https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/05/after-you-die-your-steam-games-will-be-stuck-in-legal-limbo/
So much for your descendants posthumously clearing out that massive backlog...
Saw a article on a large number of gamers being over 55 and then I saw this which I believe needs to be addressed in our current laws.
I mean, as long as you don't give Steam any personally identifying info and make sure that your beneficiary has your password and 2FA, I don't really see how that's enforceable.
It's still not unreasonable in my opinion to have a legal route to pass our digital property down. Here we're talking about steam, a relatively good company, imagine what EA or Ubisoft would do without legal protections.
I think everybody is missing a crucial point here: what happens with a 200-year-old steam account?
Agreed. Same for every digital product we buy, games, movies, music, pictures, etc. We paid for it, we own it, we can pass our along.
I'm the guy who came up with this quote and it still gives me a little thrill every time I see someone else say it!
I believe needs to be addressed in our current laws.
The problem goes much deeper. We've seen this with Sony, Google, and more recently Spotify.
Steam and other companies present digital licenses as a "purchase" when they're simply not. You don't own anything. You just license it's use.
There needs to be more regulations around digital licenses. Sellers should be forced to disclose a minimum time that they'll continue to support a product and held accountable when they don't.
They should also be forced to use specific verbiage that doesn't include "purchase" or "buy". Maybe "rent".
You buy the license mate. Isn't it how it always is? Isn't it why we call the good ol days license keys? Because we buy those license keys. The problem is not the word "buy" or "purchase" being used. The problem is DRM as its true meaning. Digital Rights Management. How would you enforce a sale of offline single player license keys? When you don't have the keys anymore, you should also uninstall the game. But would you? Hence the need for online DRM. The problem now is that companies don't like it when you resell those licenses and since it is their IP and their right, they can enforce that too with online drm. I am not saying the current state of affairs is good by any means. I am stating how we all came here in the first place. We do need a law for more consumer protection regarding the sale of digital goods. Or fuck, any law regarding digital things. Our law hasn't caught up much with the advancement of technology
You buy the license mate. Isn't it how it always is?
No. I don't buy a license for a bicycle or a fan.
Isn't it why we call the good ol days license keys? Because we buy those license keys.
...huh? In "the good old days" software was something you actually owned. It came on a disc and you installed it and you owned it forever. Your payment for the disc itself was how they were compensated.
How would you enforce a sale of offline single player license keys?
You make it so the game won't launch without the license key? Lots of software from individuals or smaller companies works this way.
When you don't have the keys anymore, you should also uninstall the game.
WTF would you not have the keys anymore?
First of all, stop equating digital goods with physical goods. If you sell me your bike you cannot use the same bike anymore without my permission. If you sell me your software that you own, I don't know if you are still using the software or not. You can have god knows how many copies stored and I would be none the wiser and frankly not my business either. If you can have the bicycle somehow duplicated, I wouldn't care either. I just want the bicycle, you can use your duplicated bicycle.
And no, the compensation is not the disc. The disc is just a medium of transfer. You can get the data from anywhere bit-by-bit identical and it wouldn't matter. The developer gets compensated by the sale of the license. It's just that in the old days it was more convenient to distribute the data along with the license bundled. Hence the sale of disc is equated with the sale of the license. It doesn't have to be that way.
Then your point about license keys.... That is what is being sold as I stated before. Your license keys is a way to state that you have the right to use the software. If you are somehow planning to sell those license keys, you are technically selling your right to use the software too. Otherwise the software license is meaningless. One person can purchase the keys and sell them for cheaper and cheaper until we get free license keys and freeware. But since people can't be trusted to play nice by the one who made the software, they implement an online DRM.
First of all, stop equating digital goods with physical goods.
No? I won't. They're both purchases. Or at least that's how they're sold.
And no, the compensation is not the disc.
Hence the sale of disc is equated with the sale of the license.
My guy, which one is it? Because it can't be both.
That is what is being sold as I stated before
Except it's not being "sold". If it was, you would own it, and you could do whatever you wanted with it, in perpetuity.
Alright, let's put it this way. You buy a disc with a license key to access its content. You copied the disc content AND the license key. Now, as you said, you own the disc and the software and license. Next, since you own it, you sell your disc for whatever reason. You own it right? So you can sell it. But, do you think you are still entitled to the data that you have copied beforehand?
I understand the complications of copyright infringement. The unfortunate reality is that lots of people feel entitled to any work that is reproducible, and they're going to get it. Shoveling in DRM, and serving media as a service, only serves to degrade the experience for paying consumers and actually encourages copyright infringement. Because why am I going to pay for a shitty experience when the pirate experience is so much better? Why am I going to pay the same amount of money for Netflix in 720p (because they don't support Linux) when I can get all the same content in 4k by pirating, and without using their shitty interface?
