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[BigD145]

And if someone does end up paying 3$ for pirate version of Dungeons of Dredmor [example], unaware that their specific copy is illegitimate, do they or the distributor get penalized/tried?

The buyer is not at fault in your example and cannot be tried for a crime.

[IronyOwl]

The discrepancy can't really be addressed unless they happen to know that a digital download is a pirated version or not, yes?

This is indeed an issue, but it's an issue with figuring out whether something is true or not, not any kind of legal blurriness.

If so then they'll have to assume every digital download is illegitimate and act from there.

Who's they and what makes you say that?

And if someone does end up paying 3$ for pirate version of Dungeons of Dredmor [example], unaware that their specific copy is illegitimate, do they or the distributor get penalized/tried?

This you will need Truean for. In general, I believe the way illegal sales works is like this:

Intentional parties are of course guilty of some manner of crime, while unintentional parties are innocent but still illegitimate, so while they aren't charged with any crimes, they might have their illegal goods confiscated. I'm really not sure of that last part, though, and "unintentional" can sometimes mean "made reasonable attempts to confirm legitimacy and found no reason to suspect otherwise," not just "didn't bother asking."

Odds are if this gets done at all the reselling will probably need to be done through whatever it was bought from originally. I don't think any part of this is allowing trading of burned and cracked CDs.

I'm actually not so sure of this. I don't think the ruling addressed it specifically, but in theory burning the data onto a CD could be a perfectly legitimate (if rather suspicious) form of transport.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

And if someone does end up paying 3$ for pirate version of Dungeons of Dredmor [example], unaware that their specific copy is illegitimate, do they or the distributor get penalized/tried?

The buyer is not at fault in your example and cannot be tried for a crime.

I was going to mention that some would be lulled into a false sense of security by the service most likely, leading to people unintentionally trusting a distributor and then getting slapped with penalties for doing such. The judge could decide you, the buyer, didn't care enough to research the distributor and blame you for the entire incident. So that could go either way.

"unintentional" can sometimes mean "made reasonable attempts to confirm legitimacy and found no reason to suspect otherwise,"

[note that not even a governmental organization at this point can tell 100% whether or not an online operation is legitimate without investigation a la Megaupload]

Which is not what typical buyers would do with Steam, so why would they feel compelled to do so with x new group out there selling games for a discount? Are downloaders to look into hex codes and try to decipher if a cracker has messed with it? Since if you open that program [Making you a compliant party] you're as liable as the distributor AFAIK.

[freeformschooler]

I'm actually not so sure of this. I don't think the ruling addressed it specifically, but in theory burning the data onto a CD could be a perfectly legitimate (if rather suspicious) form of transport.

Oh, I can just see this now.

"The Big Apple, New York. The time is 8:00 AM, January 21st, Near Future. The streets are dangerous, windows are shut and shuttered, and game publishers live in fear... of the bootleg cartels who run the city."

[Aklyon]

An investigation a la MegaUpload would involve temporarily sounding credible, followed by making a complete fool of said organization to attempt to force a predetermined outcome, with more holes in their methods the longer it takes.

[IronyOwl]

I was going to mention that some would be lulled into a false sense of security by the service most likely, leading to people unintentionally trusting a distributor and then getting slapped with penalties for doing such. The judge could decide you, the buyer, didn't care enough to research the distributor and blame you for the entire incident. So that could go either way.

"unintentional" can sometimes mean "made reasonable attempts to confirm legitimacy and found no reason to suspect otherwise,"

[note that not even a governmental organization at this point can tell 100% whether or not an online operation is legitimate without investigation a la Megaupload]

Which is not what typical buyers would do with Steam, so why would they feel compelled to do so with x new group out there selling games for a discount? Are downloaders to look into hex codes and try to decipher if a cracker has messed with it? Since if you open that program [Making you a compliant party] you're as liable as the distributor AFAIK.

