Do we really own our steam games?

[Veldel]

You could always save your games to Steam backup files and stow them away in your DVD library, and install them offline, but I guess they still need to be activated once to work. So yeah, if Steam goes under, all but your correctly installed and activated games will function properly. FOREVER!

...until five minutes after Valve going bankrupt some industry giant like Microsoft, Bliz-Activision or whatever buys the Steam license at a bargain cost, migrating all the accounts. Really, Steam is too big of a feature to be ignored ever. Only services that really-REALLY die off (Tabula Rasa and Matrix Online come to mind) is that they become totally useless to their companies, profit-wise. I can safely predict Steam won't ever run out of profit when having a 3 million user-base. Hell, even AOL still has users.

My mom is a AOL user she thinks its the best internet ever and refuses to listen >_>

 

[Cowabungaa]

Here's the thing; when you buy from steam, you agree to the EULA as part of the contract of sale, and they really do just sell you a license. When you buy in a store, the only contract made is "If I give you the money, you give me that box and everything it contains." The EULA is sprung on you after the contract of sale is made, and is completely useless as anything but a scare tactic. The upside of this is that the contract made through Steam, like all contracts, grant certain rights and responsibilities to both parties, whereas the EULA in a boxed game is completely useless, and the companies manage to convince many gamers that they're under a contract, all the while ignoring their own end of it, because it's nothing but a useless sheet of paper. As a matter of fact, even boxed games that use Steamworks are probably illegal, at least the way they are currently sold. It's why Valve games are the only games that I always buy straight from Steam; anything else is going to have to be dirt cheap for me to give up my box.

So what you're saying is for their EULA to be valid you have to agree with it upon purchase? That's...interesting. Care to back all that up with legal stuffs? That'd be a hoot if it's indeed true, sounds like you could just create copy after copy of a game your buy and the company doesn't have a leg to stand up. Yet it's hard to believe that that's actually true. Hence, g0t proofz? It'd be awesome if it is indeed true.

I agree on the latter part though, just for a different reason; I like them shiny boxes on my shelves. Yet my Steam catalogue contains 72 games, the vast majority of them being indeed dirt-cheap or bought with spare money and I didn't really give a hoot. Having a couple hundreds euro of spending money each month, aaaawww yeeeaaaaah.

You don't own any game you buy, Steam or otherwise, because this:

Just a licence to use them. Nothing else

applies for pretty much every game that isn't freeware, hell almost every piece of software that isn't freeware.

By that logic, EA, Activision, Sony, or anyone whom you purchased a product from could legally repossess it with no compensation.

Or at least block you from using it, yes. Yeah I always thought that being the case indeed. It being such a hastle however, they rarely ever bother with it. If ever. But yeah I thought it was indeed legally possible. Afterall, they own that data.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Or at least block you from using it, yes. Yeah I always thought that being the case indeed. It being such a hastle however, they rarely ever bother with it. If ever. But yeah I thought it was indeed legally possible. Afterall, they own that data.

This will be long, but I'm rather tired of the whole issue:

You confuse the Copyright of a Product with the Product itself. They are NOT THE SAME. I cannot legally copy my vintage 1960s collection of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; yet, there is no license involved there at all. There was no Contract in the books that said that if I did not agree to his terms I could not read his book.

Copyrighted Material must be filed/declared as Copyrighted to be legally protected, but is otherwise enforceable by law regardless of any licensing that material is used in.

That been said, your statement must be legally incorrect: The copyright holder cannot legally prevent you from using their product once purchased. Ever. Not even if you violate their company-created-EULA (that doesn't violate the Law, that is).
They may exclude you from services that they own that's related to the product (because you didn't pay explicitly for that SERVICE, which in itself would be a license) but they can never prevent you from using their product entirely unless you use their product to violate established law.

NOTE: Do not confuse this with service-centric games like MMORPGs or the multiplayer component where you play on their servers. Those are licenses that are logically (and legally) created for services or services related to a product; they are not products in themselves.

