Spore DRM

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Bingo... therein is my issue with most of the opinions here.



(editing of the quote is mine)

I agree that w/o education you can't make an informed decision... and if you are in the area of ambiguity you mentioned above (which most are IMO) then you are now coming from that foundation and (probably) thinking from that ambiguous state of morality. That means that you will try to conform any new knowledge on this "new" issue to your current state of morality on the subject. Most are not willing to let go of their current beliefs when presented with something new and so struggle in this question as they try to fit it within the current state of their heart on it. To remain teachable we all must consider that what we believe CAN be wrong and test new thoughts against it. (basic scientific principal that most... including scientists forget) This includes whatever moral foundation we stand on.


yes, i understand that, it is like people who think they can use a companies volume license of something for personal use.

hell at my work we have a classified's section on the intranet, some idiot, and seriously, you can call some thing ignorance but this was stupidity. he bought a comp, then was "shocked" that it only had microsoft works on it and not the full work package. he then asked if anyone could give him a "shot" of it. i got annoyed as i have seen people doing this before and posted up that what he was asking for was illegal and not only were there free alternative's available like open office but openly engaging in criminal activities on a public site was not the best idea.

strangely enough within half an hour his and my posts disappeared. IMO that was just stupidity because who would buy a computer then assume you would get something like office included for no extra cost, that ain't ignorance.
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lol, agreed.


basically, with the current laws in place it is stealing. So... while we cannot directly compare the whole of the piracy situation with plagiarism or goat-theft (as rat said and I agree w/) the fact that all of it (by law, currently) is considered stealing then there IS a comparison that can be made. 😉
 
@sojrner,

I think to most people piracy does not easily equate with theft, it's more closely associated with sharing. Therefore the morals applied to the situation would not be to reject piracy but to embrace it. If average Joe buys a CD why not share it with all his friend even if he only paid for it once? There's even Biblical precendnce for this type of behavoir. When Jesus fed 5000 people with only 5 loves of bread and two fish nobody accused him of piracy. But what about all the fishermen and bakers who lost thousands of sales due to his actions?
 
lol... nice stretch.

ok, if you bring a biblical idea into it and say that Jesus multiplying the fish and loaves, then we must look at who "made" the fish and loave, which for that is going back to God as the creator of everything that was multiplied there (the grain that the bread was made from etc) so He was actually giving away His own creation (that He also allowed man to use to make the bread etc) so you could almost look at it as a GPL kinda thing... 😉

but I digress... you are dead on I think with the view of sharing vs. stealing. I think that hits the nail on the head when you listen/read so many that are outraged that they cant give away music. Or are pissed when they are not allowed to freely copy a book for a term paper etc... again, that moral ambiguity to rules and regs.
 
Hey, sticking with the biblical theme, God did say "Go forth and multiply". Maybe he was taking about video games and music. So there you have it piracy is justified by the bible 😉
 
If you look at this as a contract dealing with intellectual property you might see that this is not the same as buying a washing machine.
What EA is offering is a limited license to use the software.
PC owners are more familiar with buying an unlimited license to use software.

If you understand that a contract is "a meeting of the minds"; then you have to have a mutual understanding to get to a mutual agreement. The key here is mutual.

EA has limited the number of installs to three. Most people assumed they were getting an unlimited number of installs.

Whether you like three installs or not is only relevant to the amount which you are willing to pay. What if you got Spore for $10? Would it be worth it then?

EA made an offer, if you paid your money you made an acceptance; all be it, an uninformed acceptance. You could not read the terms of the license agreement they forced on you unlit you paid your money and installed the game.

My issue with EA is that they did not disclose what they were selling.

It is like buying a life insurance policy from a salesman who convinces you you need life insurance coverage, paying your premium, then finding out that the policy only pays benefits if a left handed gorilla kills you by falling on you from a 10 story building or higher. It is not what you expected and you could not read the policy until you paid for it.

EA needs to offer a 30 day money back policy to rectify this unfair bargaining position which they established.


On the piracy issue: If you take someone's property without their permission that is stealing and piracy. Spore is the intellectual property of EA and they have the right to sell or rent it as they want. Anyone else does not have any rights to it unless it is granted from EA. I cannot legally share your house.