Do you have some particular reason to suspect rampant and unreasonable abuse of the word "reasonable" by judges, or are you just sort of going off on a tangent here?

An investigation a la MegaUpload would involve temporarily sounding credible, followed by making a complete fool of said organization to attempt to force a predetermined outcome, with more holes in their methods the longer it takes.

I don't get it. Presumably because I haven't been keeping up with that.

[BigD145]

And if someone does end up paying 3$ for pirate version of Dungeons of Dredmor [example], unaware that their specific copy is illegitimate, do they or the distributor get penalized/tried?

The buyer is not at fault in your example and cannot be tried for a crime.

I was going to mention that some would be lulled into a false sense of security by the service most likely, leading to people unintentionally trusting a distributor and then getting slapped with penalties for doing such. The judge could decide you, the buyer, didn't care enough to research the distributor and blame you for the entire incident. So that could go either way.

"unintentional" can sometimes mean "made reasonable attempts to confirm legitimacy and found no reason to suspect otherwise,"

[note that not even a governmental organization at this point can tell 100% whether or not an online operation is legitimate without investigation a la Megaupload]

Which is not what typical buyers would do with Steam, so why would they feel compelled to do so with x new group out there selling games for a discount? Are downloaders to look into hex codes and try to decipher if a cracker has messed with it? Since if you open that program [Making you a compliant party] you're as liable as the distributor AFAIK.

Only a judge with a chip on their shoulder would rule against someone unaware of the legitimacy of their purchase. F* those judges. Call out their bias and find another court.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

It doesn't necessarily matter, as these issues will come up in future court cases if the rather large discrepancies [the huge openness of legal-eze involved in these areas] in these issues refuse to be fixed still. I'm talking about overlapping copyright/international law, of course.

[Aklyon]

An investigation a la MegaUpload would involve temporarily sounding credible, followed by making a complete fool of said organization to attempt to force a predetermined outcome, with more holes in their methods the longer it takes.

I don't get it. Presumably because I haven't been keeping up with that.

They've been finding more and more problems with the fed's side of the case and its prcedures as it goes on. Most recent one here.

[IronyOwl]

An investigation a la MegaUpload would involve temporarily sounding credible, followed by making a complete fool of said organization to attempt to force a predetermined outcome, with more holes in their methods the longer it takes.

I don't get it. Presumably because I haven't been keeping up with that.

They've been finding more and more problems with the fed's side of the case and its prcedures as it goes on. Most recent one here.

Just read a few of these.

Ouch.

[fenrif]

I've been thinking more about this, and I wonder if this wont be a great thing for services like steam in the long haul.

Valve's entire buisness model with steam seems to be focused around getting people using the service, and then once they're plugged in getting them to buy all their games there. Once they have you on the service they can advertise to you every time you play a game, and keep you coming back with huge reductions and free weekends and things.

Now if you can take a game you've beat and send it to a friend, who either doesn't have steam, or doesn't use it much... Well that's just one more potential customer for valve. I'm not 100% sure, but I imagine that once they've got someone on steam that they have a fairly high percent of them turn into future sales. And once people start buying more games on steam, their list grows, which makes them come back to steam more and the cycle repeats.

I can't imagine it would even be that hard to impliment, since they allready have the whole steam trading thing set up. It'd keep people inside the steam system, and allow more non-users to be brought in where they can see the ads and buy more games.

Just my laymans opinion anyway. At any rate I bet they're glad they brought that economist on staff.

[ductape]

expect prices to go up to cover the lost profits.

[fenrif]

expect prices to go up to cover the lost profits.

Expect sales to go down then I guess?

[Rose]

Am I the only person who thinks this opens up a huge can of worms and isn't 100% a good thing?

[freeformschooler]

Am I the only person who thinks this opens up a huge can of worms and isn't 100% a good thing?

Definitely not the only one. I'm withholding most of those opinions, though, in favor of supporting a very powerful group of people fighting for a dream(?) of excellent consumers' rights. We don't hear about that as much.