Steam's new license agreement (tl;dr version)

Clickity-clickity-clue.

 

Many reasons in that why I dont like steam, but bedgrudgingly use it.

Though my first thought was, is there a TL;DL for the TL;DL

 

Well, bear in mind, it's a EULA, and those things only hold up as law until someone challenges them.

 

Nothing here really surprising or objectionable if you've read any other EULA. Honestly I don't understand the hate for Steam (other than that it's !!!!!!DRM!!!!!!, an acronym synonymous with eating babies), but I'd really rather not get into an argument about Valve's status as the root of all evil. There are alternatives out there, many of which I also use.

I understand disliking that it won't allow you to start a game without having steam running, it's a pain, but not really a dealbreaker in my eyes.

 

Really useful except for the disgusting JPG compression. It's honestly a pretty unremarkable EULA, but thank you for doing this.

The only bad thing I see here is the "what you upload, we own" thing. And that barely even applies legally, you're not going to be selling your screenshots for profit, now are you?

 

Aww... you got rid of it...

I was happy to find that EULA explanation. I figured it was something like that and everyone on other forums were going apeshit for no reason. I was right.

 

Here's the thing -- if you upload something (such as a mod) then they want to retain control over it simply because they want to retain control over all aspects of their image, not to mention all content relating to any game that they are selling -- this also protects the actual game companies that they do business with.

You have to realize that they are trying to protect themselves not just against obvious copyright infringement, and stuff like that, but also any unanticipated threats to their image, etc. I guarantee that if there's a way for people to take advantage, someone eventually will. It's a lawyers job to anticipate even unlikely things that can happen and protect a company from those things.

Companies and individuals get sued over all sorts of things -- for example, lets say I upload some fan-created art to a game website. Two years from now, the owner of a website publishes a new game, or some new content that I perceive as being similar to something that I uploaded. Without such protections, there's a risk that I could sue over that.

 

B)

Ah, I didn't think about that. Still, that's not really going to bother the average user. Anyone that uses that section (for example) is really just kind of looking for reasons to hate Steam, no?
Where did you get all of this knowledge? Are you studying law? Magical law?

 

Actually, that's just life experience working in pretty much any kind of corporate setting. Our world is reaaaaally law intensive these days. :sighs:

 

Of course. How else would the 1% be able to act like they do?

 

Shhhh... Daynab can hear you. o_o

 

As someone said already it is an EULA, not a law. Those often are hilarious, especially those parts about which laws have to be apllied. Noone decides that except a court. And if that court decides parts of the contracts are not legally applicable - then they aren`t ,simple as that.

But use some common sense. Most of this stuff is just saber rattling from people not into law made for people not into law. Factually it doesnt have any consequences besides annoying the common whiner until he writes a furious yet equally unimportant blog post on it.

It is not in the interest of Valve to take your games from you if you are a paying customer. If you are a company that has a financial conflict with Valve then you settle it in the courtyard and then you wont have to care about this stuff, but on what your lawyer tells you.

You, the average gamer just wont get any problems because you simply dont matter. What matters is getting your money along with those of many many customers along and as much of it as possible. To achieve this they have to satisfy you, not to betray you. That much they know. The rest is stuff that protects interests of Valve as a company, protect against serious problems they might face. You are not the problem, you are the customer. Because some customers still try to find every loophole they get Valve is quite strict about this. Unless you dont cause problems this wont be causing problems to you as well - thats not their business to cause individuals some problems. It is the business of some individuals to cause problems to whole companies, thats the whole point here. In short: You dont matter as much as you believe. They really dont care about their power to take your license away from you and laugh at your sad face. They care about their consistency as a professional company, though.

 

A simple example situation what could be an actual use of such an EULA for a company like Valve:

Suppose you are not so strict like Valve currently is, suppose you dont have an EULA that allows bans when proxies are used.

There is one guy in Europe that accidentally stumbles on the fact he can use a russian proxy and buy games much cheaper there. He begins to gift these games to some friends. Then he gifts some to not-so close friends for a bit of money. He realizes after some time that he can make a business out of this. He starts a website dedicated to selling games cheaper by using the global price difference loophole. What began as a gifting from friend to friend enjoying a single nice deal becomes an own business suddenly. Now he is running a company doing that. More and more people are starting to relize that they will get exactly the same on Steam for less money.

Valve starts to notice - because sales are dropping and this guys company is leeching off a lot of their profits into his own company by abusing the system. Currently, this is a grey area of law. Nobody thought about this actual situation newly arising in digital distribution. Which means, it has to be settled at the courtyard. Which means it can be lost, which will be based on the work of the lawyers and how they will bend the existing law in the interest of each party.

