Shponglefan wrote on 2023-04-03, 17:32:

The right to use the software is sold as a license. Most licenses include clauses regarding the revocation of those rights.

Whether or not the terms of the license are legal will ultimately depend on individual jurisdictions and what the courts decide.

So whoever sells software is always keeping the key to do whatever they want, even if that prevents the buyer from using the software by the original sales terms.
I didn't know that, and I'm actually very surprised that's legal anywhere.
It seems that as buyers we have no rights.
I think it's a shame that Steam hasn't found "the right person" yet, like another member said before in this thread, showing the Autodesk case here in the EU.
Here we have government entities and organizations that watch over consumer rights.
In the case of Autodesk, the following is highlighted:
"You will have seen comments on the EU ruling on used software, which in fact says that a software company's rights to distribution of a license ends with the first sale. Once sold (no matter which way), the licensee is allowed to resell the software, even if the EULA says differently."
So here in the EU, the EULAS that take away some rights from the buyer may not be valid.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-04-03, 17:32:

The right to use the software is sold as a license. Most licenses include clauses regarding the revocation of those rights.

Whether or not the terms of the license are legal will ultimately depend on individual jurisdictions and what the courts decide.

This.

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:02:

So whoever sells software is always keeping the key to do whatever they want, even if that prevents the buyer from using the software by the original sales terms.

Yes

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:02:

I didn't know that, and I'm actually very surprised that's legal anywhere.

I think there is a bit of confusion here with what it is you are 'buying' when you 'buy' software.
It's legal, because when you 'buy' software you do not own it... you are effectively buying a license to use it. Unless you are the copyright owner of software, you never own it. You may own the physical media you get it on (i.e USB/CD/DVD etc), but what you have mainly paid for is a license (the rights) to use it, and those are outlined in the "End User Licensing Agreement".

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:02:

It seems that as buyers we have no rights.

You have rights, just not about ownership of software, you have rights as a licensee of software.

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:02:

I think it's a shame that Steam hasn't found "the right person" yet, like another member said before in this thread, showing the Autodesk case here in the EU.

The judgment, while correct, went a bit to far saying the entire EULA was invalid imo. There are many clauses, some of which are there to protect both end users and developers (mainly liability). What that ruling effectively said is that the clause put in the EULA by Autodesk saying the license cannot be sold onwards, is illegal (in EU). If you own something (the license) you have to right to sell it on and cannot be prevented doing this by the person you originally bought it from (which I entirely agree). Autodesk have now circumvented this by saying you are 'leasing' a license (so you never actually buy a license outright, ergo can't sell it on) and they will terminate licenses as they see fit (if you try to transfer it to another party, selling, gifting or otherwise), so all in all it's effectively ended in pretty much the same scenario. It wouldn't suprise me if many others do this (SaaS is effectively this mentality).

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-03, 18:02:

Here we have government entities and organizations that watch over consumer rights. In the case of Autodesk, the following is hi […]
Show full quote

Here we have government entities and organizations that watch over consumer rights.
In the case of Autodesk, the following is highlighted:
"You will have seen comments on the EU ruling on used software, which in fact says that a software company's rights to distribution of a license ends with the first sale. Once sold (no matter which way), the licensee is allowed to resell the software, even if the EULA says differently."
So here in the EU, the EULAS that take away some rights from the buyer may not be valid.

Yes, however if a software company sells you a license which is retrospectively deemed invalid, this means the original license conditions cannot be met, so it's wouldn't be legal for you to continue using it just because the original agreement was deemed illegal (you don't automatically get to keep something that was mis-sold to you, rather you would just be refunded, and hopefully maybe compensated). It also means you need to get the correct 'localised' agreement (software) for your country, which ofcourse never happens on a global platform.

I remember reading about record companies where trying to prevent certain use cases for audio records back in the 1910s, a form of "shrinkwrap licensing" that has been tried over the years. One of the big restrictions was trying to prevent resale. Another was to control the price as mentioned in the wikipedia article on the doctrine of first sale. So in terms of having something in your physical possession, I don't see how much of EULAs are enforceable, other than the standard copyright, you can't copy and give it to someone else anyway.

