Digital Rights in Death

[tpepper1985]

Hey all

 

Watched an interesting video from Eurogamer today about what will happen to your digital library when you die, and how at the moment you would not be able to legally leave it in your will. Another interesting point that was raised in the value of your library and how it might suprise you.

 

I just went through my purchase history from 11-2013 until today and my digital library is just over 3000 Euros worth of content ?. Do you think as gamers get older and more of us die it will lead to a change in the law? Or will we forever have no right over our digital content. This does not only apply to games but pretty much anything software, films, music etc that you have digitally purchased.

 

I know there are a section of gamers who will scream physical media as the solution to this but physical media is in decline and you are kidding yourself if you think it will always exist, eventually it will go the way of PC game media.

 

Personally I do see it changing eventually but we might be waiting at least another 10-20 years.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2017 by tpepper1985

[Kapika96]

Well you can give someone your account details and they can play all your games on it now, I don't see why that would be any different after you die. Not as if I plan on dying anyways...

[tpepper1985]

2 minutes ago, Kapika96 said:

Well you can give someone your account details and they can play all your games on it now, I don't see why that would be any different after you die. Not as if I plan on dying anyways...

 

Yes this is true, but I'm speaking strictly from a legal standpoint. You could not transfer your digital content to another person they would just be logging in as you, of course this is what people will do in reality but it's not legal.

 

And I don't think most people plan on dying to be honest, but it happens to us all eventually!

Edited October 6, 2017 by tpepper1985

[Maxie_M0us3]

Yep. This is a shame. Think about all the games in digital only that might be pulled off from Steam, PS Store, Xbox Market or Nintendo E-Shop in the far future. Some of these masterpieces, years of hard manworks, go into oblivion for future generations of players who would experience these games.

 

Yet, there are physical copies for a few games but they’re more often limited copies from LimitedRun Ltd. or other physical makers. So imagine how much trouble will have a chance to play the games.

[DF007gamer]

GAMERS DON'T DIE WE JUST RESPAWN

32 minutes ago, tpepper1985 said:

 what will happen to your digital library when you die

 

[AJ_Radio]

I'm sure a few physical copy fanatics will scream up and down that it's always better to keep a physical library.

 

In many ways this is true. You still own the games/DVDs/Blurays/etc for years to come. Digital media on the other hand, if a service goes down it may as well be lost. Unless you of course backed it up on a spare hard drive or a USB, but even those are prone to crashing because they're electronic.

 

Older generations will continue to use older media, our children will embrace the digital future.

 

Judging by your name I assume you're around 31 - 32 years old. You and I have plenty of life to live for.

 

Personally I am more concerned with how America is going to handle copyright laws, and how our current shithole of a White House administration will look at digital rights and net neutrality. The government is always 10 - 20 years behind the curve.

[tpepper1985]

1 minute ago, DF007gamer said:

GAMERS DON'T DIE WE JUST RESPAWN

 

I knew I shouldn't have picked hardcore mode :<

[DF007gamer]

Just now, tpepper1985 said:

 

I knew I shouldn't have picked hardcore mode :<

 

Nah just upload your save to your cloud (pun intended) and you will live forever

[Evil_Joker88]

I agree with you on this topic @tpepper1985 companies should alter their rules for this to be officially allowed but in the meantime it comes down to the easy way which is like many other cases not legal just give away your login to a close one and they live happily more or less...

 

Nice jokes @DF007gamer btw

[fabmorais_2011]

Digital means individual licensing for as long as the service is available, period. Before worrying about what will happen with my digital library when I die, I'd be more worried about what will happen when Sony decides to purge older games from their services, or limit access to the PSN for their older systems (namely the PS3 -- for now). The only option will be downloading everything you ever bought to a hard drive, which is hardly a convenient (or safe) solution.

Edited October 6, 2017 by fabmorais_2011

[PSXtreme_]

45 minutes ago, Spaz said:

I'm sure a few physical copy fanatics will scream up and down that it's always better to keep a physical library.

 

In many ways this is true. You still own the games/DVDs/Blurays/etc for years to come. Digital media on the other hand, if a service goes down it may as well be lost. Unless you of course backed it up on a spare hard drive or a USB, but even those are prone to crashing because they're electronic.

