Not really. Afaik buying a game meant you own the copy as long as you don't tamper with it or redistribute it for money. Backups were a bit of a grey area, but since everything is digital nowdays...
Movies and music are also a bit iffy, companies get pretty anal when you use a song or a clip on YouTube (even thought it should count as transformative use if used for a review), but corpos wouldnt argue getting your friends and family together to watch a movie is copyright infringement...
you own the copy as long as you don't tamper with it or redistribute it for money
What do you think you call limited "ownership" with specific provisions on what you can do with the media? It's called a license. If you actually owned the contents of the disc/download, there would be no restrictions.
You know that isn't what's being discussed, don't act stupid. This is about Ubisoft turning off servers and you can't ever play a game again, even when it's a single player CD you bought with cash from a store. This is about them turning all of their games into Games as a Service.
Even your first quote, and the article itself, says LICENSE TO ACCESS. "Access" does not mean "IP ownership," it means "It's in my house and I want to use it now since I paid for it 10 years ago."
This one is interesting because the expiration on the activation code suggested that it should be usable that long.
But the article is written as if it's a license vs. ownership question. Rather than a question about the license's terms. I don't know why people are HERE of all places trying to cover for fucking IGN's bad journalism.
Yes, but the fact is there normally comes an ownership gray area once that product is no longer "current" and support is discontinued. Where the manufacturer indirectly cedes responsibility of the product's upkeep unto the owner. Apple will not fix a 20 year old iPod, for instance, but they might offer you a new iPhone at a slight discount.
Take cars for instance. Other than extreme edge cases with experimental technology like the GM EV-1, cars are NEVER called back to the company to be destroyed once they reach a certain age and decide to stop stocking parts for them. But at the same time, during my continued ownership of an older car, I never become the owner of the car's intellectual property. I do not own the rights to the 1990s Toyota Camry in its totality, I just own AN example of one. And in owning that car, I can do whatever I like with it without the company sending me nasty legal letters. Drive it for another half a million miles. Change the body or engine parts. Lower it. Repaint it. Chop the roof off. Put my name on the back instead.
The same should apply to other forms of media. I don't own a film or a game, but I own an example of it. And given that product has now had support officially terminated, there should be absolutely NOTHING holding me back in enjoying that product even though support is gone. Whether that's as simple as playing it or giving it a total conversion into another game entirely through modding and remastering.
And until a landmark case rules in our favor, which is likely never, I am going to keep pirating, cracking, and distributing the tapes because if licensing beyond the original support window isn't ownership, then pirating isn't stealing. End of.
Not really. Afaik buying a game meant you own the copy as long as you don't tamper with it or redistribute it for money. Backups were a bit of a grey area, but since everything is digital nowdays...
Movies and music are also a bit iffy, companies get pretty anal when you use a song or a clip on YouTube (even thought it should count as transformative use if used for a review), but corpos wouldnt argue getting your friends and family together to watch a movie is copyright infringement...
What do you think you call limited "ownership" with specific provisions on what you can do with the media? It's called a license. If you actually owned the contents of the disc/download, there would be no restrictions.
You know that isn't what's being discussed, don't act stupid. This is about Ubisoft turning off servers and you can't ever play a game again, even when it's a single player CD you bought with cash from a store. This is about them turning all of their games into Games as a Service.
Even your first quote, and the article itself, says LICENSE TO ACCESS. "Access" does not mean "IP ownership," it means "It's in my house and I want to use it now since I paid for it 10 years ago."
This one is interesting because the expiration on the activation code suggested that it should be usable that long.
But the article is written as if it's a license vs. ownership question. Rather than a question about the license's terms. I don't know why people are HERE of all places trying to cover for fucking IGN's bad journalism.
Yes, but the fact is there normally comes an ownership gray area once that product is no longer "current" and support is discontinued. Where the manufacturer indirectly cedes responsibility of the product's upkeep unto the owner. Apple will not fix a 20 year old iPod, for instance, but they might offer you a new iPhone at a slight discount.
Take cars for instance. Other than extreme edge cases with experimental technology like the GM EV-1, cars are NEVER called back to the company to be destroyed once they reach a certain age and decide to stop stocking parts for them. But at the same time, during my continued ownership of an older car, I never become the owner of the car's intellectual property. I do not own the rights to the 1990s Toyota Camry in its totality, I just own AN example of one. And in owning that car, I can do whatever I like with it without the company sending me nasty legal letters. Drive it for another half a million miles. Change the body or engine parts. Lower it. Repaint it. Chop the roof off. Put my name on the back instead.
The same should apply to other forms of media. I don't own a film or a game, but I own an example of it. And given that product has now had support officially terminated, there should be absolutely NOTHING holding me back in enjoying that product even though support is gone. Whether that's as simple as playing it or giving it a total conversion into another game entirely through modding and remastering.
And until a landmark case rules in our favor, which is likely never, I am going to keep pirating, cracking, and distributing the tapes because if licensing beyond the original support window isn't ownership, then pirating isn't stealing. End of.