I know KDR didn't make an analogy man, I did - it was the thing about the dogshit.
I know they didn't literally 'beat him up' I just meant that as a metaphor. I disagree that they served their own justice though, I think they just didn't correct an injustice based on the dubious circumstances and open threats.
As an aside, I think it's a little funny when I bust a customer of mine trying to get away with stealing from my company and they make either veiled or open threats about not buying our products again. Far be it from me to prevent them from going to steal from our competition. It doesn't really apply here because now this kid is going to make it a point to steal whatever he can from Valve and he'll likely get away with it, but LESS likely than he would another company because of STEAM.
I observe Valve's right to ban whomever they want from Steam, while being annoyed by them not saying "we don't want your money" and refunding it. Ironclad integrity would've come off less shittycorporationy than the mod getting in a smug last word for that final smackdown to help Valve recover from its wounded pride and make itself feel special again while succeeding in finding closure after its ordeal. It looks bad, is all I'm saying.
if he had made a new login and registered the legit game under that he would have been fine. THAT's where it was BAD LUCK, that he registered under the known priate login and all the associated cdkeys were banned. he should have created a fresh id.
why should valve give him his money back? he still has the box of cds. if he gives them back to valve and uninstalls the game then he should get his refund. otherwise, he paid for the box and cds and he still gets to keep them. he just cant play.
valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
i see a company that banned a person known to have tried to pirate their games. it was unfortunate that the kid tried to go legit but that he was caught for his old crimes.
Valve has a right to deny service to anyone who abuses that service. this kid did abuse it.
much like here at polycount there are a few "ban on sight" people who have abused the forums in the past. if they register and we dont catch them for a month should they still be allowed to stay? should we refund their money for internet service just because they cant access our forums? (yes i know their ISP allows them to browse the entirity of the web but let's say they only come to polycount)
anyway, whatever. there seems to be alot of resentment towards Valve and their Steam system and less that the kid is a software pirate and liar, was caught and banned.
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valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
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The 'third party store' really has nothing to do with this situation; it's the manufacture's responsibility, not the vendor's.
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much like here at polycount there are a few "ban on sight" people who have abused the forums in the past. if they register and we dont catch them for a month should they still be allowed to stay?
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We don't have to pay for our membership to these boards, do we? Am I pirating Polycount right now? Because I haven't paid anyone for my membership.
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anyway, whatever. there seems to be alot of resentment towards Valve and their Steam system and less that the kid is a software pirate and liar, was caught and banned.
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Well, yes. I couldn't care less about the kid, my concern is with the way in which Valve has handled this.
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valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
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The 'third party store' really has nothing to do with this situation; it's the manufacture's responsibility, not the vendor's.
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Let's go back the the car dealership (Wal-Mart we'll say) and DMV (Valve) analogy.
You speed a lot and run red lights. No one catches you. You go to the dealership and buy a new car. Then the DMV catches up with you and revokes your license (Valve disables his Steam account). Does the DMV have to refund you for the car? Does the dealership have to take back your car? Hell no! (it's not as neat as that, because the DMV would have to have sold the car to the dealership in the first place).
Valve sells the games to the DISTRIBUTER, and THEY sell it to the customer. If Valve had to pay him back: Wal-mart made a profit off of it, Valve loses money, and the kid comes out even. That seems quite wrong to me. Valve had no choice in the matter of selling the game to him, if they did, I'm sure they wouldn't have sold it to him.
I stand by my words: The kid's a thieving moron.
And Steam sucks. <- I don't know what that icon means, but it's awesome!
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Let's go back the the car dealership (Wal-Mart we'll say) and DMV (Valve) analogy.
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*sigh* I know all of these analogies are getting old and really becoming more and more meaningless, but you completely butchered that one. The car and DMV analogy involved the customer, the car manufacture (Valve) and the DMV (the judicial system). In the analogy, it was said that if you bought a car (Half-Life 2), it was the responsibility of the DMV (judicial system) to decide whether or not you should be allowed to drive, not the car's manufacture (Valve). You're extending my analogy which is an extension of your original analogy, so things are getting pretty diluted here. You might as well start fresh, and drop the analogy.
