The copyright statute of Slashdot's home country defines a "copy" as a physical object in which a work is embodied, such as a book, ROM cartridge, or optical disc. The statutory license associated with ownership of a copy of a computer program includes making intermediate copies "as an essential step" in the use of the program. Title 17, United States Code, section 117. Historically, console makers and game publishers have lacked power to revoke this license with respect to a particular copy of a game that isn't online-only. With the end of video game distribution on optical disc, this license becomes revocable, and that's the problem.

"the manager" lol you sound like you work at a gas station

I'll have to disagree with you on that. What matters for reproducible builds is that the person performing the build has power to set the seed.

True, misinformation coming from "trusted" sources is much more damaging than some idiot with a blog posting nonsense, simply by the fact that it's framed as something trusted by so many others.

False dichotomy. Nobody here is talking about an idiot with a blog posting nonsense.

False information coming from sources that "look" trustable but are actually not are very damaging - on purpose, as that is literally the intent.

Incomplete/biased information from trustable sources that are not deliberately attempting to mislead (as in sources that adhere to the ethics of not presenting information that is factually false, even if the picture is not "complete" as you suggest) is a slight wrong, and has existed since the dawn of the printed word - it's editorial in nature - but its effects on creating social problems pales in comparison to weaponized disinformation campaigns.

Hand-wringing about the later as if it's some kind of new thing, or something most people don't know about strikes me as super naive. The insidiousness of the former is simply that people don't appreciate the scale to which it's happening.

No, but treating two wrongs as the same degree of wrongness is pretty dumb.

Or just shit like this: https://www.wsj.com/business/m...

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.

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

yes yes "i'm old and cranky"

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"?