Laws are often very similar between countries. In fact the law in .nl says exactly the sameas the one in .us: To make an agreement both parties need to declare they accept the agreement. Therefore there is a need for "positive action". But: The law in .nl says to the other party to the agreement the parties need to receive the declarations of the other party. Thus software house needs to receive the click on the "I accept button". The fact that a button is clicked is not enough, because your are not making an agreement with my computer.

The fact that a software house has to prove that you declared that you have accepted the agreement solves the problem of you claiming your cat clicked the button. This is why the law demands that both parties receive each others declarations. I am confident .us has some form of this requirement as well. I.e. imagine the most formal way of agreement: A written contract. Of course a party needs to receive the signature of the other party before the contract becomes usefull.

Note that the EULA is viewed in this case as a new, separate agreement which is not related to the sale. Viewing the EULA as a new, separate agreement is not only problematic because of the "I accept" button problems, but also by consumer law: If a product enforces its user to enter in an agreement and this functionality was not advertised, the product is affected by a restriction that should not have been there, thus software house should remove the restriction under the penalty that the consumer can destroy or reduce the price of the sales agreement. Thus, because an EULA cannot be viewed as a separate agreement, it can only be interpreted as terms & conditions on the sale, and those have to be presented before the product is sold.

It is very important to understand this: EULA's don't work in European countries, not because they are forbidden, not because laws are totally different, but because of subtle, minor differences in the law.

I don't believe you can blame your cat, but you could theoretically blame another user of the same computer (my husband/wife did it). Certainly people have beaten RIAA lawsuits by casting doubt on who actually pirated the files. On the other hand, this system has been upheld several times so there is at least some legality behind it.

I haven't seen one be challenged on the grounds that a minor agreed to it, although I'd be interested to see the fallout from such a case.

Most state that the product is subject to an EULA on the outside of the box, even if the full text is not available. Some even give a website where the full text is available, although I wonder how many people are going to stop shopping to look it up before coming back to buy the game. Regardless, a person who buys a game and then finds they cannot or will not comply with the EULA can usually return it to the point of sale for refund, or some companies have numbers to call for refund included as part of the EULA.

No, your logic fails. There is nothing wrong with limited duration licensing for something like an anti-virus program, where they are not just selling you a disc with some software on it. Anti virus programs need constant updating to be useful, so the company is not just sitting back and raking in cash. Most virus software I've seen is based more on a subscription than yearly relicensing, but the concept is the same.

As for per-processor licensing, why not? If you are running the program on your home computer, you might be using 1 or 2 processors, at most 4. A render farm might have thousands, which is the equivalent of buying one copy to run on thousands of home computers at once. If you are going to run thousands of copies of their software at the same time, you should need to license for the use of all those copies. Your argument wouldn't work for LAN use, why should something like a server farm be any different?

Nope, sure don't. If it is written into the agreement that way, a one-way retail contract like this does not need to be communicated back to the seller, acceptance is implied unless the consumer returns it as unaccepted. Think about it, such a requirement would make it impossible to install anything on an off line computer, as there would be no means of comunicating acceptance, and even signing a written agreement wouldn't cover it - how could anyone insure that the person who signed the agreement at purchase is the one installing and using the program?

Yeah, right   The European laws are written in such a way as to prevent licensing in anything other than a face-to-face buisiness deal.

Tell me, do you read EULAs? What if someone put "by installing this software you agree to pay One Milllllion Dollars to [insert name here]. So... would you want the courts to take EULAs *very* seriously?

Without identifiable data, there is no case. Just because this sort of thing is rarely fought over in courts, does not mean that it cannot be won. Your analogy that you are responsible for what occurs on your computer would also be a dangerous precedent for all those folks who unwittingly infect their machines with spamware. Your computer is not a ship and you are not a captain.

But anyway, back to the issues of C&C4 and their thinly veiled DRM. I have no issues with DRM schemes which do not force me to use my computer in a certain way. Anything which comes in and starts blocking parts of my setup, be it emulators, cloakers or frikkin' doomsday machines, is out. Anything which comes in and says "you have to be continually connected in order to play" and isn't a MMO, is out. I was upset enough when I heard about Steam, until I realized you can play offline, you just need to activate once. Back in the day.

