Chibz said:
scotth266 said:
Chibz said:
lacktheknack said:
Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a limited, terminable, non-exclusive license and right to use the Software for your personal use in accordance with this Agreement and the Subscription Terms. The Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software.
Learn2readingcomprehension.
That part of the agreement specifies STEAM. So if you download Steam, you don't own it. The games you get THROUGH Steam are another matter entirely.
All offers to purchase Merchandise via Steam are made and accepted subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
That's why they say "The software". This applies to all purchases via stream.
That's because video games are essentially information, a collection of 1's and 0's. It's the same with most music and films, and many other industries such as lawyering and teaching. When you go into a shop and buy a game, you're paying a little for the tangible disc and packaging, but the bulk of your money is being spent on the right to use the intangible information on the disc.
When you pay for a solicitor, you're not buying the solicitor, you're buying the right to access and utilize his/her knowledge, you don't own the guy, you own the rights to access and use what he/she knows.
Similarly, when you buy a video game (downloaded or on disc), you aren't paying for the ownership of that knowledge, the creators still own it, you're just paying for access to the information, which can be used by your computer to make a game.
It's not unfair in any way, if ownership of the information were to transfer to you when you buy a game, the company would no longer own it and would no longer be able to make their money from it.
Cars and bread etc are different, you're buying a tangible object produced by the company that made it.