Well, I think I'm done with this discussion. All of the analogies of analogies are getting to me. Before I stop participating in this thread, I'd like to say that I think KDR hit he nail on the head with his post, and if you didn't catch it the first time, you should go back and re-read it.
"You cannot punish people without evidence, you cannot punish them out of common sense, you cannot punish them without a proper trial. Valve MUST file a lawsuit, prove him guilty and THEN he is punished in the way the court sees as appropriate. "
this is the gripe ive got with valve, nothing else.
the guy deserved to be punished , but through proper channels ... otherwise its monkey justice.
i dont know about the anywhere else , but in the UK , if you buy a service , you are in your rights to recive that service , whatever you have done in the past. it dosnt matter if theres a 3rd party envolved , if vakve want to punish this guy , they should do it legaly .. wotever the EULA says , its not legaly binding .
The Half-Life 2 box does NOT include any hints towards it including a service. It promises you a game but if your relation with Valve has been soured this promise is apparently not upheld. Since it was the manufacturer who put this advertising on the box he was the one misleading his customers into believing the product would offer a game. Well, actually it's already fraud to demand login information to play the game since nowhere on the box you are notified that you are required to use any form of service or surrender any of your personal data in order to use the game. It doesn't even point to the EULA on the box. So technically they're advertising a game but once you buy it they suddently choose to deny you their service until you sign additional forms. Without signing these forms (as a free human being you are free to reject any contract offered to you) you cannot use the game and therefore the game has additional requirements that were not known at the time of purchase. The should value (the game works) differs significantly from the is value (the game requires signing an additional contract and accepting a service to work). This constitutes fraud. Some games include "usage of this product requires agreement to the included license agreement" on their box, those that don't are fraudulent.
I mean, IANAL, but I'd really like to see someone test these theories in court.
so basicly , it comes down to valve not making the clear destinction to its customers (weather they be 3rd party or not) they are buying a "right" to use a service , not the service its self. also , to execute the "right" you have to usee the steam service to play the game, you have to fill out certain information .. im sure some on the blame for misleading packaging probly lays with vivandi for retail copies, as i think they disributed the retail version.
the only clue to this is on the box where as a minumum requirement , internet access is listed ....
I observe Valve's right to ban whomever they want from Steam, while being annoyed by them not saying "we don't want your money" and refunding it. Ironclad integrity would've come off less shittycorporationy than the mod getting in a smug last word for that final smackdown to help Valve recover from its wounded pride and make itself feel special again while succeeding in finding closure after its ordeal. It looks bad, is all I'm saying.
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I love you Mal. In a manly way of course.
Now this I agree with. It's easy to identify with the retributive instinct Valve displayed but you're right it does look bad.
If you want to challenge the fact that Half-Life 2 is a service, not a piece of software, you're going to have to accuse the entire software industry of fraud. Think about it.
Also: Any arguments that Vavle dispensed "vigilante justice"-- ie. you cannot commit a crime in order to right a crime, is assuming that Valve even commited a crime, and therefore is not in and of itself a reason that what Valve did was wrong.
If you want to challenge the EULA, which is a legal contract, you are challenging all non-governmental contracts in the world.
When you signed up for your phone service, the contract said you had to stay on for two years or pay a fee. But so what? It's just a contract, it's not legally binding? Bullshit. You still have to pay. A contract is a contract. If you don't like the fact that it's not on the box, or that it can be changed, take your case to the courts in a class action suit against the entire software industry.
Most governments have either not decided or ruled against considering a click-through EULA a valid contract. When I sign a contract the keyword is sign. There is no signature on a click through license, they can merely assume that you agreed to it when you installed the software (which CAN be circumvented and since the EULA isn't in force before you accept it anyway the "you need to agree to this thing" bit falls flat since your contract of purchase is the only contract in effect and it says you bought the box and evberything in it, not obtained a license or something).
