Listen to Erathoniel ranting on and on in good ol' conservative Christian fashion.
Is it the same as buying a book?
Published on July 17, 2008 By erathoniel In Personal Computing

     When you buy a disk, who owns it? Is it you, the consumer, who paid the money, or is it the company whose software is on the disk? Do you have the rights to use of the software, in exchange for its purchase, or is it an area where the software you paid for is still the company's, therefore you paid good money for the disk and a limited usage?

     When you buy a book, who owns it? You, the consumer, who paid the money, not the company who sold it. You have the rights to use it, without having it locked up, without reciting a code, without using it in only three places. The book you bought is yours to keep. This does not mean that you can copy it, but it means you can use it however you want, with no restrictions.

      That is why I hate DRM with a vengeance. I buy a book, I get hours of enjoyment, and something I can keep. When I buy a disk, I find that I can only use the program in certain ways. I wanna be able to shape my game, tune it to myself. I'm not gonna steal a game, merely re-imagine it, like I do when I read a book. I don't have to follow TOS with a book, no EULA. I get the contents. I can't steal them and re-sell copies, but I can sell my copy to anyone, or use it freely. So, why is a disk different than a book?


Comments (Page 2)
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on Jul 18, 2008
That turns out not to be the case. In current practice (EULAs considered valid) Blizard has the discretion to do pretty much what it pleases, as the user has essentially no rights over the program. When the EULA is considered invalid, it strips Blizard of the right to police users, set use policy, etc. as the users have considerably more rights as program "owners" compared to program "liscensees".

on Jul 18, 2008

As I recall the non-disclosed-EULA-prior-to-purchase was determined to be an 'issue' for Australian consumers/consumer Law but was circumvented by the provision of prior notification that there was an EULA to agree to after purchase.

In other words...as long as there was a notice like 'warning...EULA enclosed' such that the consumer could decide one way or another all was well.  They weren't even required to state the EULA wording.

As life goes on there's a logical expectation of common awareness that things such as computer games will come with an EULA and thus the game's purchase constitutes a tacit agreement to the acceptance of the validity of the EULA conditions.

Usually 'the Law is an ass' is attributed to its infancy.  Eventually it [the Law] catches up with technology/social advancement....and is moulded to suit.

on Jul 18, 2008
In other words...as long as there was a notice like 'warning...EULA enclosed' such that the consumer could decide one way or another all was well. They weren't even required to state the EULA wording.


That's exactly what the US has, with the additional proviso that the user must actively click "I agree" to procede with installation. You cannot have a EULA that states "installation of this program constitutes acceptance of this Agreement."
on Jul 19, 2008
To understand the difference, you have too understand certain aspects of copyright law. it is clear that you lack this understanding. i could explain it to, and it would, most likely, take many pages to do so. So I'm not going to, mostly because it's already been done, by Lawrence Lessig in his book "Free Culture" which may be found here

It is a full length book, but for any layman* who wishes to understand copyright law, it is an excellent starting point.

* my use of the word "layman," is intended to refer to people who do not practice law, and especially copyright law, in a professional setting.
on Jul 20, 2008

Annatar11

Well, actually, the way I interpret it is if the EULA was invalid, Blizzard basically has free reign over the user's account. The EULA tells Blizzard what it can and can't do as much as it does the user, in the "If the user does this, Blizzard can do this" sense. So if the EULA is void, there's nothing stopping Blizzard from doing whatever they please with the account, since the user has none of the rights granted to him under the EULA

But the user could claim the product is faulty / defective and demand a replacement Which of course will be faulty again, so in the end the company would be selling a defective service and the user could claim costs incurred to resolve the issue and his money back.

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