Steam is a service. Access to games sold via Steam are part of that service. I accept this.
Yeah, I think as previously mentioned this is key.
I mean I understand Thad's attitude about not giving up your rights. There's a valid point in that. But I pride myself on being a practical man. If all that needs to happen to make my objections go away is for me to
just call Steam something else, then it becomes purely an issue of sematics. That's a world of difference to something that is actually doing
real harm, no matter what name you hang on it.
To expand the idea of looking at Steam like a rental, lease, or carnival funhouse (i.e. a charge-per-ride), you can see the doctrine of renting or leasing has as much validity as the doctrine of first sale. Both are valid business options. And you can argue that Steam use carries a higher level of rights than does renting, since you pay a one-time fee and have no usage constraints for the duration of the company's existance. That's a pretty fucking favourable rental contract. It's favourable enough that it may be a new form of posession, something between the limited rights of loans or rentals, but less permanent than true ownership. In this case, the only thing Steam is guilty of doing is misrepresenting itself. Certainly that's objectionable,
but it's a different complaint than one about DRM.On the other hand, it doesn't matter what label is applied to invasive DRM like SecuROM, it's still going to fuck up your shit.
The crux here is that Steam is operating like a (mostly) sensible and conventional business, trying to engage the customer, build good loyalty, and sell good products that people want. Whereas the RIAA/MPAA/anyone else whoring DRM have basically chosen to actually
go to war with their customers. In those cases, the relationship has ceased to be a business one, between a producer and a consumer, and has instead morphed into something absurd, with a greater resemblance to to a gutter brawl between two cockney pickpockets who've simultaneously caught each other than thing else.
Fear of new distribution models cuts both ways. Perhaps Steam-type applications
are the way of the future, or are at least part of it. If it turns out in the long run that this model is being abused, it will generate discontent and we will fight against it then, in the same ways that SecuROM is fought now, with information and our wallets. That's capitalism at it's finest. The only thing that could prevent you from fighting against Steam-esque distribution models in the future, is if this is banned somehow. And you know who to blame then? Your goverment, not Valve. If you really think that your rights of first sale and ownership are so insecure that Steam represents some kind of irrevocable first-stage slippery slope toward the re-definition or removal of those rights, then your problem isn't merely an exploitive corporation, it's much
much bigger.
*
I swear I will hit the first smartass who quotes Martin Niemöller
