. The code locking out stuff counts. We don't have the legal right to mess with it.

This is a case where we need actual consumer advocacy and consumer rights to further protect us, but given half the gaming community will buy anyway and the other half with actively make excuses for the companies doing it (AND buy anyway), so it sort of screams "what's the point?" to me.

 

[Lillowh]

Are we, as consumers, really this unprotected from shady corporation tactics such as these? What legal loophole is there that allows such atrocities?

Are we protected? No.

What loophole? None. It's code. The code locking out stuff counts. We don't have the legal right to mess with it.

This is a case where we need actual consumer advocacy and consumer rights to further protect us, but given half the gaming community will buy anyway and the other half with actively make excuses for the companies doing it (AND buy anyway), so it sort of screams "what's the point?" to me.

I would think that, but in this example only about 1/20 (probably even less) of the people who bought the game and are going to buy this even know that it's on the disk. Almost nobody has talked about it where many people can hear. People are oblivious to it, and that's where the problem lies. If the majority of people knew, something probably would be done about it, but since they hide it and actively mislead their customers who believe that they are protected from such underhanded business tactics, when they are not.

I had actually already purchased the season pass the day the game came out, and did not hear about the Disk locked content until a few days afterwards, in a thread on the Gears 3 forum that quickly died. If I did know, I still would have bought the dlc's, but only the last 3, not the first because I technically already paid for it.

 

[orangeban]

Dunno about the legality of this, but I will point out that if we are talking about your rights in terms of ownership of the disk, then gamers haven't really owneded the games on their disks for a long time (looking at you intrusive DRM!)

 

[Jodah]

If its done in the manner of project 10 dollar I don't have a problem with it. What I mean by that is that first time purchases of a game get a code that is entered to unlock the DLC without any problems. Preowned buyers would have to spend a small charge (10 dollars) to unlock said content if the code was previously used.

 

[Something Amyss]

I would think that, but in this example only about 1/20 (probably even less) of the people who bought the game and are going to buy this even know that it's on the disk. Almost nobody has talked about it where many people can hear. People are oblivious to it, and that's where the problem lies. If the majority of people knew, something probably would be done about it, but since they hide it and actively mislead their customers who believe that they are protected from such underhanded business tactics, when they are not.

I had actually already purchased the season pass the day the game came out, and did not hear about the Disk locked content until a few days afterwards, in a thread on the Gears 3 forum that quickly died. If I did know, I still would have bought the dlc's, but only the last 3, not the first because I technically already paid for it.

Lack of consumer education does not excuse the consumer. It's not hard to figure out which ones are the unlock keys. Especially if it's a lot of content and a few KB of download.

However, like project Ten Dollar, if people knew about it, it would change very little. Now, I know you personally are okay with project Ten Dollar, but that's not the point. There is much gnashing of teeth over this. Not to mention, there are people okay with unlock keys. People who know about and defend them.

You didn't pay for the other DLCs, technically or otherwise, because they have the right to control that content. I'm sorry, I find it unfair, but arguing a technicality that doesn't exist really doesn't help anyone.

Honestly, I find the distinction artificial.

 

[Lillowh]

Lack of consumer education does not excuse the consumer. It's not hard to figure out which ones are the unlock keys. Especially if it's a lot of content and a few KB of download.

I have to address this. If they bought the season pass, then it is impossible for them to know that the first dlc is just an unlock key until they download it because, as I said, it is not release until November 1st. Therefore, unless you go looking for information about it, there is no way of knowing about the dlc going to contain only an unlock key.

Other than that, to the rest of your post I have to say I guess you're right, but I still greatly disagree and disapprove of such actions by companies.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

If you bought the disk, shouldn't you own all of the content on disk?

No, and here's why:

When you buy a game you don't buy the contents on the disk, you buy the license to play the contents of that disk. You don't anything buy a license and a disk, the contents is entirely owned by the copyright holder. They decide what this license allows you to play and what is extra content.

I think it's a legit thing. It saves download time and allows you to start playing the game and it's extra content straight away, rather than waiting for a download. This stuff they've put on the disc as extra content is just that, it's stuff you don't need to get the story. Yeah, there are shady parts like with AC2, but that needs to be dealt with separately to DLC all together.