California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a law (AB 2426) to combat “disappearing” purchases of digital games, movies, music, and ebooks. The legislation will force digital storefronts to tell customers they’re just getting a license to use the digital media, rather than suggesting they actually own it.
When the law comes into effect next year, it will ban digital storefronts from using terms like “buy” or “purchase,” unless they inform customers that they’re not getting unrestricted access to whatever they’re buying. Storefronts will have to tell customers they’re getting a license that can be revoked as well as provide a list of all the restrictions that come along with it. Companies that break the rule could be fined for false advertising.
↫ Emma Roth at The Verge
A step in the right direction, but a lot more is definitely needed. This law in particular seems to leave a lot of wiggle room for companies to keep using the “purchase” term while hiding the disclosure somewhere in the very, very small fine print. I would much rather a law like this just straight up ban the use of the term “purchase” and similar terms when all you’re getting is a license. Why allow them to keep lying about the nature of the transaction in exchange for some fine print somewhere?
The software industry in particular has been enjoying a free ride when it comes to consumer protection laws, and the kind of malpractice, lack of accountability, and laughable quality control would have any other industry shut down in weeks for severe negligence. We’re taking baby steps, but it seems we’re finally arriving at a point where basic consumer protection laws and rights are being applied to software, too.
Several decades too late, but at least it’s something.
Unfortunately it won’t have much real-life impact, just like that time when some jurisdictions banned the usage of the word “free” for software laced with microtransactions, and app stores simply changed the word to “install”. Similarly, now app stores will simply show a price tag on the button and use the word “checkout” when you pay.
I still welcome the elimination of false advertising, but unfortunately app stores are perfectly happy to admit you have no rights as a customer than give you rights.
That’s why I’ve maintained and still purchase content in hard media format such as CD, DVD, BD, as I refuse to have anyone tell me what to do with the content that I’ve purchased.
Videogames are the big problem here: Unless the game is available on GOG (which allows you to download offline installers), you can’t own a game anymore. Even if you have a physical disc, it most likely contains some piece of DRM that depends on some server being online to work. For example, I have a physical copy of Test Drive Unlimited 2 which became unusable when the servers it relies on went down (I had to use a crack to get it to work). Also, I have a physical copy of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit that became unusable on new PCs when the activation servers went down, but I was able to save it by “redeeming” the CD key on EA Origin.
Also, even when it comes to movies, TV series, and music, not everything gets released on CD, DVD, or BD, so the only way to own such unreleased-on-physical content is to use something like StreamFab to grab the stream or torrent the WebDL (if you want the 4K HDR version).
All DRM is problematic. Should this technically apply to all platforms where someone else controls the keys to content you ostensibly bought? I wonder if this effects steam because a lot of titles include DRM that phone home to request permission to run. In any case it sounds like the impact will be a couple more paragraphs in the terms of service.
I hope it applies to car manufactures too. Now that more cars are phoning home, there’s way more potential for these shenanigans.
https://www.carscoops.com/2022/07/tesla-remotely-disabled-80-miles-of-range-from-customers-car-demanding-4500-backtracks-when-the-web-finds-out/
There are different layers of DRM shittiness:
– Local DRM: As long as the physical media is undamaged (or the local file is uncorrupted), and you have compatible hardware, you have access to the content.
– Online-activation DRM: The DRM needs to connect to a server once to “activate” the content, but once that’s done, the “activated” software or content can be used indefinitely on the specific device it was “activated” on. Windows XP and later is an example of this. Also, apps installed from an app store that don’t need to phone home after being installed and run for the first time fall into this category. Some DLC falls into this category.
– Always-online DRM: The DRM needs to connect to a server periodically or even every time you want to use the software or content. Your stuff can (and inevitably will) become inaccessible forever when the server goes down. This is especially prevalent in videogames of today. Also, all video streaming services fall into this category.
When it comes to ownership rights, #1 does not affect them (it imposes other restrictions but it doesn’t affect ownership), but #2 and #3 do.
So, to get back on topic, the term “buy” or “purchase” can be used for stuff laced with DRM of type #1 without it being false advertising.
kurkosdr,
Sometimes local DRM is known to break too. It can be sensitive to operating system changes with no updates to fix/remove the DRM. But in any case I think software with online dependencies is the bigger problem today. After all most publishers expect users to have internet in some form.