What can be enforceable is the program needs the use of a service to work, that company does have a right to turn off the service. So if you have a program that some bits of code to run is on someone else's server, and that server goes down, or now requires Windows 12, you're basically screwed. In this form of DRM, you may never be able to recover those bits unless you comply with the terms of service from the service provider. The bits you bought on cd or downloaded to your computer is only a partial program. Downloading the bits and giving it to someone else so their winxp can run the game very well can be copyright infringement. This is why I say buyer beware, and make sure you perform backups, and avoid encumbering DRM. I'm not sure if all software can be backed up offline, and I'm sure some software it is quite difficult to do this.

For classic DRM, the bits of the program are all on the computer, it is just trying to determine if you have a legitimate copy. Changing bits to circumvent that given it's in your rightful possession already may always be considered your right in terms of classic copyright law.

However the DMCA is quite nasty, and really does side with the authors (or big companies rather), and was intended to prevent circumvention. Yes there are exceptions, but they are not written into law, and are approved by a regulatory agency and have to be reviewed and reapproved regularly. These exceptions that have been mentioned were granted per lobbying by libraries and archivists. What is currently being allowed can be reversed given a change in administration or lobbying against our rights. An example of this is right to repair has so far failed due to companies lobbying against it. I am not sure if I would even discuss circumvention due to the DMCA because the exceptions can be removed anytime, and then you can be considered infringing anyway. However there can still be clever ways to discuss things. Maybe I would call it, this is how a computer works, and I can show you. The reaction that caused decss to spread is a good example, and so the DMCA failed to stop that.

Here is some more proof that "effectively controls or protect" and "ordinary course of operation"are the key:
https://www.mosessinger.com/publications/cour … rcumvention-act

The rule of the Yout case, then, is that if access to copyrighted works is provided electronically by a service through a certain means, the use of alternative means to access the copyrighted content will violate the Anti-circumvention Act.

So when the external server cannot be accessed due to the client being broken or the DRM is not working due to it being incompatible with the OS then there is no "effective control or protection" or "ordinary course of operation".

More proof:
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcont … 87&context=dltr

¶25 “This view,” the court declared, “is confirmed by the legislative history.”71 The House Judiciary Committee’s section-by-sec […]
Show full quote

¶25 “This view,” the court declared, “is confirmed by the legislative
history.”71 The House Judiciary Committee’s section-by-section analysis of
§ 1201 states that “[t]he practical, commonsense approach taken by [the
statute] is that if, in the ordinary course of its operation, a technology
actually works in the defined ways to control access . . . then the
‘effectiveness’ test is met, and the prohibitions of the statute are
applicable.”72 The “ordinary course of operation” for CSS, the court
determined, is confined to those instances “when DeCSS or some other
decryption program is not employed.”73 Since CSS “actually works” in
those instances, it is an “effective” technological measure.

Fortunately for all of the scurvy pirates out there, the Information Technology Industry Council lobbied hard for the inclusion […]
Show full quote

Fortunately for all of the scurvy pirates out there, the Information
Technology Industry Council lobbied hard for the inclusion of an explicit
definition of what constitutes an “effective” technological measure.91 In
particular, they wanted to specify that “effective” technological measures
“must be strong, ‘active’ measures, such as encryption or scrambling, which
obscure the content itself.”92 “Implementing legislation that did not draw a
clear distinction between ‘effective’ technological measures and all others,”
they feared, “would leave us with a Hobbesian choice of producing slow,
‘legal’ computers or fast, ‘illegal’ computers.”93 A noble effort for a
worthy cause, but it resulted in a second loophole that is much bigger than
the first!

It is not enough that the court thinks that the measure should require
such authority. The statute plainly mandates that the measure must actually
require “the authority of the copyright owner.”

What most people don't seem to understand is:

1. Windows 7 is not going to be supported at all by MS anymore. No more security or other updates. Sure you could pay MS some absurd amount of money for EOL service like some companies did with XP.

2. Because of this, Valve is being smart by dropping support as, if they don't, it will open up their platform to be more easily hacked and for cheaters to be able to ruin the experience for their other customers.

3. Continuing to support EOL platforms becomes more and more expensive and is not feasible from a business standpoint to continue to do so.

4. My guess is that AMD and Nvidia and many/most/all hardware vendors are going to also stop releasing Windows 7/8/8.1 drivers at about the same time.

So you have a completely unsupported platform and feel like Valve, for some reason, should continue to support it instead of getting onboard with at least Windows 10, which is pretty old at this point as well.

There shouldn't be a gateway between me and my purchased games to begin with.

Sure you could pay MS some absurd amount of money for EOL service like some companies did with XP.

MS already dropped all support since January. Even for people who can throw money at them.