Yes, that is the actual problem that I really wanted to discuss. A simple DRM like Steam I'd argue is not too obstructive but still solves the easy low hanging fruit of copy and pasting. So DRM can be made just to hinder those low hanging fruit because for people who don't understand technology, they can "accidentally" infringe upon copyright.
As I alluded to before, license keys are a perfect example of simple prevention of copy and pasting in the old days before the internet. At most those licenses will get to what? 50 people? But with the internet, the model breaks down because transferring data is easier than ever.
Those who are still entitled to wanting content for free will just sail the high seas anyways. But at least people will know that they cannot just copy and paste copyrighted digital goods. And this is why I said that I don't have a problem with DRM, it solves a problem of Digital Rights Management. My problem is when the DRM is overly restrictive and hinders actual users.
And yes, people are that ignorant. You and I may be well educated in this topic and the intricacies of the problems, why it exists in the first place, and other nuances. But can you say the same for your parents? Or the newer generations? Heck, if I remember correctly, even lending a movie is technically a copyright infringement (because the movie has to be viewed at the license owner house or something along those lines).
Now, I also said before that I do have problems with not being able to transfer my license but that was the term that I agreed to when purchasing. But I do think it is a problem that needs to be addressed by the law. There are so many things that need to be addressed and that is not my job. But, being ignorant on the topic deliberately is not helping either. Saying you own the software is misleading at best. If licenses can be just ignored, then Linux wouldn't get this far since companies can just copy it and not make the changes public since GPL too is a license.
I don't see the issue. The account is tied to an email address with which you can reset the password. With a death certificate you can transfer access to the email account to a different person, reset the login password, change the email address it's tied to and change the banking details.
So the Steam account can be transferred, they just don't do it for you.
https://support.google.com/accounts/troubleshooter/6357590?hl=en
From what I know, you cannot access or transfer a email account on death, at most you can close it.
So again, there is a need for legal ways to transfer our digital goods in my opinion because unless you have a will, which so many people don't have set up, with passwords for all of your accounts, which you'd better be updating on every password change, if you die suddenly before you can transfer your account in a orderly fashion, you can be hosed with passing on digital goods
If you can't with this one particular email provider, you can just use a different one, or even your own domain.
Google has a feature that lets you automatically send your account login info to an address of your choosing if you haven't logged in in over, say, three months. If I croak unexpectedly, my family will eventually receive access to my email and will be able to subsequently access anything that email was tied to.
Not a huge fan of Google in 2024 but this feature is worthwhile.
Or you can just give your password to your loved ones. Valve can’t stop you from doing that. They aren’t god, they make their billions off loot boxes.
They need to make up their minds. Yes or no question, when I buy something on steam, do I own it or am I leasing it? I've been buying there under the presumption it was the digital equivalence of buying CD's like I used to. That was how it was sold to me, and the law is very clear about transferring possessions after ones passing.
I've been buying there under the presumption it was the digital equivalence of buying CD's like I used to.
Why presume when you can read the T&C?
That was how it was sold to me
I don't believe it was.
And I'm not here to support Steam/Valve. I much prefer GOG, because when you buy a game on GOG, the files are literally yours to use. Buy a copy, download it to your hard drive, copy it to a USB drive, plug the USB drive into a machine that's never been connected to the internet (let alone your GOG account) and boot up both copies at once.
YMMV when it comes to online multiplayer over severs. I'm a retro gamer, so that's not my area of expertise, lol. I think for those, you would need separate accounts to play online together.
A service cannot define stipulations that go against civil law common law, even with when agreeing to "T&C". When you buy something in a store and then later they go "nono you didn't actually buy it", that is selling under false pretense.
I don't believe it was.
What are you talking about ofcourse it was, and GOG launched 5-6 years later then Steam. When Steam was launched it was marketed as your library of games made as convenient as possible. You lock yourself into our platform and we'll provide you with many tools like cloudsaves, chat system and online services like Xfire all-in-one, and even when you lose your CD's, the game is tied to your account, not a physical CD.
When you go into a store and buy something, you tend to leave with a physical product. Not so with Steam.
You mention a "library" of games...when you take something out of the library, it's not yours.
How do you normally access your games? Through the Steam platform, or by running executables directly from your machine (without needing an internet connection)? Because if you usually use the Steam platform, that was the first hint that you don't "own" the games. And if you need an internet connection, that was the second hint.
Another big hint is, as you said, the game is tied to your account. Not your person. Your account is explicitly non-transferable (e.g., in death). As well, they can remove your access to your account for not being in line with the T&C.
You buy a drill from a store, then you use the drill to break someone's lock. But you still own the drill -- neither Home Depot nor Ryobi has a legal right to take that drill away from you, even if you get caught.