This is still an issue of you not having compatible hardware or rendering it not compatible. That said, I’ve never seen this happen with the exception of secdrv (which can be re-enabled with a simple cmd command), but even if it wasn’t so, you could still factory reset or acquire new-old-stock compatible hardware and run your copy of the software. Now, don’t get me wrong, software imposing such particularly particular compatibility demands is absurd, but your ownership rights remain unaffected, so the term “buy” or “purchase” can be used without it being false advertising.
kurkosdr,
That’s not always a possibility. Not only does hardware break, but with the exception of collectors, almost all normal users will eventually upgrade the OS.
I appreciate that you are trying to generalize, but in specific circumstances #1 might actually be worse than #2 if #2 allows you to maintain activation post-upgrade and #1 does not. I personally feel #1 is just as bad if it effectively takes away your right to upgrade. There may be a moral difference between a game console that you’re not meant to upgrade and a computer where you are actually expected to upgrade.
That’s still your problem at the end of the day. Even games with zero DRM can lose compatibility when you upgrade the OS. For example, the first three Need For Speed games have zero DRM (back then, releasing on CD was copy-protection enough) and yet have issues working on modern Windows and modern hardware (the first one only works on DOSBox, and even then only the DOS version of it, the second and third ones need third-party patches). I also have an obscure French game called “PIKTO”, again with no DRM, which doesn’t work on modern Windows at all, you can only run it on Windows 95/98/98SE (I used PCem btw).
DRM is an additional compatibility hurdle, but it does not affect your ownership rights.
What makes you think #2 maintains compatibility? Your activated game can be just as incompatible when you upgrade to Windows 10/11 as games with local DRM only (aka #1). But with #1 you can at least build a new PC from used hardware or you can use emulators like PCem, with #2 you are stuck on the particular machine you used to activate it, and you can’t upgrade that particular machine even if it’s your main PC. So #2 is much more evil, because your use rights are tied to a particular machine never breaking or becoming incompatible in the future, so you don’t really own stuff laced with #2 DRM. Even frickin’ Windows XP will eventually become un-activateable (using the official process at least) when MS shuts down the activation phone numbers (they’ve already shut down the activation servers). So, if the HDD/SSD in your retro Windows XP dies, you won’t have any official process of re-installing the OS even if you legally own a CD and COA sticker of Windows XP and have replaced the HDD/SSD with the exact model that died.
kurkosdr,
Sure, but let’s not ignore the huge moral difference between software that accidentally gets broken versus DRM that’s designed to break. OS incompatibilities are often addressed by wine developers. That’s a much better place to be than software designed to break!
It’s right in the acronym: “digital rights management”. A publisher can use DRM to control software/content above and beyond their copyrights.
I said “if” it did. You made an assumption that #1 works and #2 fails, but that depends on DRM specifics rather than a generalization.
If you restore a back up image to a new disk, it will probably work. This sort of thing really depends on the specifics of the DRM. As far as I’m aware windows XP DRM does allow some hardware changes, it’s not all or nothing. Things can be more nuanced than the broad generalization you outlined. DRM can remove rights whether it’s online or not.
Local DRM wasn’t “designed to break”, it was designed to work indefinitely with the hardware it was meant to work with. Also secdrv enjoyed a very long life, to the point that the first games that used secdrv back in the late 90s were still functional up to WIndows 8.1 DRM-wise. Also, all Blu-ray players can play CSS-encrypted DVDs just as well as unencrypted DVDs. And DRM is never a reason a console can’t play the previous console’s games (differences in CPU and GPU architecture are). So, there is an industry effort to make local DRM work on newer hardware. Local DRM is the least bad form of DRM you can have.
#2 and #3 are, in a sense, designed to break, since servers are eventually taken down.
kurkosdr,
Defend DRM if you must, but lets not deny it’s essence: DRM is literally designed to stop the software from running when owners make system changes that software publishers don’t approve of. If you think that publishers should have this right, your entitled to that opinion, but even so you should acknowledge that it takes rights away from owners and hands them to the publisher.
You keep making the assumption that #1 is always going to be better for future use cases than #2, but that really depends on DRM specifics. Just because software required a one-time activation doesn’t imply that its DRM interferes with OS/hardware updates like #1. You’d probably need a multidimensional Venn diagram/truth table to represent more DRM combinations.
I think publishers shouldn’t have this right, but it’s a (sad) fact of life they do and even have legal protection for it in some countries.
If you think I am defending DRM, you are imagining things.
It doesn’t depend on specifics, local DRM always works if you have compatible hardware, while DRM that relies on a remote server can’t provide that certainty.
No local DRM has ever interfered with OS updates, Microsoft took away a well-documented OS feature (secdrv) from their Windows 10 product while they could merely disable it as they did with Windows 7/8.1, this is Microsoft shipping breaking updates on purpose plain and simple. Isn’t the Windows 10/11 “rolling release” model grand?