Now, while the publisher owns the COPYRIGHT for that data, they do not own your specific copy.
This is a common misconception, and one that has propagated because people blindly assume that the EULAs are always legally-binding contracts. It's a misconception that is sadly, also gaining steam on this website.

See, once you purchase a product, they cannot legally charge you with any crime as long as it doesn't violate the regular law.

Why?

Because EULAs are Contracts of Adhesion ("Take it or Leave it/As-is"), but they are contracts that can only be "negotiated" after the product was purchased. In a regular legal contract, the terms are defined BEFORE any binding exchange occurs.

Since the customer clearly did not provide consent to purchase merely the OPPORTUNITY for the contract, that means consent must have been intended for using the product itself.

This creates a legal conundrum over consent (because you could not have read the terms for THAT UNIT without purchasing it first), and so, most courts will not enforce EULAS.

ASIDE: This process also protects the consumers of Console-games from similar abuse; further disproving the notion that you own a LICENSE. You cannot attain a license without knowing the terms. Since the terms are never once overtly stipulated in this case, they cannot be enforced (because they legally do not exist!).
Putting the contract in a location that is unknown to the customer prior to purchase is also not acceptable on the grounds of reasonable doubt.

This is the main reason why said companies don't simply repossess their products to force you to purchase their new products instead (because they could legally do this under your interpretation) and why it's critical to distinguish a SERVICE from a PRODUCT; or a Product from Copyright.

Bear in mind; this all applies to retail-market products. Steam is tricky because it is implicitly a service, and they can legally sell you "rentals" with an indefinite-return timetable.
However, this also means that Steam is LEGALLY BOUND to provide you with their end of the service as well for the duration/term that you both agreed to. Everything that happens on Steam is done before ANY binding exchange occurs.
In this case, the Contract of Adhesion is much stronger because it doesn't present that conundrum of consent.

On a more personal note: I should really just keep this block of text in a notepad or other such storage, because a number of people continue to insist that all games are essentially rentals/licenses/services, and therefore, that the consumer has no rights to speak of.
Neither of those things are true, but they may become true if people start accepting them.

The will of the people writes the Laws; direct their will and you become the Law.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Or at least block you from using it, yes. Yeah I always thought that being the case indeed. It being such a hastle however, they rarely ever bother with it. If ever. But yeah I thought it was indeed legally possible. Afterall, they own that data.

This will be long, but I'm rather tired of the whole issue:

You confuse the Copyright of a Product with the Product itself. They are NOT THE SAME. I cannot legally copy my vintage 1960s collection of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings; yet, there is no license involved there at all. There was no Contract in the books that said that if I did not agree to his terms I could not read his book.

Copyrighted Material must be filed/declared as Copyrighted to be legally protected, but is otherwise enforceable by law regardless of any licensing that material is used in.

That been said, your statement must be legally incorrect: The copyright holder cannot legally prevent you from using their product once purchased. Ever. Not even if you violate their company-created-EULA (that doesn't violate the Law, that is).
They may exclude you from services that they own that's related to the product (because you didn't pay explicitly for that SERVICE, which in itself would be a license) but they can never prevent you from using their product entirely unless you use their product to violate established law.

NOTE: Do not confuse this with service-centric games like MMORPGs or the multiplayer component where you play on their servers. Those are licenses that are logically (and legally) created for services or services related to a product; they are not products in themselves.

Now, while the publisher owns the COPYRIGHT for that data, they do not own your specific copy.
This is a common misconception, and one that has propagated because people blindly assume that the EULAs are always legally-binding contracts. It's a misconception that is sadly, also gaining steam on this website.

See, once you purchase a product, they cannot legally charge you with any crime as long as it doesn't violate the regular law.

Why?

Because EULAs are Contracts of Adhesion ("Take it or Leave it/As-is"), but they are contracts that can only be "negotiated" after the product was purchased. In a regular legal contract, the terms are defined BEFORE any binding exchange occurs.

Since the customer clearly did not provide consent to purchase merely the OPPORTUNITY for the contract, that means consent must have been intended for using the product itself.