"New York state Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer issued a ruling, made public this week, prohibiting the security software specialist from trying to use its end-user license agreements to ban product reviews or benchmark tests.
The judge called the company's attempted ban 'deceptive' because it implied consumers who conducted the reviews would be violating the law, when they would not. Shafer has not ruled on damages."
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The prosecution in that case did not have to "challenging all non-governmental contracts in the world." As I said earlier in the thread, the law holds precedent over any agreement that may be written into a "contract." It is illegal to accept a person's money in exchange for goods and/or services, and then refuse to offer those goods and/or services without refunding the person's money (whenever you make a purchase, there is an "implied contract," which is also referred to as an "implied-in-law" contract). There is NOTHING that can be written into a EULA to circumvent this law. The law takes precedent over any terms held in the contract.
As I mentioned before, the Steam EULA is a joke, anyway. Valve claims to reserve the right to "amend this Agreement at any time in its sole discretion." This clause is truely laughable. You cannot amend a contract unilaterally; it would be equivalent to selling someone a used car, and then increasing the price after they have already paid for the car and demanding more money. If you tried to take legal action to get more money for the car you have already sold, you would be laughed out of court. This is the same as altering a contract without notice. If you do that, you make your "contract" absolutely useless and completely invalid.
Just one question. This analogy I tried to get people to realize when I posted it yesterday, but no one seemed to want to touch it. To try to remove the bias we as game artists have towards people who pirate games, I've envisioned a different scenario. For this I'm going to assume that anyone reading this has at least pirated a song once in their life. Now say you pirated that song, listened to it, then went out to buy the album. After purchasing the album, taking it out of its package, and thus making it non-returnable, you stick it in your CD player only to find out...that you can't listen to it. Apparently, because you pirated the song, the CD refuses to play for you, citing the fact that you stole a song from it, prior to legally purchasing it.
So if I offer to mow someone's lawn (a service), collect the money from them up front and quit halfway through, it's legal for me to keep all the money? Awesome! I think I've got a new business model to make some big bucks this summer
Actually, there is a scam that "contractors" run on home owners. They start a job and then quit showing up half-way through and continue to bill the home owner. The home owner refuses to pay and the contractor puts a lien against their house.
Kind of off topic but this whole thread with all of its analogies has been pretty wack as far as I'm concerned.
If you stopped mowing the lawn half-way through you commited a breach of contract since you didn't deliver the service you were contractually obliged to. While it may be true that Valve isn't obliged to refund the user of the service the service isn't required to play HL2 (or more exactly, shouldn't be required). Valve sells games and makes their customers believe these games work. They DO NOT state up front that you need to agree to a contract and subscribe to an unrelated service. What if HL2 required an AOL subscription instead? People would go nuts, demand their money back, sue Valve, etc. But since Steam doesn't cost any money at the moment (Valve "reserves the right to introduce usage fees at a later date") nobody complains since they don't really think of it as a subscription service. However, in the eyes of the Law there is no difference between a paid-for service and a free service. Had they marketed HL2 as a "base unit" that allows Steam users to play a game that'd be different (though I think that'd invalidate Steam as a copy protection and make it exempt from the DMCA) but they market HL2 as a stand-alone product.
Killing silently is a tall order, but a quick look at an anatomy chart will show that the larynx is an easy enough target--providing you can make a stealthy submerged approach, sneak up on your victim, and catch him unaware. Once that's accomplished, grasp his hair as close to the scalp as you're able to and yank his head back while using your Ka-Bar combat knife to make a lateral cut across his throat. Make sure you sever both the carotid artery and jugular vein while piercing the windpipe, and press hard; the larynx is a tough, rubbery piece of tissue.
Got to agree with kdr on this, and that generally in the eyes of the law (and most people) two wrongs dont make a right).
