Private industry enlisting the state, and public resources to compensate themselves for poorly written code.
In the alternative, Equifax offers to make money from the victims of its credit breach by selling them a credit monitoring service.
Democracy will be swallowed by Capitalism in the form of State Tyranny.
Mr. Anderson thinks they're cheating. He doesn't appreciate that. Law as anti-virus?
As long as an individual has purchased the video game for personal use, and not public performance, and no money changes hands to play it, then the buyer should be free to use, and modify the game as he of she sees fit.
The only real odious aspect to this is the personalities who feel they must cheat to win, whether it’s with a video game, or Donald Trump cheating at golf (which is widely acknowledged by his golfing partners and obervers). Such weak, sick personalities deserve only scorn, and absolutely no aid, comfort or sympathy.
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What these guys did is not "cheating" but sabotage of a business property. Breaking into other people's computers or interfering with their operation is indeed unlawful. I wonder why this is handled as a copyright violation in the first place.
The use of this kind of mod obviously should be policed by the community (excepting professional gaming where cheating is just fraud). Not by application of copyright claims. If you aren’t concerned about the weaponisation of copyright, you’re not paying attention. It’s another weapon in the arsenal of big corporations against individuals - the other side of the coin of the undermining of consumer protections through binding arbitration clauses and similar.
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Why don't the gamers who want to allow mods create their own gaming system, with the understanding that this kind of modification can happen? Open source gaming. This is how the software industry dealt with the issue.
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You accuse people of commiting a crime, and seize all their assets. How do they hire a lawyer?
They can't.
Exactly!
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I am astonished that GTA can't build security systems to thwart modders.
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To purchase an item means it is mine. I can change it. If not, they need to call it a lease, or rent. To buy means I own. This is like "1984"
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@dab
Yeah, except you don't buy software, you license it. So, point in fact, you don't own it. Ever notices those things that come up the first time you use software? They're called the End User License Agreement and Terms of Service? They tell you quite specifically that you own nothing. Don't like it? Don't "buy" it.
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If the game were played solely individually, against only the machine, then mods would seem well within the concept that once sold, the manufacturer loses all rights -- like buying a bicycle and deciding you wanted to paint the frame a different color.
However, when talking about a multi-player gaming experience, the modified players get an unfair advantage that spoils the experience of the game for those using only the official tools. Then its more like someone joining the Tour de France and using an electric bike.
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You cannot make money off of other peoples copyright. The people who complain about freedom and rights are obviously not in the creative business. I am [not digital] and people do use images I create without permission or compensation, it is infuriating and I am waiting to get onto the Google Class Action against Adwords.
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Imagine if all the effort that goes into gaming were used to improve the real world instead.
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@William Meyers Same could be said for almost any activity. Imagine if all the effort that goes into posting comments in the NY Times were used to improve the real world, for example.
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@William Meyers
I like to imagine if half the money we spend on professional athletes (and I DO like football and baseball) was instead spent on something productive, like medical research or local infrastructure?
Ah, to dream.
However, in the real world, we value entertainment more than essential services, or even people's lives. But then, this was also the case 2000 years ago when Bread and Circuses were a thing. It has a social and psychological function, and thus a certain difficult to quantify utility, I suppose.
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I am happy to see enforcement of laws protecting intellectual property. Enforcement must be fair, but lets call modders what they are: cheaters. They benefit no one in society but themselves. And at the expense of harm to others.
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Most of us in Denver are lavishing praise to Amazon for putting their offices back East. We certainly did NOT want there here. Thank goodness....
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The general rule is that when a product is sold, the seller loses all right to control the product's use. The arguement that software is not sold but merely licensed is a fraud.
Suppose you go to the store to buy a hammer. Now a hammer is the essence of a physical object. It is used to do very physical things, to wit, drive nails. You learn that the hammer is not available for sale, but it is merely licensed. Store personnel ask you what you intend to use the hammer for. There is one price for commercial use (as a carpenter), and a different, lower price for home use.