 

It's the ONLY way that I play it! DD media just isn't all it's cracked up to be. Having a copy in your physical possession takes all of the power out from those that want to institute limits. It's the same philosophy with all these multi-player online servers. Once they go down, 1/2 of the game is now unplayable or the trophy lists are unplattable... It's also why I'm not a PSPlus member...you take away the Plus service because the system is no longer supported and you lose your gaming library. Doesn't happen when you have a hard copy.

Edited October 6, 2017 by PSXtreme_

[Arin1979]

I spent hundreds of euros on a golf MMO, Pangya, closed the servers and I was left with nothing.

[Dr_Shaneman]

Has anyone seriously thought about leaving their digital content in a will? Or even given a crap about what happens to it? XD. 

Prefer physical copies purely because if my internet goes down, I can still play them. Else I'd be pro digital to stop having disc cases pilling up everywhere.

[Bullstomp]

1 hour ago, Spaz said:

Judging by your name I assume you're around 31 - 32 years old. You and I have plenty of life to live for.

Yes, because people only die after age 70 . . .

 

I believe it is a fundamental flaw with digital that no, you aren't buying the game/movie/whatever, you are buying a license to use it. Licenses can be revoked for whatever reason the issuer decides, whether they discontinue the store, if the company bans your account or anything in between.

 

And to the OPs point, no, I don't think this is on the legal radar nor will it be in the near future.

[starcrunch061]

There was a rumor some time ago about Bruce Willis musing over this very problem.

 

Something will have to give as digital becomes ever more ubiquitous. Amazingly, digital delivery is doing quite well in libraries (my wife borrows books all the time digitally), but why this hasn't moved to individual consumers is odd to me.

[olimoo101]

I know the topic is kind of different but this is still very related to digital rights and all.

 

I am honestly terrified of the day that either the PS3 and Vita store close down. Hopefully there would be another way of downloading the content and transferring it to the system, but if there's no way... oh man ?

 

I think backward compatibility is the perfect way to counter this. If the PS5 were to have the exact same architecture as the PS4 and launch completely backward compatible to the PS4, the PlayStation Store could be separated into the PS4 section (everything we see now on our PS4 PlayStation Store) and the PS5 section, completely taking over everything the PS4 had with it. This would mean that if they were to shutdown the servers for the PS4 PS Store due to the cost of maintenance, it wouldn't really matter as your PS5 could act as your PS4. That's one reason why I believe that the PS5 and Xbox Two will both launch completely backward compatible with the respective previous generation systems.

 

Right now I hear a lot of people wanting backward compatibility on PS4 just so they can play those games again in the short-term. But I think a much greater reason to bring it is for game preservation. I don't want the announcement of the PS3 PS Store shutting down and then people having to scramble to only spend their money on PS3 games for months on end to gather up all the games they want. This already happened with PlayStation Mobile. I also scrambled to buy things weeks before I could never buy or download them again and I now have several games that are probably very rare. Not valuable, but rare. Yes, there are people at every video game company that care about games and people who play them, but if there was one person who had the power to shut down the PS3 PS Store due to the server costs not being worth it and they didn't care about how valuable those servers actually were outside of a monetary value then they would very likely shut it down. If you ask me though, backwards compatibility will never come to PS4. Let's hope for PS5. Most of this paragraph can also be applied to Vita, which I actually care slightly more about.

 

I don't really believe in the model of incremental upgrades where consoles are also slightly forward compatible, but I definitely do believe in the future of PS4, PS5, PS6, etc. all sharing the same architecture and all being completely backwards compatible down to a PS9 being able to play PS4 discs perfectly and being able to access all that we can access on the PS4 PS Store today so the only games which have been lost in time are ones that publishers have taken off the stores themselves.

 

Man, I have a lot more to say on what I just said but I will cut myself off. In terms of a digital games future, we have a long road ahead of us.

 

 

EDIT:

Here's an example of a game lost by the way of PS Mobile closing down and it's a game which I loved and still hold on my old Vita memory card to this day.