Apparently when standing behind someone it is better to insert the knife from the side between the esophagas and the vertebrae and then thrust froward away from the vertebrae as a sideways cut is less reliable (isnt that a bit off topic tho az?.
so what the Valve haters are saying is that the kid's loss of around 55$ or so is a bigger problem than the 7 counts of attempted theft by the kid?
there wouldnt be a problem if the kid had just made another account. the way it appears to me is valve was in the process of banning the account when the kid finally registered a valid key. should they have stopped the banning process once a valid key was registered? how would they know it was legit? should all causes of attempted piracy be handled on a case by case level through a messageboard? quite a few games you can find new cd keys just by changing 1 letter in a known cd key. go ahead and pirate HalfLife2 and just keep entering cd-keys until you get one that works. if valve bans your steam account just go on their boards and say how evil they are and that you're poor and couldn't afford the game. if they don't let you have an account they're a big, mean corportation.
it's like taking a panda and fitting it with a pair of Doc Martins. only then as the panda is jumping rope you hire a clown to pay its taxes. then the panda decides it wants to lay an egg and the duck decides it wants to rollerskate. as the clown is trying to figure out if he can write off the three dwarfs and a custard pie on his taxes the panda is arrested for lewd acts and the duck, well he's just left with a plate of bacon up his arse.
The kid attempts to pirate their game. Valve decides to shut him down and take away any legit games he might have had. They are free to deny this guy his service but they are NOT free to make HL2 or any other game require the Steam service to work.
One point here is that Valve should have handed this guy over to the authorities since that's what any citizen witnessing a crime is obliged to do. Revenge is NEVER a valid answer in a modern nation. No matter how bad the crime or how good your intention, you are NEVER permitted to act out vengeance.
Another point is that Valve is essentially commiting fraud by selling HL2 and not telling people that they need Steam to play the game.
Depending on whether you consider the cancelling of the account vengeance or just a contract-parmitted shutdown and whether copying a CD-key actually constitutes a crime the situation on two aspects change but one never changes: That Valve is defrauding customers by tricking them into buying a game that is completely useless without buying (legally, both personal information and time are considered values and therefore can be declared a cost) a matching service from them.
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So if I offer to mow someone's lawn (a service), collect the money from them up front and quit halfway through, it's legal for me to keep all the money? Awesome! I think I've got a new business model to make some big bucks this summer
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If you agreed beforehand that if they use you as target practice, you'll leave-- and half an hour later they take a shot at you with their .45, then yeah, sure.
Also keep in mind that it can't really be proved how much the kid used the game, he could have blown theough it in two days, not care about multiplayer at all, and been pretty much done with the game for all we know. It can't be proved and therefore the company cannot be required to give a refund, in full or in part.
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Valve sells games and makes their customers believe these games work. They DO NOT state up front that you need to agree to a contract and subscribe to an unrelated service.
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As I stated, this is an issue with the entire software industry. Valve did not invent the business model.
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That Valve is defrauding customers by tricking them into buying a game that is completely useless without buying (legally, both personal information and time are considered values and therefore can be declared a cost) a matching service from them.
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So... Uhh... You're saying companies are committing fraud when they require players download patches to play online (For the sake of argument, say it's a multiplayer only game). I mean, hell, nowhere on the FFXI box does it say that it'll take about five to eight hours to install even on a broadband connection, longer if you're on dialup.
No wait, most games require that you actually spend time playing them, oh no! I need to go call my lawyer...
Its certainly a sketchy area ... i guess im a little afraid that all game companies are gona start doing things similar to valve ... coz if that happens , im probly gona stop playing pc games ... not as a protest , but because when i sit down to play a game , i want to be able to do so , no matter what some company may want me to do before hand .. i dont like being told i have to regester , coz i dont belive its in my interests to do so ... nothing good can come of it .. not for me anyway ..
