Mark Methenitis

@Erron Kelly

Erron (and anyone else who made note of this),

My closing doesn't specifically address the built in cheats in StarCraft II because I still (unfortunately) haven't had a chance to play anything other than the beta. It was speaking to the bigger picture, since not all PC game developers include these kind of systems but any could use the rationale in this case to pursue cheaters.

I've made an edit to the piece indicating that is reliance on an analysis of the Directive, not the directive itself, and have linked accordingly. Hope that clarifies the issue.

My apologies, I had both http://www.wak-tt.com/tt/2yearwarranty1.htm and http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31999L0044:en:HTML open, and while the former almost exclusively quotes the latter in those parts, it seems that one sentence was not taken from the directive. That sentence summarizes this portion of the Directive:

"4. The seller shall not be bound by public statements, as referred to in paragraph 2(d) if he:

- shows that he was not, and could not reasonably have been, aware of the statement in question,

- shows that by the time of conclusion of the contract the statement had been corrected, or

- shows that the decision to buy the consumer goods could not have been influenced by the statement."

"under some states' consumer protection or deceptive trade practices statutes" is exactly where 'bait and switch' actions are typically covered, along with lots of other deceptive business and sales practices. The point is there isn't a clear Federal baseline that can be pointed to, unlike the EU discussion, and thus those rules and their particulars can (and do) vary widely.

DJAtomica:

Explaining this on the baseline of the EU Directive (which is a minimum standard that had to be enacted by all member states) was far simpler than trying to explain this as implemented in every state in the EU. It's just like speaking in terms of general legal concepts in the US rather than presenting this as a 50 state analysis. If these articles went to that level of detail, they would be 10,000 words and no one would read them.

As I pointed out in another comment, this is a questions of advertising and representations to induce sale, not Sony's rights under the EULA.

These are actually two different issues. Yes, Sony has the rights under the EULA to modify the software, but at the same time, because the product was advertised as having that feature, the various implementations of the EU directive would find that to be a form of misleading advertisement.

Perhaps my overarching point wasn't clear enough: The issue isn't the loss of the feature; it's how much that feature was used to sell the product such that the loss is a form of misleading advertisement or inducement to purchase the product. It's almost more in line with the idea of 'bait and switch' than it is an issue of Sony going beyond their stated license for the software.

Patrick,

You're correct to an extent, and that's part of why this is nebulous. I haven't actually played Guitar Hero Arcade (I own the home versions), so I'm not certain whether this includes the cover tracks from the earlier games or the actual licensed tracks from the newer games. And I wasn't able to find a clear answer online to that question either.

However, if you visit the ASCAP site, you'll note that they do license downstream to TV (broadcast and cable), film, and new media...to the extend these are not sync rights. I should have explained that better.

However, to the extent there is a direct license for an original track to an arcade unit, that license should specify any public performance rights because of the nature of the machine. Arcade operators have a legitimate gripe if they are otherwise not utilizing any ASCAP license that this one machine with limited application as a jukebox would require one, especially given that ASCAP does not have a license specific to this kind of application (whereas they do for others). You'll also note this was never even at issue with DDR or other Japanese games.

I don't necessarily disagree with your point; more than likely this is more appropriate as a tack on to the bankruptcy proceedings. That being said, most of these employees need to figure out what, if anything, they're owed before proceeding with a filing in the bankruptcy proceedings, and an employment attorney would have those answers. But, overall, it's likely that both an employment and bankruptcy counsel would be needed.

Between my writing of this and its publication, there was some additional commentary on the bill posted on GamePolitics. I have posted my thoughts on those comments on Law of the Game at http://lawofthegame.blogspot.com/2009/02/lgj-jack-thompsons-utah-game-bill.html.

Doesn't NBC stream their shows for free on their website? So, really, there isn't much excuse to pirate it.