Again, I'm not defending Steam here. This is why I recommend people look into DRM-free services like GOG if you actually care about "owning" your games.
Otherwise, good luck with your class-action lawsuit against Steam. It's not like I have an empty Steam library, so if a class-action actually won, I'd benefit from that too. I just don't think it'll ever happen, thanks to the T&C which most people seem to generally know and accept.
What the fuck are you on about, when I take something out of my personal library at home it absolutely belongs to me.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. DRM is copy and piracy protection and was never a way to lease a game instead of buying. DRM free means you can copy it to anyones PC and will work fine.
Lol...your personal library at home is composed of physical objects that you bought and assembled into what you call a library. A better word might be a "collection" rather than a library, but we're getting into semantics here.
You seem to be getting very emotional about this. Your anger should really be directed towards Steam, or maybe yourself for not reading the T&C.
DRM is used for copy and piracy protection, yes, but it encompasses many kinds of digital rights, including access. Steam itself is DRM -- they manage the rights of which account holders can access which digital games. Even with Steam's Offline mode (which not all games support), you can run into situations where you can't play your game offline because of update issues.
Give the Steam T&C a skim, and find out whether you own your games forever. And if I'm wrong and you find something in the T&C that invalidates what I've said, then I'd be happy to see it.
Digital content doesn't fall under the same rules as physical items, for better or for worse.
You seem to be missing my point, it is very clear what Valve thinks about this. It's literally the article above? And I get their point, but I'm arguing they don't have a legal leg to stand on.
In the EU there is legal precedent to give access to every account of a deceased person to their next of kin. T&C doesn't mean shit when it goes against consumer protection or civil laws.
When the T&C say you have to give your kidney to Gabe Newell it won't hold up in court.
In the EU there is legal precedent to give access to every account of a deceased person to their next of kin.
I thought we were discussing whether or not a game purchased on Steam is something that the purchaser "owns" just like a physical game...
But if that precedent is there, it'll be interesting to see it play out. Steam users in the EU have definitely died before, but I guess nobody has ever put one in their will yet? Or tried to do an account transfer?
It's one thing to share the credentials, but I don't think we'll see Steam games going from one account (owned by a deceased person) being transferred into an existing account of someone named in the will.
...which, of course, would be perfectly possible to happen with physical games.
I'm sorry but you're wrong and I'm sorry this is how you're finding out. DRM is absolutely about limiting and controlling access to content you don't own, that's it's entire purpose.
I'm sorry but you're wrong, DRM is about the management of legal access to digital content (literally Digital Rights Management). Essentially a way to check if you have paid for the content you're about to consume, and because protecting the copyrights to digital works is inherently almost impossible, it also tries to prevent unauthorised copies.
Blurays have DRM, they can only be used by a reader with a correct certification, which only gets that if they have implemented HDCP among other specs. I own my blurays and will happily pass them on to the next generation.
But sure, give it your own meaning so you can witchhunt lmao
I feel like we both mean the same things here, and I'm using more extreme and evocative language about it, but we're literally on the same page. I know a lot, and I mean a lot about DRM, and it means both of what we say.
DRM is intended to limit who accesses the content, on what devices, and when. It does it through a number of mechanisms from accounts, to encryption and certs, to digital hashes and stored keys.
These companies that sell you access don't sell you a copy of the content though, they absolutely only sell access. You have no legal right to the content, no 'right of first sale' rights to resell, you really don't have rights to the content that are guaranteed, they can always, and I mean always legally revoke access to you, even though you paid, for any reason they want and you don't have legal recourse.
Pay closer attention to purchasing items on steam, they purposefully avoid using words like 'own' or even 'buy'. You 'Add to Cart' and 'Purchase' and when you buy something, it says: "Any digital items in this order are now registered to your account on Steam. To access your items, simply visit your library in Steam whenever you're ready." I felt like I owned it when I paid money for it and that's kind of the trick, but reading the wording definitely changes things.
On Steam's end, it was already decided long ago. I'd say a lot of it is contractual and Steam likely couldn't change it if they wanted to, but then they were also involved in drawing up the contracts.
Excuse the pun but I'm not buying it lmao, half of my Steam library I bought in a physical store and had no fine print indicating I wasn't actually "buying" the game. Steam might try a rugpull people but you cannot go against civil law common law, they might force you into a contract but at least where I live they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Edit: My law courses were not in English
I promise we have no rights to digital content from a legal perspective. You are just now waking up to the reality.
We had my Dad’s password info and after he passed, his Steam acct pretty much passed over to my brother, since he was the one always using my Dad’s account anyways. We also have family sharing up, so we all still get to share from most of his games anyways.