Thermidor: Believe it or not, I agree with you. I'm not defending Steam any more than I'd defend WindowsXP Activation. I simply believe in a company's right to manage the service they provide (and point out that steam isn't the real issue here anyway).
Rereading my posts, I think I will politely bow out of this discussion at this point. I've said more than I meant to. As I said in my first post, I don't even really care if what Valve did was "legally right" (Though no posts made so far have convinced me otherwise). I believe that what Valve did was moral, and in no way even close to the prossecution he could have (and probably should have) faced.
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KeyserSoze: Your claim that a company must refund a partially used service is incorrect.
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Partially used? When you buy a game, you can play it as many times as you wish; just because you finish a game, or partially finish a game, it does not give the developer the right to disable your use of that game. "Okay, you beat the game, now if you want to play it again you have to give us another 55 bucks."
The kid paid for the game, then they disabled his access to that game after profiting from his transaction; that's breaking the law. It's pretty black and white: in the eyes of the law, what the kid did before buying the game is irrelevant as far as Valve's obligation to deliver the promised goods/services. If the kid paid for the game, then Valve is obligated to allow him to play it; if the kid broke the law by entering in fake CD Keys, then Valve needs to take him to court. THAT IS HOW THE LAW WORKS.
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so what the Valve haters are saying is that the kid's loss of around 55$ or so is a bigger problem than the 7 counts of attempted theft by the kid?
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Valve hater? Please. Don't try to invalidate my opinion by dismissing it as simply animosity towards Valve. I've owned Half-Life since 1998, I own Opposing Force and I bought Half-Life 2 the week it came out. That hardly qualifies me as a 'Valve hater' . And no one said the kid's loss is more important than the piracy attempts. If that's what you think, then you're obviously missing the point of this discussion.
How's this for a judicial argument: 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine. The kid committed attempted copyright violation which would give the fuzz probable cause to impound his computer and find the other counts of copyright infringement. (The horse is dead and now we're just sucking on its entrails in a self-righteous fury)
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How's this for a judicial argument: 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine.
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Those are MAXIMUM sentences for CRIMINAL Infringement (i.e. redistributing pirated software on a large scale). The kid would get fined, at the worst. And again, you're missing the point. This discussion isn't about, "Oh, that poor kid," it is about the business ethics of Valve.
As for the copyright infringement, I'm not sure CD keys fall under copyright, they're short sequences of letters and numbers which are, like words, not covered by copyright. I think they'd fall under passwords or trademarks but not copyright. On the other hand, Valve could get him on hacking charges (15 years, 250 000 USD maximum) since he was attempting to gain acces to functionality of a remote computer by attempting to guess a password.
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I know they didn't literally 'beat him up' I just meant that as a metaphor. I disagree that they served their own justice though, I think they just didn't correct an injustice based on the dubious circumstances and open threats.
As an aside, I think it's a little funny when I bust a customer of mine trying to get away with stealing from my company and they make either veiled or open threats about not buying our products again. Far be it from me to prevent them from going to steal from our competition. It doesn't really apply here because now this kid is going to make it a point to steal whatever he can from Valve and he'll likely get away with it, but LESS likely than he would another company because of STEAM.
I observe Valve's right to ban whomever they want from Steam, while being annoyed by them not saying "we don't want your money" and refunding it. Ironclad integrity would've come off less shittycorporationy than the mod getting in a smug last word for that final smackdown to help Valve recover from its wounded pride and make itself feel special again while succeeding in finding closure after its ordeal. It looks bad, is all I'm saying.
More.. MORE.. MORE!!!
why should valve give him his money back? he still has the box of cds. if he gives them back to valve and uninstalls the game then he should get his refund. otherwise, he paid for the box and cds and he still gets to keep them. he just cant play.
valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
i see a company that banned a person known to have tried to pirate their games. it was unfortunate that the kid tried to go legit but that he was caught for his old crimes.