Now that both are big companies a lawsuit war will have to begin. Both have the money to spent into a big law-clash which outcome will be unsure - except that the result will be probably quite of a loss for both of them. The guy has grown up into a full businessman knowing how to use legal loopholes and things are not only starting to get costly but very complicated also for Valve.


How could you have prevented that? With a legally not 100% waterproof EULA like this. Stop the guy where he still is small. Valve should have stated their right to ban his account the time he first used his proxy to get games cheaper. He would have been one sad gamer, losing all of his game for a few dollars of deal. Surely, he would not have the money to claim his right for the games on court - and if he did you give him his game and a warning to advance legally if he continues doing that. Most probably this will save you a lot of money because the value of things at stakes are hilariously small compared to going against a fully grown company - even if you lose everything at the courtyard.

As you may know this is a realistic scenario and the selling of cheap foreign licenses a true problem for Valve right now. Maybe this is one of the main reasins for a change of the EULA. It may not affect law but it will affect individuals and thats sometimes what is needed to prevent bigger problems a company can face - even when it would not hold perfectly in a real lawsuit. Because that lawsuit is not going to be happen when you prevent problems from getting big at the start already.

 

An alternate look at that how ever is steam is pricing different regions differently.
The cost for valve to distribute the game anywhere in the world is the same; cost of their servers and internet connection and whatever they have to pay to a company to distribute a game (though I suspect distributors/developers have to pay steam), that outsiders (outside of steam network) then connect too (ie. the consumer goes to them at their own expense; ISP costs), reguardless of where in the world they are, be it Russia, America, Japan Thailand, the UK, or where ever.
So steam by charging more in another country is actually making more profit, ie. profiteering.
They may have minor costs associated with currency conversion, but here in Australia we have to pay in US dollars, so the conversion charges plus international charges are put on the consumer (other areas may not have that problem), thusly not an expence to the running of steam.

Aside from the fact that where the guy gets the software from (that point made above) the rest is simply competition.

So now we have companies legislating their ability to profiteer or potentially restrict competition. Both of which are not good for the consumer.

 

Except, aren't the prices by region set by the owners/publishers of the games themselves?

(And yes, paying AU$20-30 more for downloaded titles, when AUD > USD in exchange rates, is a gouge.)

 

One day Steam will have to answer in court for the BS in the license. And not just to someone without the money to fight them. They will meet someone who will challenge the very legality of the contract and will not settle for a cash payoff. They will only settle for a court-ordered release from the terms that are unfair and frankly illegal in some parts of the world where Steam operates. They will not accept a plea bargain to keep the terms of the "Agreement" secret from the world. And anyone can then file using that precedent. That is the point where Valve will attempt to reword everything and will be challenged again, this time for seeking to evade the judgment made by the court. At that point, the company has a 50% chance of going out of business. I will shed no tears if they do.

 

I think it's more a sort of... collaborative pricing. I could be wrong, but I think Valve might 'suggest' prices - I've heard that said a few times, whether it's true is another matter.

 

Except that it wouldn't go that far due to the fact the Valve legal team is not full of the biggest group of morons ever to have the word Lawyer in their title.
They can't magically change the EULA themselves without running it through the legal department, and you can't fire your lawyers for preventing you from doing something illegal.
Unless you want to go to jail.

Also, they know that EULA could be ruled illegal in a court of law, and if it every went to that point, they would abide by the legal decision of the court.
Valve is not EA, Omni, you seem to have forgotten that.
Then again, not even Activision would dare screw the pooch by attempting illegal changing of the EULA against the court's ruling.

No corporation on the planet, even ones run by the mafia, are not stupid enough to disobey the rules handed down by the court system.
Yes, even the Mafia tries not to do illegal things sometimes.
If you think about it, you'd understand why, I mean, why would they want to shine an unnecessary light into their other illegal activities.

Human nature is surprisingly not retarded.

 

Are you sure about that?

And by the way, lawyers do not decide what is done. CEOs do. Lawyers decide to quit when they realize they cannot talk some sense into them, but it happens every day. The license itself is criminal. It really is. But the only thing keeping it from being challenged is the amount of money it would cost to stand a chance against a team of dozens of lawyers.

I am not saying Valve is EA, nor that they are anywhere near as corrupt as even typical politicians. They are just massive and encumbered with legal contracts that are by nature illegal.