Edited October 7, 2017 by olimoo101

[MosesRockefeller]

3 hours ago, PSXtreme_ said:

 

It's the ONLY way that I play it! DD media just isn't all it's cracked up to be. Having a copy in your physical possession takes all of the power out from those that want to institute limits. It's the same philosophy with all these multi-player online servers. Once they go down, 1/2 of the game is now unplayable or the trophy lists are unplattable... It's also why I'm not a PSPlus member...you take away the Plus service because the system is no longer supported and you lose your gaming library. Doesn't happen when you have a hard copy.

Well but... digital games have built in disaster recovery. If your house/apartment burns down, all your physical games are gone. Digital games do have one advantage at least.

 

2 hours ago, Bullstomp said:

I believe it is a fundamental flaw with digital that no, you aren't buying the game/movie/whatever, you are buying a license to use it. Licenses can be revoked for whatever reason the issuer decides, whether they discontinue the store, if the company bans your account or anything in between.

 

And to the OPs point, no, I don't think this is on the legal radar nor will it be in the near future.

Technically you're only buying a license to use games with physical copies also. Have you ever seen those warnings at the beginning of movies, where they say you aren't licensed to show the movie in public? That wouldn't apply if you actually owned the movie in question. Digital media makes it easier for the content owner to actually enforce the act of revoking your license, but they have the legal right to do the same thing with physical copies of media as well. 

 

This is an interesting issue, and I agree that it's not on the legal radar. Digital content sellers made sure that the legal precedents were in place to protect them, but not the consumer. I suspect that the only way consumers will get any rights here is with legal challenges and wins. 

 

Another interesting thing to me is that PC gaming is almost entirely digital now. Steam is so successful, and PCs typically don't include DVD/Blu-ray drives anymore. I only see console gamers who avoid digital media. Maybe there is so much stuff on Steam that gamers don't worry about potentially losing games? 

Edited October 6, 2017 by MosesRockefeller

[Undead Wolf]

I'm more concerned with the fact that PlayStation can terminate your account at any time, making all those digital purchases you made throughout the years inaccessible and totally worthless. Of course they wouldn't do that without a reason, but it's still a scary thought. At least with physical media, you can get around that, but I know that won't be around forever.

 

Since the all-digital is inevitable, I do think there should be some kind of law change so the digital content you buy is actually owned by you. If you want to give your games to someone else, or transfer it to another account, you should be free to do so.

 

Speaking of other consumer rights, being able to refund digital purchases should be mandatory for every platform if it's within a set period of time. Steam already does this of course, but I think it's ridiculous that if you buy a broken/buggy game on PlayStation, you're stuck with it. This is all the more important considering how the PlayStation Store has seemingly abandoned quality control recently.

[StewartBros]

8 hours ago, Spaz said:

You and I have plenty of life to live for.

 

 

You'd like to think so, but the simple fact is, there's no way to know how much time we have left.  A co-worker of mine went out for drinks with his pals last New Years Eve.  He was 30 years old and in perfect health.  Before New Years Day was through, he'd been killed by some drunken piece of scum who'd been attacking people the whole evening.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you'll be around for decades to come.  Chances are that you will be, but you just don't know.

 

OT, if I play a digital title and am sufficiently impressed by it, then I'll usually buy a physical copy of the game, if indeed one exists.  This is so that if I ever ended my + subscription, my internet was cut off, or if anything happened to my account, I'd still have access to a fair number of my downloaded titles, albeit in disc form.  Obviously this wouldn't be possible with all games, but at least the blow would be softened somewhat, in the event that the worst case scenario struck.

[Zenpai]

I still remember that case where a guy called Jihad gave his own name to his PSN account and Sony decided to ban him. He did manage to get his game library transferred to his new account - after some begging and Internet notoriety later - but his friends list, trophies and game saves were all gone.

 

This basically just proves that digital games aren't really yours to own, but more of a glorified rental. If for any reason (as exemplified above) Sony, Microsoft, Valve, etc. decided they don't want you to play a game, then you won't play that game - even though you paid the exact same price (and possibly even more) than the people that bought the game physically.

