- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
- technology@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74416381
The relevant section is blunt. “The Software is licensed to you, not sold,” the EULA states. “You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to play or use the Software for your private, non-commercial use on the system or device it was intended for.”
The terms also restrict renting, modifying, or obtaining games through unauthorised means. Nothing in there is new, technically. Sony’s EULA has always said this. The timing is what makes it land differently right now.
This. Software is only ever licensed to you, never given.
What’s important isn’t that it’s licensed (paid software has to be because it’s trivially reproducible), but what the terms of the license state. I’ve read game EULAs that, to my surprise, allowed you to transfer your license once to somebody else (along with instructions on how to do it). I’ve also read shitty EULAs, which is the vast majority of them.
The biggest scam is when licenses can be unilaterally changed, which is sadly most of them.
From a game preservation standpoint, the license should be nonrevocable, perpetual, and the game should be DRM-free. Using Steam games as an example, Steam is a DRM, but many games can be played without Steam by simply deleting the Steam API library from the game directory. Those would be playable regardless of whether Steam even exists anymore.