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RottKing

Strife available on amazon digital download

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Doominator2 said:

I almost did till I found out you had to be American >:(


Didnt you read my previous post? It will let you buy if you give it an american zip code. I bought it and im not in the usa.

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No IP address geolocation check or anything like that? Might give it a try, not that I want to encourage this software pirate.

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GreyGhost said:

No IP address geolocation check or anything like that? Might give it a try, not that I want to encourage this software pirate.


Nope, not at least when i bought it. I dont have a problem with this, it's a digital download, and it's cheaper than most of the other physical copies of strife available there.

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doomgargoyle said:

Nope, not at least when i bought it. I dont have a problem with this, it's a digital download, and it's cheaper than most of the other physical copies of strife available there.


To be honest, I'm not tempted in the slightest to spend money in something that's probably controversial, if not downright illegal. Besides, I bought my Strife copy from Mercado Libre (eBay, but in Spanish) several years ago.

Quasar said:

Is the source code included? If not it's illegal and it needs to be reported.


Uhm, sorry, wasn't Strife's source code lost, or am I missing something?

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Zed said:

Uhm, sorry, wasn't Strife's source code lost, or am I missing something?

Yes. Technically it was recovered, however, through four years of reverse engineering work by two guys. I was one of those guys. The executable included in that package is the result of my work and is built from source code that I legally own.

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Quasar said:

Yes. Technically it was recovered, however, through four years of reverse engineering work by two guys. I was one of those guys. The executable included in that package is the result of my work and is built from source code that I legally own.


Really? I thought the doom source code belonged to id. Do you have the copyright over the fork?

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doomgargoyle said:

Really? I thought the doom source code belonged to id. Do you have the copyright over the fork?


Yes they do.

Many people have copyright over ChocoStrife. There's id for the original Doom source code release, Fraggle for the ChocoDoom codebase, Kaiser and Quasar for the reverse-engineering work and reconstruction of the Strife features, many minor contributors, plus the copyrights of used libraries like SDL and borrowed code like the DOSBox-derived OPL emulator. All this code is under the GPL (some parts may be under other, compatible licenses like LGPL) so the source code is supposed to be available either directly or on request.

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Zed said:

To be honest, I'm not tempted in the slightest to spend money in something that's probably controversial, if not downright illegal. Besides, I bought my Strife copy from Mercado Libre (eBay, but in Spanish) several years ago.


In this case the product is nicely packaged with an installer that conveniently installs on your pc without problems, and it's much cheaper than the other physical offerings there. Also, if you have a problem with being "not legit", then all copies sold including physical ones are "not legit" either, since all the money from those sales go to the seller of the physical copy, not the original IP owner. Blame the current copyright laws for this.

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doomgargoyle said:

Also, if you have a problem with being "not legit", then all copies sold including physical ones are "not legit" either, since all the money from those sales go to the seller of the physical copy, not the original IP owner.

The physical copies (unless bootleg) were bought from the original publisher long ago, so the rightholders got their due on them.

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A physical copy is different from an abandonware site copy. One of the important reasons was stated above. Another one would be that it's physical.

What's the difference between an abandonware site copy and an illegally sold digital copy? Aside from the fact that you waste your money on the latter, of course.

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Gez said:

The physical copies (unless bootleg) were bought from the original publisher long ago, so the rightholders got their due on them.


Doesnt matter. Money should be going to the original ip owner from that second sale, yet it doesnt. Try reselling any game on a steam account. It's not possible. Or at least it is under the agreement you bought that product on. And besides steam, the physical copy you bought is not yours to resell. When you bought it, you were really only granted a non-transferable license to use it and to make a single copy. You dont own anything, it's not yours to do whatever you want with it, including reselling it for a quick profit. And certainly not for $147, which is what several of these physical copies are being sold for. It certainly didnt cost $147 in the original sale.

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doomgargoyle said:

Money should be going to the original ip owner from that second sale

No, it shouldn't. A physical product is a product. Not a license.

Steam uses a different model, one where the game is not treated as a good but as a service, which means that you do not buy a product but merely an access to a game that can be revoked at any moment for any reason. That you think this is the better model is your own opinion only.

When Strife was released, this model of "non-transferable license" and "the customer doesn't own anything and has absolutely no right at all" did not exist yet. This was not the prevalent mindset at the time.

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Gez said:

No, it shouldn't. A physical product is a product. Not a license.