My guess is that AMD and Nvidia and many/most/all hardware vendors are going to also stop releasing Windows 7/8/8.1 drivers at about the same time.

Driver support met full stop in 2021.

at least Windows 10, which is pretty old at this point as well.

Depends. Windows 10 is a different beast altogether. Microsoft essentially rolled out multiple operating systems under one name. It's like Vista updated to Windows 8.1 state. So early revisions will most likely be dropped by Steam very soon too. And already dropped by many software developers.

if they don't, it will open up their platform to be more easily hacked and for cheaters to be able to ruin the experience for their other customers.

Existence of Linux support kinda negates that argument.

I'm just waiting for this type of thing to happen in other areas, perhaps like modern cars with software that suddenly is 'unsupported', and then not allowed to be on the road because of percieved 'security issues'. Maybe it's a wet dream for any car manufacturer to link ownership of a car to something like a steam account, and then forbidding resales of them when used.

Anyway, in the future (if ever) when astronauts live in places far away, and computers can't be upgraded to the latest industry demands, I guess people will appreciate the simple rock-paper-scissors games again. ;-p

As far as I know, Microsoft has never prevented Windows XP or Windows Vista, etc... from being unusable despite not supporting them and also needing an activation service.
Last year I installed a genuine Windows XP Home and was able to activate it as usual. A few months ago I installed a genuine Windows XP PRO, and it also worked fine and was able to update it as Microsoft keeps updates available even though the Windows update service for XP is no longer officially working because Windows XP is no longer supported.
Also, last year, I installed a Windows Server 2008 R2 to do some tests and remember some things, and it activated correctly with a license that I have since 2009 and had not used in years, and Windows update still worked OK.
As far as we all know, no Microsoft operating system, or Software, like Microsoft Office, has stopped working because Microsoft stopped supporting it. If that was the case, just imagine that our beloved Windows 98 stopped working because Microsoft doesn't support it anymore, In that case the name of this forum would be even more relevant and everything we do with our 30-year-old, or older, computers would not be possible.
I believe that all updates for Windows XP and later are available from Microsoft, including unsupported ones.
If Microsoft starts selling its operating system the way Steam sold and sells its games, much of our hobby would be gone, let's just imagine that we can't install Windows 7 on our retro computers in the future because the DVDs Microsoft sold didn't have all parts of the operating system and need the support of Microsoft to work compulsorily....
I imagine that Microsoft has something like a virtual machine in their servers to maintain updates and activation services for each of its operating systems.

Windows 7 Pro and Enterprise still receive maintenance updates or something like that, at least they appear to me from time to time.
XP is older than Steam I think, I'm not going to check it, because I'm almost sure.

Summary, Steam, refuses to maintain the service because they don't want to invest money and resources in it, because why they will care if they took the customer's money a long time ago, and they are not honest, because in some cases they weren't selling you the full game even if you bought it in a physical media. In this case, the game should be able to be installed and playable without problems and what didn't work should be the Steam client, because what I wanted to buy was the game, not the client I think.
They could have a separate client for each operating system they "sold" games for, limiting the functionality to that of each operating system and the games supported on each operating system.

My current impression from an EU point of view is that in the US, there is no protection for customers from abuse by big business.
I guess that's why the EU has had "little problems" with Google, Facebook, etc...
And maybe that's also why GOG and Steam are so different, despite dedicating themselves to the same thing, because GOG also sells new games that have online services, not only old games.

Valve has quite clearly stated their disdain for Windows environment long time ago and actively working for alternative on Linux.

Indeed, Valve loves Linux. Many former Microsoft employees left to work for Valve and the company was founded and initially staffed by former Microsoft developers, so they know that an alternative to Windows is a great idea for their bottom line, hence the Steam OS and other efforts.

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-08, 14:45:

Summary, Steam, refuses to maintain the service because they don't want to invest money and resources in it

It's more than just that. The platforms themselves are no longer supported, so any underlying technologies that Steam uses may not support those platforms either. And there won't be any developer resources available for those older platforms.

One of the biggest issues here is security. Security threats are continuously evolving. Trying to support an online service on unsupported platforms and security with respect to customer information and payment streams seems a significant challenge.

I can understand why online services would drop older platforms just from a security perspective.

They could have a separate client for each operating system they "sold" games for, limiting the functionality to that of each operating system and the games supported on each operating system.

