Cross-geposted von: https://feddit.org/post/31996415
In a remarkably strange statement at a recent California State Senate hearing over the Protect Our Games Act (AB 1921, California’s Stop Killing Games-endorsed bill to compel publishers to provide ways to keep playing discontinued games), a representative of the Entertainment Software Association declared private servers for the likes of Minecraft and Call of Duty “illegal,” adding that, so far as the ESA is concerned, “we consider it piracy.”
In a statement to PC Gamer, the ESA wrote that, so far as it’s concerned, “Private servers infringe on the intellectual property (IP) rights of game publishers. Publishers reserve the right to exercise their rights against them.”
Game devs: „Here is the code to run our games on a private server. Have fun!“
Gamers: „Cool, thanks! Will do!“
ESA: „ISN‘T THERE SOMEONE YOU FORGOT TO ASK???“
ESA members: https://www.theesa.com/our-members/
- Amazon
- Atari
- Bandai Namco
- Capcom
- Disney
- EA
- Epic Games
- Konami
- Mattel
- Microsoft
- Netflix
- Nintendo
- Riot Games
- Roblox
- Sony Play Station
- Square Enix
- Take 2 (owner of Rockstar, 2K and Zynga)
- Tencent
- Ubisoft
- Warner Bros
- Wizard of the Coast (owner of MtG and DnD’s rights)
The page also has this quote:
Shape and influence the largest entertainment industry in America.
So absolutely no one I respect. Nice. ESA go fuck yourself.
What’s the point in Microsoft shooting against “their own” product? I mean, the option for public or private servers is literally built into the game. Also there is the option for playing together over LAN which you could also argue is a private server.
If you have the facts, you pound the facts. If you have the law, you pound the law. If you have neither, you pound the table. This is the ESA pounding the table, and the goal is to confuse the gerontocracy LARPing as lawmakers.
This is why tech has gotten so out of control in the US. In the past 40 years, this industry has had so many revolutionary inventions while our legislators on average get older and less likely to understand the newest technology, thereby making them more susceptible to being misled or misleading others. Combined with our legislators not giving a fuck about actual economics, this is how we have oligopolies everywhere in the US with cartel behavior
Things have gotten so out of control because people have gotten stupid and lazy and put up with all of this shit.
People have gotten stupid because billionaires have orchestrated the gutting of education and people are too exhausted, not “lazy”, because they’re overworked by billionaires.
Capitalism is always the problem. Okay, very rarely organized religion or genuine natural disasters, but almost always capitalism.
The ESA is a mouthpiece for companies that want you to own nothing and do nothing that they don’t approve of and benefit from.
you do know that like 85% of TF2 servers (yes there are still TF2 players) are community hosted? I hope this dipshit is ready to deal with the business end of a fully loaded Gaben.
a bit of context as a current Minecraft player:
About two years ago, Microsoft made Mojang add a rather draconian player reporting feature to all of their server software that constantly scans the chat for “malicious content.” “Malicious content” is the usual boilerplate corporate image ass covering, but while that is bad enough, it also has the power to ban a player from even accessing their OWN private, Singleplayer world, should the algorithm deem the infraction severe enough. Unfortunately, the console version of the game (known as “Bedrock” by the community, due to it having a shared cross play API for all console ports) was wholly owned by Microsoft, with Mojang only getting a developer credit. This means for the console player, there is little to be done. Meanwhile on the original PC version (Known as “Java” for the language it’s coded in) had this implemented as well, but because Mojang owns all the licencing for THAT version, and they have an open, “hands off” modding API policy (within reason) for it, Modders IMMEDIATELY coded a workaround that deactivates the part of the code operating the chat reporting feature, by spoofing the blockchain authentications that verify that the chat entries scanned are “authentic” (basically it makes the receiving server at Mojang believe that every chat entry’s “encryption key” is “inauthentic” so it can ignore all of them, no matter what their content is. The clever bastards.) This mod (“no chat reports”) is now considered a part of standard server op support QoL installs, for the Java player base.
If it’s piracy either way then why are we paying?
Well then, I guess we will just have to make better OpenSource games, now won’t we?
can really recommended beyond all reason, a foss rts game, in the style of supreme commander. running on lua.
So it’s piracy to use the software that comes with the game? The Java version of the game, at least, has always come with the software to run your own server without needing to rent one directly from any specific vendor.
The ESA can go fuck itself.
The java version authenticates with Microsoft and Mojang to prove valid ownership and to make sure parental controls are applied to accounts. I believe they are talking about unauthenticated servers that allow pirated accounts to join. Its similar to private MMO servers that are setup in a similar way. Same files, used unsupervised.
Generally this type of thing only matters with games that kids play, because people tend to try to protect kids. Games explicitly for adults seem to be able to be more free with what they allow.
Microsoft’s official server binary, distributed by Microsoft themselves, has the option to not authenticate with Mojang’s servers. You don’t even need to modify it. I wouldn’t call that one piracy.
Sure, and WoW ships with a file that directs you to the official servers, that you can change to any IP address.
Besides all that I’m simply explaining the companies position. If you want to pirate the game feel free. If you want to allow “offline” accounts to join your server, feel free to do that too.
Big “Home Taping is Killing Music” energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music
I thought it was Napster that was killing music… 🤔
No, that was after the home taping killed it.
It is like Schrodinger’s Cat. Both alive and be killed by anything.McDonald’s getting killed by home cooked burgers.
AI is being killed by local models also. So many things are killing so many things!
Reading this article, ESA feels like the evil archenemies of the Stop Killing Games folks. As SKG put it, the talk of illegality was to mislead a Californian legislator too busy to fact check.
That said, the real fight ESA is pushing is more in regards to private servers for MMOs and other always-online games that SKG wants to be legal as part of preservation. I personally disagree with ESA in that regard, although I can understand their legal argument regarding the lawsuits on World of Warcraft private servers, mentioned in the article.
(Though, my two cents, I personally feel “free market” should mean official servers are better and earn their subscriptions: more people, more reliable, better content, etc… but they usually aren’t. So fuck them, lol).
Wtf would WoW private servers be illegal
If they used official closed source code, there is some legal issues, if challenged, but if they reverse engineered the server code then it’s a lot more leeway (similar to emulators). Most private servers I’m familiar with are reverse engineered, though, and since the assets and such are generally client side, nothing the server hosts is illegal.
Though again, I don’t even think that should be illegal but c’est la vie; it’s copyrighted code.
Edit: former and latter are two different things, and I need to be more careful when I change my sentence structure after writing it.
What private server uses Blizzard’s proprietary server cose
Oh I have no idea, I don’t play that game but I imagine it’s none. Every MMO server I’ve seen was reverse engineered. The lawsuits in those cases are probably frivolous, although you never know how courts go.
I’m confused, since the comment I replied to said that most private servers you were aware of used proprietary code.
Oh I typo’d. I can fix it.
(I remember now, I changed the sentence structure after the fact. Sorry about that)
Gotcha