Suppose you buy the hammer for home use and then get a job as a carpenter. Must you purchase a carpenter's license to use your hammer?
And what if rather than being perpetual, the license is for a period of years. Now the license is expired and you will the hammer to your great granddaughter. May she use the hammer?
Sound absurd? These are the arguments of the software industry.
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@Eugene if it’s the communities hammer and you modify it, say you have big hands and make the handle bigger for your ease but then someone with small hands can’t use it as well then you infringed on their ability to use it effectively. Now, if the hammer was yours and only for your use for your own projects, and say not at a construction site where others would use the only hammer available, then no one would be disadvantaged or care. However, you are bringing your mod into a public not private place so you are disadvantaging everyone else who aren’t/can’t/won’t use the mod. You are cheating and being unfair.
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@Eugene Software is not a hammer. It's not sold but licensed. Likewise, if you purchase a music album, the music does not become yours. If you want to own software, expect to put several millions on the table at least. That's what it cost to make it.
@Andre Music is sold, not licensed (assuming you actually buy the CD). Likewise when you buy a DVD or Blu-ray movie.
Once of the essential differences with the legal argument in this case, and a case involving a DVD is this:
If you play your privately purchased DVD and play it on a bus (for everyone to watch), you are breaching copyright in that instance. But you still have the right to play the DVD at home afterwards.
In the case of the licensed video game, the legal argument is that you voided your license when you "played it on a bus", and you not only lose the right to play it at home afterwards, but you are committing another copyright infringement each time you do.
In this particular case, there is an additional argument that you are also encouraging everybody else who was on the bus to break their own licenses (tortuous interference).
Welcome to the Videodome folks. Corporations own us all. Courts and police forces serve at their whim and they are immune from liability. The Rule of Law has died a slow death. Money is the only god.
Hey, but at least the Nazis are coming back.
I reckon the human race is just about over.
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Billion dollar corporations take on 14 year olds and nerdy guys with no job. Guess who’s going to win? Goodbye, free speech.
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@Carmine
Are they suing you or me? No? Did you or I infringe on their IP and make money from it? No? See how that works. Break the law and steal from people and yes, you can and should expect the law to come down on you. Stop trying to rationalize theft and harm of other peoples property by equating it to some hippie be-in where you can do 'whatever you want, man'.
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If modding is so anathema to the game companies, they should should architect their games differently, rather than suing their users. Many games have benefited with mods, and communities of users have embraced them. But if your business model opposes such, then design your software accordingly.
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@RichardL
They're not stopping modders. They're stopping people that are profiting illegally off their property and damaging said property by ruining it for most people who have also paid to license that software.
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This article is not well-sourced and displays horrible bias. EFF and Public Knowledge are both notoriously anti-copyright non-profits. A better article would not have characterized this situation as "raising questions about copyright law." At the very least you could try and balance with quotes from pro-copyright organizations.
Maybe if the NYT had not fired its Public Editor or copy editors last summer, you would've caught that.
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@D.E. I was discussing what the law is, not what I think it should be. Nobody likes a cheater but the case for copyright infringement here is uncertain at best. If the commenter thinks there's a cut-and-dried case of copyright infringement here, I hope they will make that case, based on facts. Facts don't care if one is "pro-copyright" or "anti-copyright" any more than the reality of climate change depends on the beliefs of the speaker.
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Gaming has long left the confines of the bedroom or basement. As Electronic Sports begin to gain mainstream credibility, cheats have the potential to threaten an emerging “sport”. The one basis for all sports is that the best person win ... without cheating. Without this fundamental premise, sports would fail. Steroids is probably the closet physical sport comparison chest. But imagine if it’s not the best getting better, but any old couch potato winning the 100 meter gold medal. Why play?
The methods are probably an overreach at this point, but for those who believe, maybe falsely, that the playing field should be even there is a bit of schadenfreude.
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