I do wonder what they’ll do after an acct is 50-100+ years old and it’s still being used. Will they at some point start tying it to your SS# or find some other way to tie it to specific people?
Yeah... I'm not as optimistic as you are about the lifespan of Steam and how long there will be people using this platform, let alone how long there will be people period. I don't see this being an issue.
Edited to add: sorry for your loss btw. I'm glad you're able to share his games, I hope that is a positive thing for you.
I mean, Nintendo's been around for over 100 years. As long as GabeN's successor isn't gonna sell the platform to any shit company for a bajillion dollars I don't see why valve can't make it at least one more generation.
My best friend died a few years ago. He was a dumbass with his passwords and I did tech support for him a few times, so I knew his password. It's nice to be able to share his games with friends (many of whom already had library sharing set up, but it needs to be redone if a sharee switches devices, I think). I was talking about this issue to some friends recently, because we were lucky to have my friend's details. How grim it is to be on the forefront of this question, eh?
I’m sick of this stupid fucking talking point. Steam doesn’t own your email address or credentials. They don’t verify ownership or tie someone’s identity to an account. You can just give your fucking credentials away and they won’t know or care. Shut the fuck up about this already.
not only that, but this is also mostly about copyright. steam can't force publishers to just transfer the licenses. this shit must be resolved in law, not on steam's whims.
Well glad you have your death date all planned, you'll never unexpectedly die before that date, have your will and trust set, are having your will and trust legally updated ever time you update your password for all your digital media accounts.
Not all of us do and in lieu of relying on individuals to have this shit set up and hope nothing goes wrong I'll continue to advocate that we need a legal avenue to ensure legally purchased digital goods are able to be passed on after death and no I'm not going to shut the fuck up about but you're more than free to continue to not give fuck.
You only need to pass access to your password manager, which already includes everything. Since you should already have a physical recovery information card printed for your password manager in a drawer somewhere, it would be found anyway.
You really think bitching about it on social media is advocating? What are you actually doing to raise awareness? Ah, I see you just downvoted and didn’t reply. That’s what I thought.
Honestly always online DRM is illegal. You cannot provide a good a service. All these companies who are planting these time bombs into software and devices need to be handed a big FU and realize that they are creating the piracy they claim to protect against.
I like Valve, but I don't like them enough to believe they won't close my account on a whim for no reason one day.
I think everyone is eager to have Steam let them "pass on" their games...but if that happens, there'll probably be a lot of...
It'd be nice if there were an easy solution, but I don't think there is one.
I'm not even defending Steam here. If you want DRM-free games, buy from GOG. Steam has more games, and sometimes lower prices...but you're not buying a game that you own. It was never a secret. Hence why they marketed it as a Steam Library. You can use whatever you want in the library, but you own none of it.
A lot of the problems are already solved by probate/estate/etc.
Like, if you had property at a bank, you'd need a death certificate which you'll have requested tons of if someone you loved died... along with potentially some sort of proof that you were the rightful heir (Worst case, you'd establish this through probate, likely going to end up being a simple document). This would be more overhead for steam, but usually not complicated documents once everything is settled. As for splitting up the account, your steam account would probably be classified as a singular item and any attempts to break it up in a will would likely just end up being void.
Agreed on both counts
OTOH, Steam is an international company, and there are different standards and such for death certificates across the world. So Steam would have to have some expertise in verifying death certificates from any country they operate in.
Increasing overhead and liability when they'd probably earn very little good will is usually not the best business strategy. I don't think they'd do it unless they were legally compelled to.
Write your steam username and password down somewhere in plain text (and maybe your email auth too since steam seems to like email 2fa garbage), and then someone will find it after you die and can use your account.
I am surprised anyone cares that much. I don't. 900 games and a 20+ year old account and I fully get that it all just goes away when I die, it just doesn't matter. That is simply part of the plan when you pay for the convenience of having a cloud of installers and save files.
My kids don't care. They already have their games. If they wanted ones that I played they will buy it in a steam sale.
The things you need to care about are creative software. My kids would be pissed if the artwork I made could never be retrieved. But games? Meh.
I agree with you, especially when viewed with an eye towards practicality. It opens so many cans of worms that it's probably not worth Valve investing any resources.
They're just not going to move your library of games to another account's library. I highly doubt that, even though it does technically go against the TOS, giving your credentials to someone else is going to get that account banned.
They won't transfer it; but you still can. And with good reason, too. If they allowed it, people would try and use it to steal accounts.
I’ve survived all of them so far so it only makes sense I’ll survive all of them to come as well.
I like the bomb technician approach, either I will survive or it won't be my problem anymore.
2010 is calling.
Even with it settling down a bit, Covid is still very much outpacing H1N1, it's still going to be the virus of the season.