Valve has a right to deny service to anyone who abuses that service. this kid did abuse it.
much like here at polycount there are a few "ban on sight" people who have abused the forums in the past. if they register and we dont catch them for a month should they still be allowed to stay? should we refund their money for internet service just because they cant access our forums? (yes i know their ISP allows them to browse the entirity of the web but let's say they only come to polycount)
anyway, whatever. there seems to be alot of resentment towards Valve and their Steam system and less that the kid is a software pirate and liar, was caught and banned.
*runs and hides*
valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
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The 'third party store' really has nothing to do with this situation; it's the manufacture's responsibility, not the vendor's.
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much like here at polycount there are a few "ban on sight" people who have abused the forums in the past. if they register and we dont catch them for a month should they still be allowed to stay?
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We don't have to pay for our membership to these boards, do we? Am I pirating Polycount right now? Because I haven't paid anyone for my membership.
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anyway, whatever. there seems to be alot of resentment towards Valve and their Steam system and less that the kid is a software pirate and liar, was caught and banned.
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Well, yes. I couldn't care less about the kid, my concern is with the way in which Valve has handled this.
All you Valve haters are just angry because Doom3 sucked.
*runs and hides*
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I've always been a HL man all the way
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valve were not the one's who sold him the game, he didnt purchase it through Steam. so they are not "selling it to him under the pretenses that it would work". the third party store sold it.
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The 'third party store' really has nothing to do with this situation; it's the manufacture's responsibility, not the vendor's.
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Let's go back the the car dealership (Wal-Mart we'll say) and DMV (Valve) analogy.
You speed a lot and run red lights. No one catches you. You go to the dealership and buy a new car. Then the DMV catches up with you and revokes your license (Valve disables his Steam account). Does the DMV have to refund you for the car? Does the dealership have to take back your car? Hell no! (it's not as neat as that, because the DMV would have to have sold the car to the dealership in the first place).
Valve sells the games to the DISTRIBUTER, and THEY sell it to the customer. If Valve had to pay him back: Wal-mart made a profit off of it, Valve loses money, and the kid comes out even. That seems quite wrong to me. Valve had no choice in the matter of selling the game to him, if they did, I'm sure they wouldn't have sold it to him.
I stand by my words: The kid's a thieving moron.
And Steam sucks.
Let's go back the the car dealership (Wal-Mart we'll say) and DMV (Valve) analogy.
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*sigh* I know all of these analogies are getting old and really becoming more and more meaningless, but you completely butchered that one. The car and DMV analogy involved the customer, the car manufacture (Valve) and the DMV (the judicial system). In the analogy, it was said that if you bought a car (Half-Life 2), it was the responsibility of the DMV (judicial system) to decide whether or not you should be allowed to drive, not the car's manufacture (Valve). You're extending my analogy which is an extension of your original analogy, so things are getting pretty diluted here. You might as well start fresh, and drop the analogy.
Well, I think I'm done with this discussion. All of the analogies of analogies are getting to me. Before I stop participating in this thread, I'd like to say that I think KDR hit he nail on the head with his post, and if you didn't catch it the first time, you should go back and re-read it.
this is the gripe ive got with valve, nothing else.
the guy deserved to be punished , but through proper channels ... otherwise its monkey justice.
i dont know about the anywhere else , but in the UK , if you buy a service , you are in your rights to recive that service , whatever you have done in the past. it dosnt matter if theres a 3rd party envolved , if vakve want to punish this guy , they should do it legaly .. wotever the EULA says , its not legaly binding .
I mean, IANAL, but I'd really like to see someone test these theories in court.
the only clue to this is on the box where as a minumum requirement , internet access is listed ....
My head swims with the analogies!
I observe Valve's right to ban whomever they want from Steam, while being annoyed by them not saying "we don't want your money" and refunding it. Ironclad integrity would've come off less shittycorporationy than the mod getting in a smug last word for that final smackdown to help Valve recover from its wounded pride and make itself feel special again while succeeding in finding closure after its ordeal. It looks bad, is all I'm saying.