 

This is the reason why I will avoid buying digital anything to the best of my ability. If I bought something, as long as I'm not making any copies for non-personal use, I have the right to use my own copy however damn well and for however damn long I see fit. No one had a problem with people selling used books (or used anything, for that matter) before, why is ownership of a piece of media such a problem now?

 

(And yes, I know that technically you also don't have ownership of your physical copies... but honestly, I'd really like to see the first publisher that actually comes to everyone's houses to try and take your physical copies back.)

 

To be honest, this is why I think a revision of the laws that govern copyright and ownership of cultural media is long overdue. If we don't regulate who can use or sell a table, why should movies, books or games be any different?

 

The current laws protect the rights-holders way too much and I think it's time that changed.

 

The growing trend towards digital also worries me. Publishers want to have higher returns and control over their products, so it only makes sense for them to push further and further for the consumer base to accept digital goods. I once had a conversation with @Satoshi Ookami and he said that physical copies have the added benefit to publishers of allowing casual players to buy games on impulse, by virtue of seeing the physical copies in the store, but honestly... I'm not so sure. I see a lot more benefits for publishers in pushing for the full digitalization of media rather than allowing both to coexist as of now.

[Bloodytears1666]

Also not only the digital copy could be gone, now actually it could be cut in any way, like it was with San Andreas for example and I heard about some Alan Wake game is off the store since licence has been expired. With a physical copy you have exactly same game you bought even after you, store, developer and publisher die. Digital games are nothing more than temporary in general in my vision of things and I always keep in mind that if I buy game digitally in the end I give money for nothing, sooner or later something likely will happened to it.

 

Future of digital backward compatibility isn't even bright. Just imagine that fact, so for example, we had game on PS4 that was made in one way, after some time, through the next generation developer decided to make a HD remastering, but music licence has expired, some voice actors choose not be published again and step against, etc. At the end there will be not a remaster, remake, as result different game. It will be released, and original game will gone from the store and will never hit it back.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Bloodytears1666

[AJ_Radio]

10 hours ago, PSXtreme_ said:

 

It's the ONLY way that I play it! DD media just isn't all it's cracked up to be. Having a copy in your physical possession takes all of the power out from those that want to institute limits. It's the same philosophy with all these multi-player online servers. Once they go down, 1/2 of the game is now unplayable or the trophy lists are unplattable... It's also why I'm not a PSPlus member...you take away the Plus service because the system is no longer supported and you lose your gaming library. Doesn't happen when you have a hard copy.

 

Something about that 1980s era gif bugs me  but anyway..

 

Yes that's true. But you're missing out on a great experience if you decide to skip everything multiplayer.

 

I will suggest not playing any EA sports game if you're concerned about online servers shutting down prematurely. But even games like Dead Star have released and shut down in the same year, so that can be a big problem.

 

I can't say no to free games. With a limited budget, I try to do with what I can afford, and having a few games like Metal Gear Solid V on PS Plus is always nice. Sony can shut down their service at any time, but my bet is that won't happen for a few years at least.

 

I have a good library of games that are physical. I only buy games digitally if I cannot get them physically, or if they happen to be offered on Plus and I am interested in getting them.

 

9 hours ago, Arin1979 said:

I spent hundreds of euros on a golf MMO, Pangya, closed the servers and I was left with nothing.

 

I've spent collectively hundreds of hours on World of Warcraft and around 8000 hours on Runescape. You're taking a gamble with MMOs.

 

My account on WoW is basically useless now because I'm two - three expansions behind, I haven't played since Cataclysm. Plus with those monthly subscription fees and Blizzard's tendency to change everything they feel needs tweaking, it's not worth it.

 

Runescape, on the other hand, I can catch up on. The problem is, every update Jagex releases makes the game easier. This goes for both Runescape 3 and Old School Runescape. Prior to trophy hunting I played a few hours of Old School Runescape each day. But I stopped when I realized that all that work I put into my account was probably going to be for something trivial in due time. It's a shame, because I played around a decade's worth of Runescape and have seen it turn for the worse.

 

9 hours ago, Bullstomp said:

Yes, because people only die after age 70 . . .