Now, if everyone thought the way the few of us here on this thread do, then the game publishers wouldn't be treating their customers like sacks of thieving excreta. There would be some old fashioned respect towards your customers. When I deal with my clients, I am always polite, informative, and adaptive. I don't barge into their offices and say "yeah, I know you'd like your website that way, but what you're going to get is this, and you're going to like it, am I clear?"

The way in the gaming world is right now - the publishers demand all sorts of respect for their rights, but give out no respect for the rights of their customers. And its that way because the majority doesn't give a damn. They just want to play.

And hey, nothing to get too upset about - after all its just games. Until you realize that the same trend is creeping up everywhere. Nobody gives a damn about their rights, they just want to "play".

WOW, I'm actually in shock!

I suggest you re-read the following paragraph:

As of right now, you need to be online all the time to play C&C 4. This is primarily due to our 'player progression' feature so everything can be tracked. C&C 4 is not an MMO in the sense of World of Warcraft, but conceptually it has similar principles for being online all the time," Community Leader APOC wrote. No matter what mode you're playing, no matter what you're doing, if you want to play Command and Conquer 4, you're going to need to have a working Internet connection.

I dont know if you can't read between the lines or if you just dont care, but from my perspective, this is not a good thing!

Do you understand the danger and implication that this mentality/approach can bring to the gaming community? If you support this from one company, then you support this from all companies. Imagine if most games required this kind of control.

Dont fool yourselves, this is just another way of trying to attack the pirates, nothing more.

EA is once again using the wrong approach. By targeting the pirates, they are also attacking their customers. Its like carpet bombing a city of 1 million people just to kill 200 terrorists, it doesn't make any sense!

I truly hope that most people are smart enough to understand what will be coming next. If this BS succeeds, we will have to deal with this kind of crap with most game companies!

get stuck playing against smurfs in a matchmaking system, come back, say that again.

If that would've fit their goals, I'm sure they would've done it.

My issue isn't being online to play - as I have a broadband internet connection, my computer is online the moment I turn it on. My issue is that instead of coming out and saying it was for security, they're claiming the security is a by-product of this really awesome new game feature. A feature which enables people to unlock different units in Multiplayer. Multiplayer in a RTS Game is built entirely on the units at play, as is the game balance. Yeah, they clearly didn't design a POS feature to dress up their attempt at a different method of piracy prevention. Piracy, which will most likely crack the game and enable people to play with all the units from the start, and over LAN I might add.

Talking like that on any game developer/publisher forum can get you banned.  It's hard for any developer to respect thieves, no matter what they're basing their decision on.

Keep talkin.  You'll just get banned that much quicker.  I won't be sad to see you go.

lol, the banhammer   of EA can reach far and wide, all the way to stardock's forum. EA's coming to get us...

Savyq you're too much!

Stardock has repeatedly said that talking about pirating games can get you banned.

They publish games, is it so hard to recognize that maybe thieves openly talking about stealing the kind of products they sell would be bad for business?  If they suddenly decided to let people talk about stealing EA games, they'd never see a contract with EA.  Likewise with any other publisher.

(Actually, if they decided to let people talk about stealing EA games, they'd never see a contract with ANY publisher.)

Elias : First off...I hate to break this to you, but EVERY software developer exists TO MAKE MONEY. Stardock, Paradox, EA, Betesda, anyone else you can name are in business for the express reason of MAKING MONEY AT IT.

Second, I'm curious why EA gets special treatment for using more invasive DRM systems. What about Ubi, 2K, Take Two, Activision, Atari, etc. who have all done the same things?

Face it...you're making excuses. There is very little that differentiates what EA does from what any of those other companies do and have done, except that you feel it gives you a crutch to 'excuse' what you feel you need to do. Grow a pair and just come out and be honest and say "I pirate their games because I want to."