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I love you Mal. In a manly way of course.
Now this I agree with. It's easy to identify with the retributive instinct Valve displayed but you're right it does look bad.
Also: Any arguments that Vavle dispensed "vigilante justice"-- ie. you cannot commit a crime in order to right a crime, is assuming that Valve even commited a crime, and therefore is not in and of itself a reason that what Valve did was wrong.
If you want to challenge the EULA, which is a legal contract, you are challenging all non-governmental contracts in the world.
When you signed up for your phone service, the contract said you had to stay on for two years or pay a fee. But so what? It's just a contract, it's not legally binding? Bullshit. You still have to pay. A contract is a contract. If you don't like the fact that it's not on the box, or that it can be changed, take your case to the courts in a class action suit against the entire software industry.
If you want to challenge the EULA, which is a legal contract, you are challenging all non-governmental contracts in the world.
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http://news.com.com/Court+Network+Associates+cant+gag+users/2100-1023_3-981228.html?tag=nl
"New York state Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer issued a ruling, made public this week, prohibiting the security software specialist from trying to use its end-user license agreements to ban product reviews or benchmark tests.
The judge called the company's attempted ban 'deceptive' because it implied consumers who conducted the reviews would be violating the law, when they would not. Shafer has not ruled on damages."
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The prosecution in that case did not have to "challenging all non-governmental contracts in the world." As I said earlier in the thread, the law holds precedent over any agreement that may be written into a "contract." It is illegal to accept a person's money in exchange for goods and/or services, and then refuse to offer those goods and/or services without refunding the person's money (whenever you make a purchase, there is an "implied contract," which is also referred to as an "implied-in-law" contract). There is NOTHING that can be written into a EULA to circumvent this law. The law takes precedent over any terms held in the contract.
As I mentioned before, the Steam EULA is a joke, anyway. Valve claims to reserve the right to "amend this Agreement at any time in its sole discretion." This clause is truely laughable. You cannot amend a contract unilaterally; it would be equivalent to selling someone a used car, and then increasing the price after they have already paid for the car and demanding more money. If you tried to take legal action to get more money for the car you have already sold, you would be laughed out of court. This is the same as altering a contract without notice. If you do that, you make your "contract" absolutely useless and completely invalid.
How would you feel?
Kind of off topic but this whole thread with all of its analogies has been pretty wack as far as I'm concerned.
Apparently when standing behind someone it is better to insert the knife from the side between the esophagas and the vertebrae and then thrust froward away from the vertebrae as a sideways cut is less reliable (isnt that a bit off topic tho az?.
tpe
there wouldnt be a problem if the kid had just made another account. the way it appears to me is valve was in the process of banning the account when the kid finally registered a valid key. should they have stopped the banning process once a valid key was registered? how would they know it was legit? should all causes of attempted piracy be handled on a case by case level through a messageboard? quite a few games you can find new cd keys just by changing 1 letter in a known cd key. go ahead and pirate HalfLife2 and just keep entering cd-keys until you get one that works. if valve bans your steam account just go on their boards and say how evil they are and that you're poor and couldn't afford the game. if they don't let you have an account they're a big, mean corportation.
it's like taking a panda and fitting it with a pair of Doc Martins. only then as the panda is jumping rope you hire a clown to pay its taxes. then the panda decides it wants to lay an egg and the duck decides it wants to rollerskate. as the clown is trying to figure out if he can write off the three dwarfs and a custard pie on his taxes the panda is arrested for lewd acts and the duck, well he's just left with a plate of bacon up his arse.
One point here is that Valve should have handed this guy over to the authorities since that's what any citizen witnessing a crime is obliged to do. Revenge is NEVER a valid answer in a modern nation. No matter how bad the crime or how good your intention, you are NEVER permitted to act out vengeance.
Another point is that Valve is essentially commiting fraud by selling HL2 and not telling people that they need Steam to play the game.
