[dundee] Half Life 2

[Lee Hughes]

thanks for the advice...

certainly an interesting point, if all software leads itself to digital distribution,
then suppliers get their cake and eat it. If there is not resale market for
software and you  can't if loan it to a friend to check out,  if 10 million
people play it, then that 10 million actually bought it  at what ever price
they dictated? Brilliant...

With  no distribution chain,  no manufacturing costs, no shipping costs,
then you get 100% of the monies.

I thought steam was a good idea, until looking into it's just another cartel,
with heavy drm..let this be a warning to you.

Checking the price of games in steam, mosts game cost more than they
do in the shop, for that you get no box, no cd, no manuals etc.

I'd understand if digital distribution was cheaper, but in this case it's the
same or more......cake and eat it...

What ever happens if Steam take a dive for the worst, say in 5 years time
the service does not exist, all software relying on the drm becomes useless.

I'd not really thought of drm in  this way, and the whole prospect of code
that you don't really own. I'd really like a legal eagle to have a look at this
and see if they can get away with it. There is no reason why CD's keys
cannot be transferable?  the servers know when two are in use, so can
boot two players off it a violation occurs. Steam seems like a marketing mans
dream, draconian , and by all account bug ridden. Seems steam can't get
their security in order either. A shoddy piece of drm to top all that!
ask Maddox, are you reading this...! ;-)

to my interest I found this.

http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/08/playstation-3-wont-play-used-games/

that however was just a rumour, ps3 software can be used in any ps3..

but imagine if they could apply this drm to everything that has a digital
format..
films...no second hand or rentals.
music...no second hand cd shop.
even books, sorry you can kiss libraries goodbye!

It's amazing, to wipe out the second hand market over night , you get every 
consumer paying full price!! Brilliant. I wish I'd thought of that.

DRM IS BAD..BAD DRM..BAD DRM.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/28694/Pressure-piles-on-pre-owned

It's look like dundee's own free radical design also want's to
get rid the second hand market... Yeah...  their games retailing
at over £40 pounds or more. Who are they kidding? Braben has
a cheek talking about any kind of 'property' if you read how
he treated the brains behind Elite. An interesting strry of geek
vs predatory businessman.

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/faq.htm#A13

Please , somebody buzz in and tell me why this is a good idea?

I think I'll be returning my 'software' and asking for a full refund. They can't
argue with that, I'll just say I never really own the software in the first place.

This argument has taught me that, 

software physically does not exist, it's just a sequence of 1 and 0's either
as electrical signals, or stored on some sort of medium? Take the internet,
software does not have to have any form, it can be stored , transmitted, and
used just in it's electrical or optical state. In never has to take no physical form.

Sounds like good business!!!

interesting stuff....

Say if half life 2 did run on Linux (and it can through wine) then the thick drm
will prevent me from doing so because , I am not on windows. DRM - lock in.!

Laters,
Lee 'I am in DRM hell' 


Arron M Finnon <afinnon at googlemail.com> wrote: not sure you would have much shout under the trade description act,
however they maybe some weight under the formation of contract.  Now i
couldn't and wouldn't give you legal advice, but if you think back to
our time in the law stint.  

A contract, which is what happened when you purchased the software,
there has to be a meeting of the minds, namely you purchased the goods
under a certain condition that you understood.  So if i said to you i
will sell you a vehicle, and you thought i meant a car, and i sell you a
van then the contract is null in void, due to the fact that when you
made the mental decision to purchase, you and i had no common
understanding of what the product will be.  However in the same vein
it's going to be quite hard to argue, that firstly the product is not
what you thought you where buying, because in essence it is.  The issue
is with terms that have been attached, to what legally speaking is their
intellectual property, they may also be able to argue that you don't
physically own their software, but you are licensed to use their
software. In the same way that apple OS's is licensed to a single apple
labelled machine (which is why if you use a virtual machine, or squeeze
it on to AMD, or Intel machines your in breach of license, and why apple
machines all have an apple logo on it, well that and marketing, brand
awareness, blar blar blar, first rate marketing second rate products,
opps that just slipped out).

I don't think you would have much joy in pursuing a case, but like i say
this isn't sherrif finux's court and i don't offer legal advice.  All
this to me is the point of campaigning why A) they should be selling
SAAS, which would mean you could complain about the level of service you
have received, and it not meeting your expectation at the time of
purchase, B) intellectually property should only be extended to artistic
works, not computing processes.  In a fair world, you want to be able to
buy software, and use it for a purpose you feel it is fit for, hang on
isn't that the whole FSF point.

Anyway, i imagine this has been as useful as a having driving cloves for
your feet.

f1Nux not driving with his feet, since monday night


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