Steam uses a different model, one where the game is not treated as a good but as a service, which means that you do not buy a product but merely an access to a game that can be revoked at any moment for any reason. That you think this is the better model is your own opinion only.

When Strife was released, this model of "non-transferable license" and "the customer doesn't own anything and has absolutely no right at all" did not exist yet. This was not the prevalent mindset at the time.


I dont think it's a better model. And yes, software licenses were there back then too. There just wasn't any way to really enforce them back then. The physical product comes with a license. You were not allowed to just resell what you bought to a 3rd party without the original ip owner getting dough. Just like youre not allowed to resell those old console games you "own". The agreement under which you bought them doesnt allow reselling.

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doomgargoyle said:

Money should be going to the original ip owner from that second sale, yet it doesnt.

AFAIK it doesn't work that way for books, records, videos, designer clothes, fine art or pretty much any other consumable which may have some resale value. Why should software be different?

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doomgargoyle said:

And besides steam, the physical copy you bought is not yours to resell.

Fuck. That. Shit.

We're seeing enough of this "people don't own the things they bought" nonsense from the games industry itself. It's disappointing, I'd almost say heartbreaking to see that actual customers are now spouting that bullshit propaganda as well now.

I love Steam but it's not perfect in any sense. There absolutely should be a way to sell off your games via a second-hand market. It isn't a good feature of Steam that it doesn't allow you to do that. Second hand markets are good. For customers. That's who you should be dedicating your hot air rants to defending, not the interests of huge corporations who have placed themselves in a position of power over their customers and forbidden them to sell their own property.

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doomgargoyle said:

the physical copy you bought is not yours to resell

Of course it is.

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fraggle said:

Fuck. That. Shit.

We're seeing enough of this "people don't own the things they bought" nonsense from the games industry itself. It's disappointing, I'd almost say heartbreaking to see that actual customers are now spouting that bullshit propaganda as well now.

I love Steam but it's not perfect in any sense. There absolutely should be a way to sell off your games via a second-hand market. It isn't a good feature of Steam that it doesn't allow you to do that. Second hand markets are good. For customers. That's who you should be dedicating your hot air rants to defending, not the interests of huge corporations who have placed themselves in a position of power over their customers and forbidden them to sell their own property.


I dont like it either, but that's the way it is. I agree there should be a way to resell games that you bought on Steam or elsewhere other digital stores, but the way it is, it's not possible at least not legally. When you buy a vehicle, you own it, you can resell it, lease it, destroy it, etc. What you don't own is the designs of the vehicle and such. Same with any other physical good, but software is different, you only get a license to use it, that's it. The physical media is just a convenient way to install it.

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Okay, let's say I bought a physical copy from another dude who purchased it from a publisher.

Now prove that I didn't buy this copy from a publisher myself (and therefore have no right to use it).

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Step back a couple of decades and you'll notice that apart from expensive commercial software (which is often licensed on a per-user basis) publishers weren't all that fussed about the second-hand market.

doomgargoyle said:

The physical media is just a convenient way to install it.

I remember the good old days when software ran directly from the physical media - no installation required.

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fraggle said:

Fuck. That. Shit.

We're seeing enough of this "people don't own the things they bought" nonsense from the games industry itself. It's disappointing, I'd almost say heartbreaking to see that actual customers are now spouting that bullshit propaganda as well now.

Sorry but it's just a way authors decide to monetize their work. If the game's binding terms (and DRM) are too strong, feel free to avoid it. If there are competitors, great. If not, then too bad.

I can't say I own any of the software I use that I didn't program. I didn't write them. I just use them, and credit them for the help they bring me.

With free software, and if I'm skilled at computing/programming the bond becomes much stronger. Not only the binding terms are minimally against me, but I can add my work. Then I can say I own part of it, which is lovely.

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printz said:

Sorry but it's just a way authors decide to monetize their work. If the game's binding terms (and DRM) are too strong, feel free to avoid it. If there are competitors, great. If not, then too bad.

I can't say I own any of the software I use that I didn't program. I didn't write them. I just use them, and credit them for the help they bring me.

With free software, and if I'm skilled at computing/programming the bond becomes much stronger. Not only the binding terms are minimally against me, but I can add my work. Then I can say I own part of it, which is lovely.


