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·
    7 days ago

    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.

  • Aneorthisio@lemmy.mlEnglish
    40·
    7 days ago

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

  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    7 days ago

    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
    30·
    7 days ago

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

    • nanoSwiss@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      6 days ago

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

  • timestatic@feddit.orgEnglish
    24·
    7 days ago

    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·
      6 days ago

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

  • TheStaffmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    6 days ago

    you do know that like 85% of TF2 servers (yes there are still TF2 players) are community hosted? I hope this dipshit is ready to deal with the business end of a fully loaded Gaben.

    a bit of context as a current Minecraft player:

    About two years ago, Microsoft made Mojang add a rather draconian player reporting feature to all of their server software that constantly scans the chat for “malicious content.” “Malicious content” is the usual boilerplate corporate image ass covering, but while that is bad enough, it also has the power to ban a player from even accessing their OWN private, Singleplayer world, should the algorithm deem the infraction severe enough. Unfortunately, the console version of the game (known as “Bedrock” by the community, due to it having a shared cross play API for all console ports) was wholly owned by Microsoft, with Mojang only getting a developer credit. This means for the console player, there is little to be done. Meanwhile on the original PC version (Known as “Java” for the language it’s coded in) had this implemented as well, but because Mojang owns all the licencing for THAT version, and they have an open, “hands off” modding API policy (within reason) for it, Modders IMMEDIATELY coded a workaround that deactivates the part of the code operating the chat reporting feature, by spoofing the blockchain authentications that verify that the chat entries scanned are “authentic” (basically it makes the receiving server at Mojang believe that every chat entry’s “encryption key” is “inauthentic” so it can ignore all of them, no matter what their content is. The clever bastards.) This mod (“no chat reports”) is now considered a part of standard server op support QoL installs, for the Java player base.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    283·
    7 days ago

    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???“