- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- privacy@programming.dev
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.”
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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?
so all tf2 servers (non casual or comp) is illegal now?
All I heard from the ESA representative is : “If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.” 🦜
I was like what the hell is the European Space Agency doing with Minecraft in California…
Exploring the vacuum between the ears of these people apparently
THAT’S ILLEGAL REEEEE
We’ll keep up the good work, then.
We reached out to all gamers everywhere and a spokesman for the group responded with the following statement:
Lol wut?
Fucking noobs…
Lol wut?
Fucking noobs…
IP has more rights than people.
If it’s piracy either way then why are we paying?
It’s not baffling, if you realize its the ESA saying it.
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.
Tell me you’ve never hosted a Minecraft server without telling me you’ve never hosted a Minecraft server.
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.
The official minecraft client jar has an option to disable authentication with mojang servers too btw
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
I didn’t know mojang had any official servers aside from the bedrock one that was used for the mob vote
Huh
They don’t. There’s realms. What I’m referring to is the EULA for running those servers. Mojang blocks IPs all the time.
Oh right, i forgot about realms
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.
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???“
What I would give to have these fucks having an inkling of what it is they’re talking about.
They know. They don’t care that it makes no sense. To them anyone with money that is not paying all of it to them is a criminal.
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.
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.
So absolutely no one I respect. Nice. ESA go fuck yourself.
Yes. I was worried while I read the list, but known assholes top to bottom. That’s nice, I guess?
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.
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.
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.
very rarely organized religion
Religion is fucking up a lot more than you think
It’s not warming the planet so it’s definitely a backseat evil right now
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
The way I see it there are two possible reasons:
- 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.
- 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!
Saruman and Gríma just want to shape and influence the largest cavalry force of Middle Earth…
