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To retain your DRM free stance, please fix your user agreement to allow reverse engineering and tinkering when it's fair use
and to license Galaxy under GPLv3 when it's released for Linux, could be a very good fit for the community
I propose this wish to be merged with the GOM (Good Old Mods) wish.
In most jurisdictions you can reverse engineer and tinker regardless of the end user license - *IF* you are doing it privately (you can't distribute the results). Once you start sharing with everyone and with grandmothers cat, then that's not fair use.
So many mistaken minds. If only people bothered to educate themselves better. Sigh.
I'm here because steam got too big for it's britches, be a shame to have to leave GoG if it does the same.
This topic is a minefield, and hopefully GOG will take a stand for freedom and join FSF, GNU, P2P and others that recognize this commercial transition to nurture and encourage fans and customers to be creative and innovative as opposed to becoming cash-cow zombies and drones.
GOG updated the TOS, but this issue wasn't really fixed:
www.gog.com/support/policies/gog_user_agreement
> (b) Regarding GOG content, what you can do practically (which includes to modify, merge, distribute, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works of it) depends on what the GOG content rights holder allows you to do (GOG can’t grant such rights), so please check this with the rights holder directly (the first thing you should do though is to check if they have a EULA and if so what it says). We also ask that you make only genuine attempts to improve the GOG content.
(c) Regarding GOG services (which includes GOG software), unless you have prior GOG permission please don’t modify, merge, distribute, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create derivative works ofthem – unless you’re allowed in this Agreement or by the law in your country. We’d like to emphasise that you are free to contact us for permission to do these things and we will review and respond to those requests in good faith. More generally, at some point in the future we want to open client protocols to make it easier for users to work with GOG data/software without any need for reverse engineering or similar techniques.
Sure, we can contact GOG for permission, but the point was not to prohibit what is acceptable fair use to begin with.
As Matruchus wrote. As long as you live in EU, just copy and chop what ever you want into peices and do what ever you want with it, no matter what the EULA sais. BUT remember, it's not allowed to share the stuff you've tinkered with.
There is some movement on this from GOG. See here: www.gog.com/forum/general/upcoming_update_to_gogcom_policies/post320
What a let-down.
You know all this talk about EULA's is totally unimportant for EU since they can not be used in the EU since 2012 when the European Court rulled that they are not permissible.
Well, I think that maybe it would be better if games with their own EULA were not under general GOG user agreement. That way the rightsholders of game could choose their own restrictions. Games without any EULA (are there any?) should also be excluded from this. I don't know, but GOG has it's reasons for that kind of user agreement. Publishers like that? Anyways it's not that kind of digital restriction, which tries to restrict user with software. It's just a user agreement, but I don't want to break any laws or promises I have agreed. Even GOG supported streamers have broke that user agreement already.
We don't need a GOG blanket TOS to forbid what makes GOG a platform I want to support. Prohibiting tinkering and RE is an anti consumer and anti intellectual stance.
Just when Mod are kinda slowly creeping back to another platform out side of official supported form without getting banned, GOG please don't put up some walls that prevent people to mod their rightfully purchased games. It is already a mine field that each software have their EULA already, we don't need a GOG blanket TOS to forbid what makes GOG games great.
I can understand that your new galaxy platform don't want to get "pirated" and spawn competitors out of blue, but adding restrictive TOS isn't a proper way, nor an effective panic button to push.
Gog should reflect their "pro-customer " stance also here with "pro-customer" clauses which grants several rights. And not with restriction formulations of what customers are not allowed to do with their own bought product. (Which is according to EU ruling overall invalid as the "licensed, not sold" position was crushed arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/top-eu-court-upholds-right-to-resell-downloaded-software/ )
This is the kind of anti-consumer behavior I expect from EAUbiActi, not GOG. Remember the principles your business was founded on.
Fair use is a biggy for me. I'll be monitoring this warily and I'll hold off any purchase until this bit is clear (and to my satisfaction) I frequently use Windows-only games that work perfectly fine on a native engine on my system (Wine, DOS-Box, ScummVM and similar solutions)
Never thought it would be something I'd ever have to worry about from GOG. This is getting pretty screwed up.
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