Assume I show up and want to stay in your home, according to your sharing example that would be OK purplerat. You would have no reason to object to anyone who wanted to use, share your property. You fail to acknowledge that there is a finite market for a product such as Spore. You would deny the owners of the property the benefits of their labors by copying/forging their property rights and extinguishing the market demand for their product with illegal copies of their product.
Your example of Jesus and the loaves of bread fails to work because Jesus created the bread via a miracle. He created something physical from nothing. You are supporting forgeries of incorporeal property. The value in Spore is the intellectual property not the physical disc.
 
My issue with EA is that they did not disclose what they were selling.
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Umm actually they did. Just scroll down a few threads and you'll see where somebody just today resurected a thread from May discussing what type of DRM EA would be using for Spore. You can also find info on it on the EA website.
 


On the Spore box (that I hold in my hands), the only limitations revealed that you can read before buying it says: "Internet connection, online authentication and end user license agreement required to play. Tp access online features, you must register online with the enclosed serial code. Only one registration available per game. EA terms & conditions and features updates can be found at WWW.EA.COM. You must be 13+ to register online. EA may retire online features after 30 days posted on www.EA.com."

Nothing that is part of the product that you buy and can read before buying discloses the limitation of three installs. Therefore they DO NOT disclose the major limitation of the license which they are selling. This is unfair.
 
You just posted it.

"... end user license agreement required to play.
...
EA terms & conditions and features updates can be found at WWW.EA.COM."

What's so unfair about that. The box flat out says you must agree to their terms and directs you to where to find them.
 


It is unfair for two reasons:
1) You can not read the limitation of three installs on the product packaging before you buy.
2) the user agreement is "boiler plate". That is a legal term of art which means that the verbiage is so complex, lengthy, and/or confusing as to be unenforceable in a court of law.

It is an acknowledgment by U.S. courts that most consumers do not read and cannot be bound by lengthy "agreements" which they cannot be expected to read or understand. There can be no contract without "a meeting of the minds".
 
It's perfectly fair because when you buy the game what you are really getting is a single user license. Meaning it's intended to only be install once on a single PC. There are no guarantees that you will be able to install on multiple PCs or transfer the license. There is no reason for the company to expect you to need to install the game more than once. The obvious retort to this is "What if my PC crashes?". Well that's really not the game company's problem.
Now most companies understand this and allow for additional installs, but the key word is that they "allow" it, it's by now means guaranteed. Even Spore allows for 3 such instances and even more liberal use of the license. Beyond that they still will allow for additional installs in some cases.
 
You're getting a single user license, meaning it doesn't matter how many times you install it so long as you're the only user. That's how it's always been.
 
Just imagine when Batman The Dark Night comes out on DVD, or any other piece of multimedia you've been waiting for months to released, and you only limited to 3 viewings. It's absolute CRAP! Why even spend the money? Sure it gets old but its always nice to revisit, especially if you have fond memories of a certain title, and when you come back and need to call the company who will keep you on hold and end up treating you like a criminal to use it again, it becomes way to much of a mundane hassle. At least I know where EA stands and they will never see another dollar from my pocket again. Lets hope this is a lesson to other gaming software companies.

 
No, single user license more specifically means single machine. Just like with Windows. You can install it on 1 PC with as many seperate users using that PC at different times. Otherwise what you are saying is that ONLY the person who bought that particular copy can use it. In that case you couldn't let a friend play a game licensed to you on your PC but you could install it on his as long as only you play it. Which way seems more practical?
 


At one time the phrase which went with a single user license was "like a book" (That term was at one time present in many EULA's!, you could install it on as many machines as you wanted, and any one was allowed to use it so long as only one copy was being used per license at any time! Which at the time was held to make perfect sense, striking a fair balance between fair use, customer value and the companies income.

Its worth noting that this was back in the days when a company was considered advanced for owning a single computer instead of a type writer... and yes I did get my typing qualifications on a type writer (I had actually completely forgotten that I had those...)
 
The question comes down to do you accept the new terms of EA's games? I do not and many many people agree. If all potential customers knew these terms they would probably be put off by them as well but most consumers are not as obsessive about video games as enthusiasts and hobbyists naturally.

End result, they will probably still make a good number of sales until people start experiencing problems down the road with EA denying them further access.

If you are fine with these new terms then good for you. I see them as outright abusive to the customer and taking advantage of an overblown problem to destroy any last vestiges of the used PC game market.
 