 

I believe it is a fundamental flaw with digital that no, you aren't buying the game/movie/whatever, you are buying a license to use it. Licenses can be revoked for whatever reason the issuer decides, whether they discontinue the store, if the company bans your account or anything in between.

 

And to the OPs point, no, I don't think this is on the legal radar nor will it be in the near future.

 

I assume a lot of people will live a long time after 30, but I have known plenty of people who died at 16 - 18 due to suicide, drugs, car accidents or foul play.

 

I graduated high school in 2006 and I know a handful of classmates who are now dead. Bad luck for the most part, but they also didn't take care of themselves too well either.

 

True. I try to buy physical as much as I can, my problem is not too many indie games get physical releases. There are a couple exceptions like Shovel Knight and Shantae, but for the most part you can only buy them digitally.

 

I have a few indie games on Steam that aren't available on the Playstation platform, but who's to say when exactly are the services going to shut down?

 

And of course having your account banned is always a bad thing. I've been pretty lucky not to have any major account banned in my life, but others aren't so lucky with that.

 

2 hours ago, StewartBros said:

 

You'd like to think so, but the simple fact is, there's no way to know how much time we have left.  A co-worker of mine went out for drinks with his pals last New Years Eve.  He was 30 years old and in perfect health.  Before New Years Day was through, he'd been killed by some drunken piece of scum who'd been attacking people the whole evening.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you'll be around for decades to come.  Chances are that you will be, but you just don't know.

 

OT, if I play a digital title and am sufficiently impressed by it, then I'll usually buy a physical copy of the game, if indeed one exists.  This is so that if I ever ended my + subscription, my internet was cut off, or if anything happened to my account, I'd still have access to a fair number of my downloaded titles, albeit in disc form.  Obviously this wouldn't be possible with all games, but at least the blow would be softened somewhat, in the event that the worst case scenario struck.

 

Can't argue with you on that. But me and others just assume we're going to see a lot of people at 30 or older live for years to come.

 

The truth is I have a small handful of high school classmates from 2002 - 2006 who are dead. Whether it be suicide, drug abuse, car accident or foul play, I don't really know, but I was told once that when you hit age 35, some of your fellow classmates from 20 - 25 years ago will be dead. In other words, 5 out of 35 students will be dead by the time you reach age 35, on average. Pretty sad when you think about it.

 

While we have become more health conscious, a lot of us do not live healthy. I know plenty of teenagers and young adults who are already becoming alcoholics and consume a lot of sugar. I paid the price by having a lot of cavities and a high blood sugar level, because I was reckless with eating sugar in my childhood. Who's to say how long anybody will live?

 

I just want to know how some people reach age 100, while a few infant babies out there don't even live a few minutes before dying. Worse still are miscarriages.

 

Pretty much every AAA game I have bought over the past 5 - 10 years has been physical. I mostly buy digital if it is not available on a blu-ray/DVD disc, or if it is very cheap or is offered for free. This goes for movies and TV shows as well. The one exception is music. My laptop can't take CD-ROMs because it doesn't have one, and I'm not going to bother taking out my old 1990s stereo just to hear a couple good songs from a few CD albums. I guess one good thing about digital is you can pick and choose what song you want to buy. I'm sure older PSNProfile members here remember buying a CD album only to be disappointed that it only contains one or two good songs.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Spaz

[SnowxSakura]

10 hours ago, DF007gamer said:

 

Nah just upload your save to your cloud (pun intended) and you will live forever

I don't trust cloud saves, he couldn't even save aerith

[AuzzieWingman]

I've never really put thought into the value of game titles, and the volatile nature of data.

 

Well, I guess if you have 400 PS4 games scattered about your bedroom like I do, you really don't care.

[Devil_Spooky]

People are concerned about what happens to digital media once you die? That's cute, you don't even own anything digital in the first place, anything you buy digitally can be taken from you any time the actual owner of said things so desire, don't ilude yourself, you're just paying to have a licence to use it for as long as they want, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, you agree to those terms as soon as you finalize your "purchase", that's the big problem with a digital only future, they have all the power and we bend over and take it like good little boys, but mankind is just way to dumb to realize this things until it's way too late.