Depending on whether you consider the cancelling of the account vengeance or just a contract-parmitted shutdown and whether copying a CD-key actually constitutes a crime the situation on two aspects change but one never changes: That Valve is defrauding customers by tricking them into buying a game that is completely useless without buying (legally, both personal information and time are considered values and therefore can be declared a cost) a matching service from them.
So if I offer to mow someone's lawn (a service), collect the money from them up front and quit halfway through, it's legal for me to keep all the money? Awesome! I think I've got a new business model to make some big bucks this summer
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If you agreed beforehand that if they use you as target practice, you'll leave-- and half an hour later they take a shot at you with their .45, then yeah, sure.
Also keep in mind that it can't really be proved how much the kid used the game, he could have blown theough it in two days, not care about multiplayer at all, and been pretty much done with the game for all we know. It can't be proved and therefore the company cannot be required to give a refund, in full or in part.
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Valve sells games and makes their customers believe these games work. They DO NOT state up front that you need to agree to a contract and subscribe to an unrelated service.
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As I stated, this is an issue with the entire software industry. Valve did not invent the business model.
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That Valve is defrauding customers by tricking them into buying a game that is completely useless without buying (legally, both personal information and time are considered values and therefore can be declared a cost) a matching service from them.
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So... Uhh... You're saying companies are committing fraud when they require players download patches to play online (For the sake of argument, say it's a multiplayer only game). I mean, hell, nowhere on the FFXI box does it say that it'll take about five to eight hours to install even on a broadband connection, longer if you're on dialup.
No wait, most games require that you actually spend time playing them, oh no! I need to go call my lawyer...
And yeah, the kid was a dumbass trying to steal it so many times. But still, if he bought it, he paid for it and has a right to own it.
Rereading my posts, I think I will politely bow out of this discussion at this point. I've said more than I meant to. As I said in my first post, I don't even really care if what Valve did was "legally right" (Though no posts made so far have convinced me otherwise). I believe that what Valve did was moral, and in no way even close to the prossecution he could have (and probably should have) faced.
KeyserSoze: Your claim that a company must refund a partially used service is incorrect.
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Partially used? When you buy a game, you can play it as many times as you wish; just because you finish a game, or partially finish a game, it does not give the developer the right to disable your use of that game. "Okay, you beat the game, now if you want to play it again you have to give us another 55 bucks."
The kid paid for the game, then they disabled his access to that game after profiting from his transaction; that's breaking the law. It's pretty black and white: in the eyes of the law, what the kid did before buying the game is irrelevant as far as Valve's obligation to deliver the promised goods/services. If the kid paid for the game, then Valve is obligated to allow him to play it; if the kid broke the law by entering in fake CD Keys, then Valve needs to take him to court. THAT IS HOW THE LAW WORKS.
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so what the Valve haters are saying is that the kid's loss of around 55$ or so is a bigger problem than the 7 counts of attempted theft by the kid?
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Valve hater? Please. Don't try to invalidate my opinion by dismissing it as simply animosity towards Valve. I've owned Half-Life since 1998, I own Opposing Force and I bought Half-Life 2 the week it came out. That hardly qualifies me as a 'Valve hater'
How's this for a judicial argument: 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine.
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Those are MAXIMUM sentences for CRIMINAL Infringement (i.e. redistributing pirated software on a large scale). The kid would get fined, at the worst. And again, you're missing the point. This discussion isn't about, "Oh, that poor kid," it is about the business ethics of Valve.
Obviously their evil business ethics are radiated from somewhere :P
As for the copyright infringement, I'm not sure CD keys fall under copyright, they're short sequences of letters and numbers which are, like words, not covered by copyright. I think they'd fall under passwords or trademarks but not copyright. On the other hand, Valve could get him on hacking charges (15 years, 250 000 USD maximum) since he was attempting to gain acces to functionality of a remote computer by attempting to guess a password.