That is exactly the nail on the head in every "Steam can take my games away" discussion. At least in Germany and pretty much all of the EU they simply can't do it at their discretion.

It could be, however, different if other external legal problems arise. Eg, Steam can at any moment remove my copy of Dead Rising 2 from my account and I can't even demand a refund. (I bought it "illegally" via VPN and it is confiscated in Germany). That is probably also why that clause is in their EULA.

Edit: I just checked, it is still there. ;-)

Knowingly? You have to be kidding. In what universe do people read the EULAs for the phone games they buy?

But the right to distribute something (i.e. copy it) is different from the right to access - now one can argue if GOG continuing to host the files is still distributing or not and therefore GOG must remove it from the shelf, but that is different than GOG removing the item from my hard drive.

I own the access to digital material I've bought. I own the right to sell my access. That is different from asking for the right to copy it which is what a store is. So a store or seller loosing access to their license to distribute merchandise should not impact the consumer's rights to access material bought. Those are two separate things.

Well what do you recommend?

This is not the first time EA has done something like this: http://www.slidetoplay.com/story/ea-pulls-old-tetris-app-releases-new-one

Aye well I am not going to argue if you violated the store's policy (or national laws ... ahem) when buying something, then that is indeed a different situation. :)

A seriously doubt they'd want the validity of their EULA questioned over anything less. :)

That depends. If a normal "business moving" of a license has taken place, then it is no problem, because your access, or chain, is unbroken and has simply moved. Most relevant cases would probably be those racing games here or when EA moved away from Steam.

Cases like what we (presumably) have here (often when it comes to music) are instances were GOG/EA never had the right in the first place to sell the "access license" (I have to remember that :-) ). You cannot aquire a license credulous or bona fide (hence the chain example).


The fact that I got it illegal just made my refund go away. If I could buy a game legally that would later be confiscated in Germany, Steam could be asked to remove it and would have to comply. It has never happend, afaik, and it would be legally "interesting" to say the least, but I don't see why it would be impossible. (I would get a refund however) Steam circumvents all this in not selling any problematic games here in the first place (it is the smart thing to do).

And yes, Steam will go to any length whatsoever to avoid question about the validity of their EULA in any court.

I'm told iTunes on Windows is a little bloated and slow - heck people complain about the Mac version sometimes :), but those complaints on Windows were awhile ago so I don't know how true they are anymore. But even if it is still true and even if you buy from iTunes, you don't have to use iTunes as your computer's music player to play music bought from iTunes.

Generally prices are fairly similar amongst the digital retailers since like most digital stores they also operate on the agency model (so publishers set or strongly influence the prices). I think Amazon tends to be a little cheaper on some tracks than Apple, but honestly I think they're all about the same. I am not really sure if I can recommend or say one is definitely better than the other. I think they are all fine. I use iTunes for mostly everything and I like it just fine, but I've nothing against any of the other stores.

They haven't. But when the owners of 'The Guild' were going under, they *did* make it a point to warn people to download the stuff they had or were buying from them, just in case. Which does show that even the people at GOG are aware that they can not guarantee the availability, even on the shelf, in all cases.

(I realize this is sort of an irrelevant point by now in the discussion, just thought I'd mention it anyway xD)

I believe that's what got Amazon into trouble - they never had the right to sell the book they were selling. And still think that if a company does that they should be open to suits from customers and an automatic, not just "on-request", refund to customers since it is the seller who screwed up.

But I don't believe that's the case here. I think EA is still selling iOS Rockband versions, it is just the original version of the app that is going away - now the original version may have songs that EA have lost access to and they have to stream those songs - therefore the app is defunct. To be honest I don't really know how Rockband on iOS works.

Well have you used itunes on your windows computer? I don't have a ipod or iphone and not planing to.

There is a difference between "everything that is written in a EULA is law" and "EULA can be safely ignored". Just because some parts are illegal/inapplicable in some countries doesn't means that all are.

The situation was different, it was physical items, not one specifically described as being "subscriptions" and like you said it wasn't a binding decision and it was just one judge.

Look what happened with Autodesk vs Vernor :

First judgement : "second hand sales of software are ok"
Appeal : "no they are not"

Unless it's written in black and white in a law, you are totally dependent of the good will/interpretation of the judge.

Well peoples bought "lifetime" subscriptions to Tabula Rasa, it was also "buy", not rent nor subscribe and yet I am pretty sure they are not able to play the game anymore.

Concerning the EULA, you can read them before you buy the game, it's mentioned that you have to accept it to play the game (for Steamwork or Origin retail games it's mentioned on the package along with an URL of where you can find the EULA) so I am not convinced that the "I didn't know about the EULA before I bought the game" defense could really work.

Sadly I think it was just a temporary victory, just because they didn't had an interoperable DRM ready, if Ultraviolet is ever successful I am pretty sure that DRMs will make a rapid comeback to music too.

They have to refund because they screwed up and they legally have to refund automatically. That is in their "danger sphere". But you can't demand fees or compensation for only getting a refund "on-request", that is why they do it. For the same reason 99% of all contractors in Germany pay their bills only after the first reminder, it is free and as long as you still have the money it can work.

But usually Amazon is very forthcoming. They (or EA) recently gifted me a game for a ME 3 problem I didn't have.

On the current Rockband issue I also don't know how it works. But a usual "running out" shouldn't make the game unplayable, because "the chain wouldn't be broken". Maybe it is because of streaming, like you said.

I have, but not often as I generally am using iTunes on my Mac-side rather than Windows-side (I dual boot), so I can't say how good or bad it is - just that iTunes does indeed work in Windows and suits me fine when I am in Windows and playing music. But again, even music bought from iTunes doesn't have to use iTunes to be played. I'm not sure how iTunes compares to other music players on the Windows side as I've never really investigated it.

As a music store, iTunes is generally pretty easy to use (though again some complain that it feels a bit sluggish to navigate around in it) and has roughly the same kinds of prices you'll see elsewhere. They also have one of the if not the broadest collection of music of the digital retailers.

I think DRM free music is also very related to the fact most music profit comes from concerts, licensing and merch. They adapted to a changing market.

Games are doing the same thing, with online games and microtransactions. We hate that, but it's a response to the changing market. When companies first started bitching about piracy a lot of people told them to adapt... that is what they are doing.