Not once the console maker shuts down the platform's reactivation servers.

Or say the publisher wants to publish a multiplayer game where players 2 through 4 can download a limited-functionality version of the game without charge so long as player 1 is a paying licensee and on their mutual contacts list. This resembles the model used by StarCraft spawned installations, single-Pak multiplayer on Game Boy Advance, and DS Download Play on Nintendo DS. I don't think all consoles support this sort of game sharing.

Correct. The digital restrictions management regime on paid downloads from PlayStation Store doesn't grant rights to a licensee that are equivalent to those that the law reserves for the owner of a copy. The complaint, as I understand it, is that the required notice of inequivalence is not conspicuous enough.

The benefits are not the same if the publisher or the platform gatekeeper retains the ability to remotely disable licensed software.

Or, in the case of certain failure modes of PlayStation Store (such as end of support for a particular platform), the ability to restore your license to replacement hardware.

You also have to give them achievable parameters. "You are always responsible" is not realistic. In some cases someone else is, in fact, responsible. And that's the rub of regulation, not that I think this means we shouldn't regulate, but it's going to always be true that doing it well takes effort. You can only ever reasonably expect that people are moving forwards (at best) and doing what is reasonably and humanly possible, and hopefully advancing the state of the art. Determining whether or not they are doing that is inherently complex.

I never heard of that being the case in the United States, where the lawsuit described in the featured article was filed.

That's how it used to work here in the USA. Then the subsidies were terminated in favor of forcing students to get loans. Then a US senator led a campaign to prevent those students from discharging that debt through bankruptcy. That senator's name was (and is) Joseph R. Biden.

The boomers got the handout. I don't want anything they didn't get.

I don't expect to get it. I do expect to immediately discount any bullshit from the hypocrites who got it and think I shouldn't get it.

You didn't get it, and you're insisting nobody deserves it because you didn't get it, which is sad. You're sad.

OK, how do we provide this feedback? The article is chock-full of links, but not one for that. It gives strong "get fucked" energy.

Since it's not worth putting out the effort to figure out where to submit some comments they definitely won't give a fuck about anyway: In no way is it a "first class" anything when it's only for GNOME and only in a snap. Let us know when it's ready for prime time so we can test it out and decide if we care. There's a 0% chance I'm going to use GNOME or snap.

Yes.

So you moved the goalposts and declared victory? Good work, clown.

HFDWHhwHAHQAHHAHAHAHAHHAHa HA HAHAHHAHAHAH ahHAHAHAHAH HA AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

That's like saying publishers of printed books, zines, and newspapers never sold books, zines, and newspapers.

Narrowing:
1. The right answer in the case of games with a substantial offline experience is to not make the license for the offline portion revocable.
2. The right answer in the case of games without a substantial offline experience is to describe the license as a rental at all times.

All three major console makers require all customers to "agree[] to let them change the terms when you signed up." If a game developer wants to sell a customer an indefinite license that the console maker can't revoke, the developer has no way to do so. This appears to be evidence of a cartel to me. How is it not?

Say I buy an indefinite license to use a video game. Then the game's publisher or the platform's owner unilaterally revokes that license. What do I have to show for having "respect[ed] the time and effort that went into creating your enjoyment"?

Title 17, United States Code, reserves specific rights to the owner of a copy. It defines a copy as a physical object in which a work is fixed (17 USC 101).

The owner of a copy of a computer program retains the right to use that copy, including the right to make essential ephemeral copies in RAM, as long as the copy remains readable (17 USC 117).

As I understand it, ownership of a physical object is defined by the personal property laws of the several states.

A "copy" under United States copyright law is any physical object in which a work of authorship is fixed, such as a game cartridge or game disc. The owner of a lawfully made copy of a work enjoys two carveouts, or uses deemed noninfringing. One is reselling that copy (17 USC 109). Another is making private copies essential to the use of a computer program (17 USC 117). These carveouts subsist as long as the copy remains readable. A license through PlayStation Store does not.