How would this work from a vendor point-of-view? If I'm a game developer and I publish on Steam, am I also being locked in to trying to support both backwards and forwards compatibility?

A more feasible solution would be something like GOG offers in offline installers. But that's never been in Steam's business model.

It would be necessary to know what their real reasons for this are. Surely they are ones that benefit them. Just like Google gets a lot of benefit from having bought Android, even though AOSP exists, the vast majority of Android users don't know about AOSP.
What interests Steam in its Steam OS will surely be to have even more control and be able to impose its model more, let's not fool ourselves.
Unfortunately, from my point of view, Linux doesn't matter much on an old computer. Before it was more common to recover the utility of an old computer using Linux, but I think that is not so true anymore.
For years, I have used Linux daily on most of my computers, a few months ago I started to move everything to Windows, the reasons have not much to do with this thread, so I will not talk about it.
But I find it difficult for Steam to work only on Linux in the short term, because Linux does not have a presence in most homes.
But even with Linux, Steam could do the same, that is, stop supporting a Linux kernel older than X version. And it would be the same.
The problem is not the operating system, it's Steam.
What I think is that Steam abuses its clients because they are mostly individuals,
What I explained before that Microsoft does, I think it is because Microsoft works mainly with large companies and even governments, and in that case businesses have to be serious and concise, to an individual, a large company, it can swindle, deceive, etc... and without help, an individual doesn't have much to do against a big company like Steam.
Well, a DVD with a game should be an offline installer I guess, but that's not the case with Steam. I don't know what to do, so that Steam compensates me for not being able to use the game for which I have a DVD and serial number, under the conditions that I bought it. I already know enough about EULAS.
Furthermore, I don't care much either, it's just the frustration of feeling cheated and the concern for the future of these things.
Hopefully we have a future where we can still enjoy playing old games. Just remember, what is new today, it is old tomorrow.

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:04:

What I think is that Steam abuses its clients because they are mostly individuals,

This type of hyperbole, imho, doesn't actually help the issue here.

Like I said, even just the security aspects related to older unsupported platforms I can understand why services like Steam are dropping support for them.

Would you feel comfortable having your personal information potentially more easily compromised because it's available through older platforms with unpatched vulnerabilities? How would you feel if your Steam account was actually stolen by a third party? Or if your payment information or even identity itself was stolen via these means?

This isn't even getting into potential legislation compelling software providers to safeguard customer information re: privacy laws. If companies can't reasonably do that on older platforms then I can further understand why they aren't going to support those platforms.

The bottom line is that PC computers and PC gaming in particular has always evolved technologically especially in the modern Internet age and evolving security threats and requirements. There is an onus as PC users to evolve with it. This means that eventually one has to replace or upgrade things like hardware and operating systems. Microsoft even offered people free upgrades to Windows 10 at one point.

We'll be seeing something similar in the near future with a move to Windows 11/12 and its TPM requirements, and a drop in support for Windows 10. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

Well, a DVD with a game should be an offline installer I guess, but that's not the case with Steam. I don't know what to do, so that Steam compensates me for not being able to use the game for which I have a DVD and serial number, under the conditions that I bought it.

Something worth noting is that any developer or publisher who chooses to use Steam for online DRM isn't Valve's fault. It's not Valve that forces publishers to do that; that's up to the publishers themselves.

If changing online DRM requirements is an issue, then the other option is to stick with DRM-free offline installers from a store like GOG.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:18:

This type of hyperbole, imho, doesn't actually help the issue here. […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:04:

What I think is that Steam abuses its clients because they are mostly individuals,

This type of hyperbole, imho, doesn't actually help the issue here.

Like I said, even just the security aspects related to older unsupported platforms I can understand why services like Steam are dropping support for them.

Would you feel comfortable having your personal information potentially more easily compromised because it's available through older platforms with unpatched vulnerabilities? How would you feel if your Steam account was actually stolen by a third party? Or if your payment information or even identity itself was stolen via these means?

The bottom line is that PC computers and PC gaming in particular has always evolved technologically especially in the modern Internet age and evolving security threats and requirements. There is an onus as PC users to evolve with it. This means that eventually one has to replace or upgrade things like hardware and operating systems. Microsoft even offered people free upgrades to Windows 10 at one point.

