1918

It’s basically the doctrine of first sale. As the buyer of a copyrighted work that is “fixed” (i.e., reduced to an ownable physical object), I can sell or lend that work as I see fit. Libraries can and do lend out disc versions of console games, and I think I’ve heard of PC games as well being loaned.

But digital sales are not for a fixed version of a copyrighted work, they are licenses to use a software program. Those are not subject to the doctrine of first sale, but there are plenty of folks thinking the law should change in that area.

EDIT: And digital library lending is a rat’s nest of DRM, per-use or fixed-lending-number charges that doesn’t seem to satisfy anyone.

1919

Please note that this is not universally true. Over here (Europe) libraries do pay copyright fees on lent physical books.

The US situation re. the doctrine of first sale and libraries does not necessarily reflect international copyright law.

1920

Our library at the college is mostly digital, and yes, the rights and fees and access rules are Byzantine, but luckily our librarians are first-rate.

I think the key is not fixed or not (given that the laws were all written it seems long before the digital world came into being) but the idea of license vs. ownership? Computer gamers have long known at some level that what we “buy” isn’t a thing but the right to experience or use something, but we pretty much ignored that and treat the games we buy as “ours.”

1921

I don’t know that I 100% agree with that idea, despite the tech industries trying to characterize all software transactions ever as licenses rather than sales, since well before the internet was a thing. Section 102(a) protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” and it’s hard to see how a CD-ROM would not satisfy both criteria. I’ve always seen EULAs and the like for programs installable from fixed media as a way to try to avoid the doctrine of first sale by claiming additional rights not available to other works. Nobody questions a buyer’s ability to lend or re-sell a Super Nintendo cart or a PS3 game on disc (at least in the US). I certainly feel I “own” my disc and cartridge based games, and, in contrast, that I don’t “own” digital-only purchases on Xbox Live to the same degree. It’s a different level of right of ownership with additional constraints, and I certainly factor that into the amount of money I’m willing to pay for a bare license versus an alienable copy of the work.

Nor, now that I think about it, would it be in sellers’ interests to argue that they could not readily convey a sellable interest in a computer program fixed in retail packaging so it could easily move in commerce, particularly in the early days. The new era of code-only sales and no fixed or official/final versions of a program is clearly moving into a whole new conception of the “sale” with regard to software. At the extreme, it could mean that ownership is now more affected or governed by contract law rather than copyright law.

1922

Yeah, I was talking mostly about non-physical media, digital games, but even with the physical stuff the landscape was murky. There were many used game stores, and I used to buy and sell games a lot, but the status of those stores and the transactions always were a bit iffy IIRC. Publishers were not fond of the practice, and frequently said things like you own the media, not the game code, which exists independently of the CD or DVD–that’s just a way of delivering a particular snapshot of the code at a particular time, etc.

As for my personal opinion, I remain convinced the entire corpus of IP law needs serious attention and revision in light of modern tech. What we have right now is a kludge of epic proportions.

1923

Agree. I’m afraid the billion-dollar interests would overwhelm any attempt, though.

1924

Yeah, probably. The trick will be to frame reform in such a way that all the players actually see a benefit in clarifying and rationalizing the law. Maybe just point out how much they’re paying IP lawyers! Of course, then the lawyers would work against reform!

1925

So, in the 1980s or so, US Copyright law was amended to bar the rental of computer programs without the copyright owner’s permission. However, an exception exists for videoconsoles (it was added at the same time).

If you want to have a computer game cafe, you need permission from the copyright holder. For games for a console? You need no permission at all to charge to play, rent, etc.

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#109

1926

So, German tabloid Bild is reporting that Tencent is allegedly trying to acquire Crytek for around €300m. Some people familiar with the matter are suspecting that Tencent plans to employ the CryEngine for military simulations for the Chinese government and also might be interested in sensitive intel Crytek may or may not possess. (Note: Crytek had been active in the business of military sim applications, which was spun off into its own thing, Realtime Immersive, at some point.)
Not gonna directly link to Bild, but anyway.

1927
1928

Sounds interesting for the developers, not sure why the players who haven’t already shown interest would do so now though.

1929

There’s Stadia Pro revenue?

1930

People seem concerned about it more than enthused, incentivizes GaaS and discourages shorter games.

1931

Unskippable cutscenes. All of them.

1932

That’ll get those session times up. Win!

1933

I would think that depends on what exactly ‘based on how often their game is played’ means. If that means how many downloads/unique players are getting and playing the game, it doesn’t necessarily incentivize a longer game. The article says that payment is “based upon engagement for active claimable Stadia Pro titles” but doesn’t define what “engagement” entails.

1934
1935

That article also confuses rather than clarifies. It states that “Stadia isn’t logging total hours.” and then quotes someone involved with an indie studio that this will push gamers to “log in every day, put every waking hour into the game”.

1936

I don’t know where the “every waking hour” part is coming from.

The metric that matters is stated very clearly as being the number of days each subscriber plays at least some amount of the game. Doesn’t matter how long they play it for. I.e. somebody playing 15 minutes of the game on each of Saturday and Sunday counts for twice as much as somebody playing for 8 hours on just Saturday.

The announcement is from this event:

I would not have thought that Google could have enough to say about games to cover 30 sessions over 2 days. But it actually looks pretty legit, a surprising variety of their products seem to have meaningful interaction with games. (For example Android, Chrome, Play, Ads, Stadia, Cloud. Conspiciously absent: YouTube)

Seems like they’re pivoting pretty hard to the subscription side of things.

Just to be clear, forgeforsaken was totally right to post this in the business of games thread. Normal gamers aren’t going to get anything out of those presentations, just those of us with an unhealthy interest in the business side of things :-P

1937

This is just another one of their experiments in a bid to see what sticks. It simply won’t fly. Several studios (GameTap, Metaboli etc) have tried this method in the past and all resulted in a resounding failure.

If you’re going to do a sub-based frontend, you have to mimic Xbox Game Pass; otherwise just don’t bother.