miskApr 10, 2025

Ubisoft holds firm in The Crew lawsuit: You don’t own your video games

https://sopuli.xyz/post/25192820

Ubisoft holds firm in The Crew lawsuit: You don’t own your video games - Sopuli

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.09-191645/https://www.polygon.com/gaming/555469/ubisoft-holds-firm-in-the-crew-lawsuit-you-dont-own-your-video-games [https://archive.is/2025.04.09-191645/https://www.polygon.com/gaming/555469/ubisoft-holds-firm-in-the-crew-lawsuit-you-dont-own-your-video-games] > Ubisoft responded to California gamers’ The Crewshutdown lawsuit [https://archive.is/o/BxD7J/https://www.polygon.com/gaming/476979/ubisoft-the-crew-shut-down-lawsuit-class-action] in late February, filing to dismiss the case. The company’s lawyers argued in that filing, reviewed by Polygon [https://archive.is/o/BxD7J/https://www.scribd.com/document/848030901/The-Crew-lawsuit-Ubisoft-response-via-Polygon], that there was no reason for players to believe they were purchasing “unfettered ownership rights in the game.” Ubisoft has made it clear, lawyers claimed, that when you buy a copy of The Crew, you’re merely buying a limited access license. > “Frustrated with Ubisoft’s recent decision to retire the game following a notice period delineated on the product’s packaging, Plaintiffs apply a kitchen sink approach on behalf of a putative class of nationwide customers, alleging eight causes of action including violations of California’s False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, as well as common law fraud and breach of warranty claims,” Ubisoft’s lawyers wrote.

Show threadthemoonisacheeseApr 10, 2025
Oh cool then piracy isn’t theft.
Show threadAlkApr 10, 2025
I agree with the sentiment, but what exactly is the explanation for this? If you’re allowed to lease or rent or purchase a license, isn’t stealing that thing for free still theft?
Show threadthemoonisacheeseApr 10, 2025
I couldn’t possibly care less about what a megacorp tries telling me what I may or may not do with information that can be copied perfectly and infinitely at 0 cost.
Show threadAlkApr 10, 2025

I 100% agree. However, this statement is a very large blanket statement. I see it repeated all over the place. It’s great to pirate from greedy megacorps. I do it. It’s great. But it’s not a great statement to repeat ad nauseam because it doesn’t apply to

  • small creators
  • literally anything that’s not a “pay once license” (including leasing, renting, etc) If this sentiment gets too popular it will also discourage people from paying for unrevokable copies of content like from GOG or directly from a creator (patreon, etc). It’s more like “if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft (sometimes)”

The people who argue against piracy of megacorporations’ content will bring up these points every time because this phrase makes no sense from their perspective. It prevents actual discussion from taking place. It’s not productive to our cause to use something so ambiguous and inflammatory as a catch phrase.

Show threadmultiplemigs
Grant me the serenity to pirate the things from big corpos that need pirating, the courage to pay for indie work, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Apr 11, 2025 at 2:06pmWeb