Catch me on the corner selling server.jar out of a long trenchcoat.

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.”

  • Daedskin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    47·
    3 天前

    It’s blatantly a bad stance from them; but it doesn’t even touch on games that use internal client/server models even when playing single-player — which includes Minecraft. If their argument were law, would I be breaking it by just playing Minecraft at all? With the way it’s worded, I would think yes.

    That doesn’t even take into account that Minecraft in particular can turn a single-player client/server into a multiplayer with one button press. Would that be illegal? Maybe they’d argue not, because it’s LAN only (which is a flimsy argument as well). But with a little effort, you could open up that LAN server up to whomever you wanted.

    Very obvious they didn’t think it through, they just want you to own nothing.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    275·
    3 天前

    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???“

    • nanoSwiss@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 天前

      can really recommended beyond all reason, a foss rts game, in the style of supreme commander. running on lua.

  • Aneorthisio@lemmy.mlEnglish
    39·
    3 天前

    All I heard from the ESA representative is : “If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.” 🦜

  • Danitos@reddthat.comEnglish
    207·
    3 天前

    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.

      • TotalCourage007@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 天前

        Wonder how many of these guys employee lawyer trolls scumbags. looks and finds Nintendo Ninjas only one of the most bs litigous companies.

        • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 天前

          Not sure if they are lawyers but they are all employing scumbag trolls, that is what ESA is.

    • Koenig2005@feddit.orgEnglish
      36·
      3 天前

      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.

      • Err(()).unwrap()@lemmy.worldEnglish
        66·
        3 天前

        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.

        • DearOldGrandma@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          3 天前

          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

          • ripcord@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            3 天前

            Things have gotten so out of control because people have gotten stupid and lazy and put up with all of this shit.

            • 7101334@lemmy.worldEnglish
              15·
              3 天前

              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.

            • DearOldGrandma@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              3 天前

              Also true. It doesn’t help that the most successful and influential people in this time-frame have also been widely manipulative by pulling the ladder to success up with them, dismantling education, and increasing the amount of sugar and other unhealthy things in our food

      • Vittelius@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        25·
        3 天前

        The way I see it there are two possible reasons:

        1. incompetence: The statement in question was said by ESA’s vice president for state government affairs, in other words a professional lobbyist. Video games are her day job, not her hobby. I don’t know how much she actually plays herself. It may therefore be the case that she wasn’t briefed properly or she got confused. The ESA is currently persuing legal action against certain private servers after all. The article contains specifics on those but in short: Those servers enable piracy, the Minecraft ones don’t.
        2. they are lying: the whole thing was part of a hearing on Stop Killing Games. Private servers are one of the ways to fulfill their demands. It is the industry’s position that implementing those is too complicated. Each instance of private servers existing weakens the argument. So better pretend that those don’t exist. After all gamers won’t even learn about this statement. It’s a random California state senate hearing. They don’t watch those!
      • AudaciousArmadillo@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        4·
        3 天前

        That’s a left over from the indie days. I highly doubt they’d make that available in a new game. But in this case I think its probably a law person that has no clue about games.

    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zipEnglish
      10·
      3 天前

      Thank for for this list.

      I was prepared to add to my boycot list, but I guess sometimes the biggest assholes are exactly who we already expected.

      • Aneorthisio@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5·
        3 天前

        Netflix has a studio that publishes games on mobile, one of their most well known product is partnering with Take2/Rockstar to port the Definitive Edition of GTAIII/VC/SA to mobile.

      • Vittelius@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        2·
        2 天前

        Sort of… It’s a different company that bought the name years ago when the old Atari went bankrupt. Technically it’s a French publisher formerly known as Infogrames.

  • supernicepojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    212·
    3 天前

    Of all the hot takes in the world, that statement is the dumbest thing I have ever heard someone say. Completely out-of-touch with the case, with the subject and with the games referenced. It is literally wronger than Flat Earth and young earth creationism in a single sentence. I would quote Bully Madison but even that wouldnt suffice.

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    3 天前

    We reached out to all gamers everywhere and a spokesman for the group responded with the following statement:

    Lol wut?

    Fucking noobs…

  • MrMakabar@slrpnk.netEnglish
    29·
    3 天前

    I was like what the hell is the European Space Agency doing with Minecraft in California…

  • timestatic@feddit.orgEnglish
    23·
    3 天前

    Yeah obviously since these games don’t want private servers they provided the exact files to host your own server. Do they really believe the courts are that stupid?

    • Auth@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 天前

      They arent saying games have to enforce it they’re saying they have the right to enforce it if they choose. Clearly they arent.

  • Kairos@lemmy.todayEnglish
    52·
    3 天前

    Gibbons cut in: “They’re illegal. They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers.”

    Oh this bullshit with the EULA

    • Axolotl@feddit.itEnglish
      6·
      3 天前

      I didn’t know mojang had any official servers aside from the bedrock one that was used for the mob vote

      Huh

    • Damage@feddit.itEnglish
      20·
      3 天前

      For a moment there I was wondering what was happening on the ISS for ESA to make such a statement

    • CluckN@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      3 天前

      I had to google ESA multiple times because I kept getting AI summaries for the space agency.

        • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          3 天前

          So Imma be real with you. I switched to DDG full time on all my devices, mostly out of security concerns and the desire to not feed the monopoly.

          That said, DDG is so much worse at finding what I’m actually looking for than Google ever was. It’s a bit frustrating, I have so many reasons to like DDG, but being a good search engine isn’t one of them.

          But for the record, Google isn’t great at finding what I want anymore either, and with its AI bullshit it’s likely to simply lie to me. Really, 2010 Google search is superior to modern Google search by every metric possible, that was peak web search for me.

          • dangrousperson@feddit.orgEnglish
            2·
            2 天前

            I know exactly what you mean, felt the same way for me. I’ve started using qwant recently and I feel like it has better results. Still not quite as good as google is at the moment and nowhere as good as google used to be, but at the rate google is enshittifying its only a matter of time until qwant is better.

          • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
            4·
            3 天前

            Eh, I really haven’t missed it. Google is still there if I really need it … but chances are that if I can’t find it on DDG, I won’t find it on Google either.

        • blitzen@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          3 天前

          I’m the AI skeptic in my group, but even I use it occasionally for super targeted stuff. It’s pretty good at finding errors in my excel formulas.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.ukEnglish
    48·
    3 天前

    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.

    • WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.todayEnglish
      45·
      3 天前

      The ESA isn’t stupid, they’re just making the statement to give the politicians in their pockets a cover excuse for making it illegal that the actual dumbasses who support those politicians will buy.

      • Vittelius@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        7·
        3 天前

        And they’ve been successful with that strategy (for now)

        Regardless, the Protect Our Games Act did not make it out of this stage of the legislative process. With four aye votes, three noes, and four abstentions, it failed to accrue the majority of ayes necessary to pass. Nevertheless, it has been granted a reconsideration, so it’s not the end.