We'll be seeing something similar in the near future with a move to Windows 11/12 and its TPM requirements, and a drop in support for Windows 10. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

I understand what you're saying, I'm old enough for that, and I want everything to keep moving forward.
But I'm one of those people who don't use social networks or WhatsApp, and in my case I prefer Signal because I try to protect my privacy.
I just think the problem here is Steam not the operating systems. And I guess that Steam accounts, for example, are stolen because of a user fault, not and operating system fault, weak passwords, using always the same password for everything, etc., things like that we all know and are the same reason for stolen email accounts and things like that. We all know that a lot of users don't care a bit about their passwords and things like that.
I took advantage of the free upgrade to Windows 10 from the moment it was possible.
And I'm old enough to know that in this field, everything has to move forward, I'm only concerned with how it's going to do it, and the title of this thread is giving us a warning. This is how Steam is going to move forward, leaving everything behind as if it didn't exist. And that doesn't seem right to me, because nothing appears out of nowhere. And the Steam move means that in the future, no one will be able to experience the way it was before, which many of us here do every day, goodbye gaming in real old computers.
If you have old computers, you may understand a little what I mean.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2023-04-08, 08:01:

MS already dropped all support since January. Even for people who can throw money at them. […]
Show full quote

Sure you could pay MS some absurd amount of money for EOL service like some companies did with XP.

MS already dropped all support since January. Even for people who can throw money at them.

My guess is that AMD and Nvidia and many/most/all hardware vendors are going to also stop releasing Windows 7/8/8.1 drivers at about the same time.

Driver support met full stop in 2021.

at least Windows 10, which is pretty old at this point as well.

Depends. Windows 10 is a different beast altogether. Microsoft essentially rolled out multiple operating systems under one name. It's like Vista updated to Windows 8.1 state. So early revisions will most likely be dropped by Steam very soon too. And already dropped by many software developers.

if they don't, it will open up their platform to be more easily hacked and for cheaters to be able to ruin the experience for their other customers.

Existence of Linux support kinda negates that argument.

Looks like Nvidia is still releasing security fix drivers for 7/8/8.1 until next year.
https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults … x/203215/en-us/

And the whole Linux being supported by Steam... and??? We were talking about Windows.

Windows 10 itself is getting ready to have support dropped in the not too distant future from what I have heard.

The Windows 11 system "requirements" are kind of stupid though I have been able to do clean install of Windows 11 on "unsupported" hardware using the stock Microsoft media.

windows 11 has worked well on my unsupported hardware, but it's one of those things, feels like they can break it with some update 😒
so I'm mainly staying with 10 for now,
I think people playing with old hardware (that can't run win10) are a very small minority, so in terms of business it probably makes perfect sense for Valve not to care at all, but yeah, a little unfortunate, same as to when they dropped win xp, I wish they had some sort of "steam lite" for old computers, or a clean solution existed,

to be honest I stopped using 7 as a main OS way earlier than I did XP in its life cycle,

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:53:

And I'm old enough to know that in this field, everything has to move forward, I'm only concerned with how it's going to do it, and the title of this thread is giving us a warning. This is how Steam is going to move forward, leaving everything behind as if it didn't exist. And that doesn't seem right to me, because nothing appears out of nowhere. And the Steam move means that in the future, no one will be able to experience the way it was before, which many of us here do every day, goodbye gaming in real old computers.
If you have old computers, you may understand a little what I mean.

I've been computing since the 80s, so I know well what this means.

I used to use BBSs back in the 90s, for example. They're all gone now and never coming back. I've long since learned to accept the pace of technology and fact that older things invariably get replaced with newer things.

While we can preserve some of the nostalgia, some experiences will forever be confined to our memories.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-04-12, 20:36:

I've been computing since the 80s, so I know well what this means. […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2023-04-08, 16:53:

And I'm old enough to know that in this field, everything has to move forward, I'm only concerned with how it's going to do it, and the title of this thread is giving us a warning. This is how Steam is going to move forward, leaving everything behind as if it didn't exist. And that doesn't seem right to me, because nothing appears out of nowhere. And the Steam move means that in the future, no one will be able to experience the way it was before, which many of us here do every day, goodbye gaming in real old computers.
If you have old computers, you may understand a little what I mean.

I've been computing since the 80s, so I know well what this means.

I used to use BBSs back in the 90s, for example. They're all gone now and never coming back. I've long since learned to accept the pace of technology and fact that older things invariably get replaced with newer things.

While we can preserve some of the nostalgia, some experiences will forever be confined to our memories.

like bogart said well always have Paris or in this case well always have our memories up until the day we dont