You can't make a license between a company and a machine. It's a user license, for a single user, where a user is a person. You can install it 20 times if you want, so long as only one copy of it is being used at any one time. If more than 1 copy is being used simultaneously then there must be more than 1 person using it, which is a breach of your license agreement. For example, from EA's EULA agreement: "However, you may use only one copy of the software on
a single computer at any given time. ". The word is use, not install.
 
I'm not say that companies do not allow for a single user to install/use on multiple machines, but once you install it on a single machine your license is effectively used. There is no responsibility on the companies part to ensure that you can re-use your license.
And different companies interpret how a single user can user their license. MS for example with Windows is pretty strict on 1 license = one machine. Try telling them that you want to buy only one copy of Windows but install it on three PCs, although you will only use on PC at a time. Steam is obviously pretty different where you can install on as many PCs as you want and can even use some simultaneously. World of Warcraft is even different in it's own right. When you buy the game what you really are buying is a license for an account which is specifically only for one person to use ever, ergo you can't share an account with your spouse even if you always play at separate times.
The point being that there are many variations on the single user license, but the lowest common denominator is one install on a single machine. So when you're being such a license you should consider what it really entails are just accept that it could be the bare minimum. Spore actually isn't the minimum and in fact is pretty liberal when you consider it can be installed on 3 PCs and all used simultaneously. The major limitation is that after 3 installs you need to call for additional installs; something that is hardly unheard of in PC software.
 
Well you need to connect to the internet every week or so to keep the game working. So why not just scrap the install limit and just connect the game to a central server and only allow one copy of that CD key to run at any given time... Just like steam but more primitive.

In fact just put everything on steam and be done with it, install caps suck, more so when you try to install the game 5 years after you last played it.
 
Well you need to connect to the internet every week or so to keep the game working.
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No, they scrapped that months ago. Before Mass Effect was launchecd I believe. But I would prefer the Steam method over limited one time activations. Some people will complain that not everybody has an always on internet connection but I do not think gaming is going in the direction of those people. They need to catch up with gaming rather than expecting gaming to slow down for them.
 
I'm not say that companies do not allow for a single user to install/use on multiple machines, but once you install it on a single machine your license is effectively used. There is no responsibility on the companies part to ensure that you can re-use your license.
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Well if we keep playing the reductionist game we'll go all the way down to a license being permission to install the game 1 single time on 1 machine. Both practically and legally, this is not how it works. Nowhere in EA's terms of service does it state that the license may only be used once, or that the game may only be installed once. The only rule mentioned is that each license permits you to use one copy of the game at a time.

As you said, there are different types of licenses out there. But I've yet to run into a license for a single player game that limits you to a single install, or a single machine at a time.

Anyway, this whole bit is a pretty trivial side-arguement to the main issue. If DRM were successful in preventing piracy I'd be more quick to embrace it, but it's been a total failure and will continue to fail. And all the while it's eating away at what we as paying customers are allowed to do with the product we've bought. And all the while people will tell us "Hey look, it's not so bad.", then it gets worse, "It's not so bad, you can still live with it.", then it gets worse...
 
Nowhere in EA's terms of service does it state that the license may only be used once, or that the game may only be installed once.
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Well of course that's not in their TOS or EULA because that's not what they are doing. They allow multiple installs, on multiple machines and go even further by specifically allowing the game to be used seperatly up to three times at once. The only limitation is that you must call for additional activations beyond the third. Even that in itself is not the same as say you can not install it again, only that you must call them to do so. So technically the only time you would have a legit issue with whether or not they are being fair with the license as presented on the box would be if you used up your three installs then called them and they refused to reactivate. That would have to be your starting point for having any case against them.

But as far as DRM not stopping piracy you need stop looking at it so narrowly from just the torrent/black market angle. DRM does prevent otherwise normal users from casually just passing a game on. People who wouldn't otherwise spend the time trying to find a torrent or crack a game. Those are the real customers game companies are trying sell to. The hardcore and comercial pirates are not going to by won over or convinced either way. So it that case you are right that DRM does not deter them. But getting average Joe to buy a game rather than just copy it from his buddy - who actually did buy it - is what DRM is designed for. And yes it does work.
 
and my arg for that is: if you don't like it (either drm OR the elua) then don't buy it OR PIRATE IT!

if ppl quit buying then they get the message (as only wallet-voting can give) and will change.

if you pirate it (and thus break the law) then you encourage them to find some way to combat it, which currently is poor DRM.

EDIT: above was @ copasetic
 
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