Yes, exactly, when you buy a software product, it comes with a license agreement, that says that if you dont agree with it, you dont have the right to install the software and have to return the package to get a refund. That applies to entertainment software too. You dont really own any software, unless you wrote it.

Da Werecat said:

Okay, let's say I bought a physical copy from another dude who purchased it from a publisher.

Now prove that I didn't buy this copy from a publisher myself (and therefore have no right to use it).


That dude didnt have the right to sell it to you. The publisher didnt get compensation from that second sale. And if you sell it to someone else, they wont get compensation either.

GreyGhost said:

Step back a couple of decades and you'll notice that apart from expensive commercial software (which is often licensed on a per-user basis) publishers weren't all that fussed about the second-hand market.


The industry hates the second-hand market.

I remember the good old days when software ran directly from the physical media - no installation required.


That software was licensed too.

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doomgargoyle said:

That dude didnt have the right to sell it to you. The publisher didnt get compensation from that second sale. And if you sell it to someone else, they wont get compensation either.

So?

It's still better than to pay for a questionable download. At least you can pretend that you own a game.

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doomgargoyle said:

That dude didnt have the right to sell it to you. The publisher didnt get compensation from that second sale. And if you sell it to someone else, they wont get compensation either.

This is complete nonsense. The publisher doesn't have any right to extra compensation. You buy a "license" to play the game? You've sold that license. Provided the original owner hasn't kept a copy of the game, only one person is ever playing it at a time.

The existence of Steam actually means that there is a plausible way to implement this vaguely securely: transferring a game from one Steam account to another would mean the original owner could no longer play. That's precisely why it's such complete bullshit: allowing second hand markets would be easy, but they're forbidden.

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doomgargoyle said:
That dude didnt have the right to sell it to you. The publisher didnt get compensation from that second sale. And if you sell it to someone else, they wont get compensation either.

Those licenses couldn't really stand before the law to prohibit second hand sales, because it was the equivalent of reselling a book. The original purpose of those licenses was to eliminate copying beyond the legit copy. If anything, they expressed an intent or wish to impose different content management laws. Later, with the advancement of easy copying with the internet and with new "intellectual property" legislation, the onus went from the copy-holder (and the physical copy) to the person who registered the product, the licensee.

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fraggle said:

The existence of Steam actually means that there is a plausible way to implement this vaguely securely: transferring a game from one Steam account to another would mean the original owner could no longer play.

How easy is that DRM to implement? Isn't Doom, for example, less attached to such DRM and thus impossible to lose?

Not to mention that hey, it's DRM.

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Most games on Steam aren't old games that run in DOSBox. The games that go out nowaday generally rely on Steam software to do stuff like achievements, cloud storage for saves, etc. You cannot take Steam of Steam programs.

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doomgargoyle said:

Yes, exactly, when you buy a software product, it comes with a license agreement, that says that if you dont agree with it, you dont have the right to install the software and have to return the package to get a refund.

That's something else I remember from the good old days, license agreements tucked away inside sealed envelopes (of the "opening this envelope signifies your acceptance of the license agreement" kind) along with the disks. Of course, in order to read the license agreement you have to forfeit your right to a refund.

That applies to entertainment software too. You dont really own any software, unless you wrote it.

But I still own the physical media and can sell that if there's a market for it. There are people who collect stuff like that.

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Doom's license never said it was non-transferable. Ever. I am holding the goddamn fucking Depths of Doom Trilogy manual in my hands right at this very moment. The last two pages (40 and 41 if you're so anal as to need a reference) are the GT Interactive EULA for the commercial/retail distributions of DOOM. Not one damn word about it being non-transferable. In fact, it explicitly starts out by saying you have been licensed the software, but that you own the physical medium.

Basic rights of ownership include the right to transfer that ownership to another person, with or without fee.

The entire idea that software companies should continue to be repaid for every person that uses a copy of their software is hogwash invented during this current economic recession. There's no legal precedent to it; it is an inversion of Western culture's entire historical concept of property rights. If you want to get upset about something, get upset about the fact that megacorps are increasingly taking away your fundamental human rights so that they can protect their business models.

There's nothing to debate here and it's totally irrelevant to this thread.

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Quasar said:

There's nothing to debate here and it's totally irrelevant to this thread.

We have wandered off track somewhat. Anyone want to help me hogtie doomgargoyle and shut him in the wardrobe?

Any response from Amazon to the DMCA takedown request?

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