General Category > General Discussion
Do you own digital downloads forever?
larryinc64:
GOG and most of Humble Bundle have no DRM and let you keep it forever, not sure about Steam, but Steam sales make up for it IMO on most stuff. Nintendo seems good with it on the Wii and DSi, not sure with Wii U or 3DS.
Einhander:
--- Quote from: Polygon on January 02, 2015, 04:08:38 PM ---It's simple. You don't own downloaded digital content. This has been proven by multiple court cases. You're only renting it. Don't plan of holding onto it forever. Assume that your ability to play it will be blocked at some point for any number of reasons.
--- End quote ---
But, can you explain to me how they can block the content when it's on your harddrive? How do they have access? That's all I want to know. I know that they own it and not us, but how are they able to block a game when it's on our harddrive?
sheep2001:
The embedded license has an expiry date. I am sure there are ways around it, but if you are going to go to the trouble of hacking for that, why would you pay for downloads in the first place?
wiggy:
--- Quote from: Polygon on January 02, 2015, 04:08:38 PM ---It's simple. You don't own downloaded digital content. This has been proven by multiple court cases. You're only renting it. Don't plan of holding onto it forever. Assume that your ability to play it will be blocked at some point for any number of reasons.
--- End quote ---
Technically you're licensing it. You don't own the music on your CDs either, or the movies on your DVDs, etc. It's always been that way, and it is because the laws are written so that you can't just make and sell copies (i.e. you don't own the media, because owning it would mean having the rights to resell it as you please).
The only difference is that there's realistically no way to revoke a license for physical media, but there is ZERO difference with regards to what you own or don't own when you buy a game/album/movie/etc.