This creates a legal conundrum over consent (because you could not have read the terms for THAT UNIT without purchasing it first), and so, most courts will not enforce EULAS.

ASIDE: This process also protects the consumers of Console-games from similar abuse; further disproving the notion that you own a LICENSE. You cannot attain a license without knowing the terms. Since the terms are never once overtly stipulated in this case, they cannot be enforced (because they legally do not exist!).
Putting the contract in a location that is unknown to the customer prior to purchase is also not acceptable on the grounds of reasonable doubt.

This is the main reason why said companies don't simply repossess their products to force you to purchase their new products instead (because they could legally do this under your interpretation) and why it's critical to distinguish a SERVICE from a PRODUCT; or a Product from Copyright.

Bear in mind; this all applies to retail-market products. Steam is tricky because it is implicitly a service, and they can legally sell you "rentals" with an indefinite-return timetable.
However, this also means that Steam is LEGALLY BOUND to provide you with their end of the service as well for the duration/term that you both agreed to. Everything that happens on Steam is done before ANY binding exchange occurs.
In this case, the Contract of Adhesion is much stronger because it doesn't present that conundrum of consent.

On a more personal note: I should really just keep this block of text in a notepad or other such storage, because a number of people continue to insist that all games are essentially rentals/licenses/services, and therefore, that the consumer has no rights to speak of.
Neither of those things are true, but they may become true if people start accepting them.

The will of the people writes the Laws; direct their will and you become the Law.

Brilliantly written, you should definitely keep a copy of that on hand for these discussions. @Cowabungaa: Atmos Duality put it better than I would have. Ownership of copyright and ownership of a copy are two different things. In your example of just making copies and distributing them, that's illegal regardless of the EULA because, while you own the copy that you paid for, you don't own the right to make and distribute copies to other people. As I said in the edit to my previous post, to get those rights, you would have to form another contract entirely, and it would be very expensive (as in, you aren't getting it unless you're a full blown corporation and the current owner is going bankrupt.)

 

[Zechnophobe]

Well I guess we do, because they are always linked to our account

But lets say that steam goes under, and I know the answer to that is then steam will release a patch allowing them to work offline or somthing

BUT then those games are on that computer, what if you want to uninstall them? I doubt you could get them back, or if you switch machines? or if you bought retail could you put in the disk and install the game? because usually most steam titles require some downloads before you can play them

at least with other non steam games you have the physical copy, then when the apocolypse comes youll be set..unless it has online activation then your screwed

yeah Well if I do get a feeling the world is going to end first thing ill do is rush off and loot and console and a nice big TV

Do you really own your car? What if someone takes the keys and drives away? You could attempt to get the authorities to get you your car back, because you have some piece of paper that claims you own it. This is about the same as 'owning' software.

 

[subtlefuge]

You don't own any game you buy, Steam or otherwise, because this:

Just a licence to use them. Nothing else

applies for pretty much every game that isn't freeware, hell almost every piece of software that isn't freeware.

By that logic, EA, Activision, Sony, or anyone whom you purchased a product from could legally repossess it with no compensation.

In theory, yes.

However, licensing laws are a lot like tenant laws. If you, the consumer, does not breach the contract, they are usually not allowed to repossess it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

You don't own any game you buy, Steam or otherwise, because this:

Just a licence to use them. Nothing else

applies for pretty much every game that isn't freeware, hell almost every piece of software that isn't freeware.

By that logic, EA, Activision, Sony, or anyone whom you purchased a product from could legally repossess it with no compensation.

In theory, yes.

However, licensing laws are a lot like tenant laws. If you, the consumer, does not breach the contract, they are usually not allowed to repossess it.

I concur with the comparison, except that the publisher must also maintain their end of the bargain; contracts done where the publisher does not have a stipulated minimum level of service fall into questionable territory ("Unilateral/Unconscionable Agreements").

Still, tenant laws are intended for services and that analogy does work under Steam's system.
Just not so for retail.