Also, a while ago you were complaining that a Windows 10 update broke a scanner of yours, but that time you correctly blamed Microsoft shipping breaking updates and not the scanner drivers.
There is a clear distinction between local DRM which always works as long as you have compatible hardware (and keep it compatible) and DRM that relies on a remote server and can stop working at any time.
BTW you can restore secdrv on Windows 10:
https://github.com/ericwj/PsSecDrv
So it’s less bad of a breakage than your broken scanner driver.
kurkosdr,
Whether a DRM will work after an upgrade is totally dependent on the specifics of the DRM. Publishers can do whatever tests they want on your hardware & software,
Sure, but if the scanner employed DRM with code that deliberately prevented it from working, it would be right to blame the scanner DRM rather than windows.
I hope you see how this can be abused though. A very aggressive publisher could refuse to run software if you install any competing software, all while proclaiming it’s not their fault for making your system “incompatible” even though that “incompatibility” is 100% artificial. A rational person should be able to see there is a difference between an actual incompatibility and code that’s designed to kill the software. These aren’t the same and we shouldn’t conflate them.
kurkosdr,
Yeah, that’s one of many DRM schemes. Some DRM breakages are widespread enough that intel/microsoft have to get involved and lie to the software to pass the DRM checks.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-offers-workaround-drm-issues
It not ideal, but DRM bypass/cracking may be the best solution we have in the long run.
kurkosdr,
Just to clarify, this was an illustrative example to show why publisher’s claims of “incompatibility” can deserve scrutiny for being artificial regardless of how they want to dress it up. Artificially engineered incompatibility in DRM should be called out for being artificial. Ideally the california law would have publishers explicitly disclose all DRM restrictions up front such that buyers can make more informed decisions.
Personally I purchase digital content only in GOG and Bandcamp.
Some boxed games from 15-20 years now have a problem with DRM solutions being not compatible with Windows 10-11.
Sure, but if you have compatible hardware (that is, a computer with Windows Vista or a computer with Windows 7/8/8.1 and secdrv enabled), you can still play those games
So, as long as those games don’t have additional online-activation DRM, you still own those games, you just need compatible hardware. So, the term “buy” or “purchase” still applies to these products despite the DRM shittiness.
Yup, I am with kurkosdr here.
As long as it is fine with the original supported hardware/software combo, that’s fine.
I don’t expect vendors to keep operating systems eternally backwards compatible or software developers to keep patching their products ad eternum.
But heck, I bought a boxed version of Flight Simulator 2020 and it requires BOTH the DVD to be in the drive and MS Store Activation to work. This is complete non-sense.
Shiunbird,
Nobody expects the publisher to continue support indefinitely, but the issue is more about whether DRM impedes 3rd parties like wine from supporting the software on their own. This is a real problem.
How much of this digital crapola is really worth buying anyway?
Shifu,
I think you meant “rent” 🙂
The eventual loss of software & content is this is the downside of modern platforms. I don’t like it, but I suspect it’s here to stay. Future archives are going to have gaps for software that can’t be emulated or run even after copyrights expire. Presumably we’ll all be dead then, but it still seems like a bad outcome. Copyrights were only supposed to be temporary. Oh well.
It’s really important to keep your personal data as format agnostic as possible and increase your chances of interoperability in the future.
Shifu,
I don’t disagree, I’m not a fan of renting software that can be killed at any time. When I personally have a choice I lean towards FOSS, but it doesn’t help that the software that so many of us are expected to use professionally are increasingly becoming subscription based. Many businesses have already taken the bait, their continued use of critical software requiring a subscription. Many graphic artists are expected to have/use adobe products, many developers are expected to use visual studio, etc.
I believe that even the community edition of VS requires an active subscription and can be remotely revoked. The corporate edition used at work phones home on the regular to keep itself active. Despite a continuous subscription, Microsoft’s activation process has failed more than once thanks to bugs and/or outages that have effected multiple developers at work. The client DRM tilt bits are evidently designed to favor disruption over continuous service. I think that widespread use of DRM and non-local software is going to leave less for amateur and professional software archivists of the future to work with. I may have an easier time opening up a VB project from early 2000s than a VS project from today.
I really wish they could have included console, hardware fingerprints and phisical game banning or draconian restrictions. While terms of use are there, banning a console, hardware fingerprint, or phisical game media, Nintendo is likely to do after the cart copying availability. Its a loose loose for consumers, sure some people like to cheat, and piracy is a risk you take when releasing software, but its a game. Why do serious? Because you wanna be in the useless eSports market