You still need a unique CD-Key to register an account for live servers.

Even if you don't have an account or CD-Key, you must accept the EULA and TOS for the login screen to show up.

Beat me to the reply. I was trying to make a case against copyright law, and I couldn't have said it better myself.

He was asking what if he had the key, but lost the CD.

You'll have to buy the installation CD again, then. It's just like with music. If you scratch or lose your CD, you don't get another one just because you've already bought it. You have to pay for it again. The magic of CD keys lets distributors provide the game on CD, without having to actually manufacture a physical CD, or require the player to repurchase one, whenever someone loses their copy. It moves the protection from the installation to the actual servers.

Yes. Most companies will replace lost discs for a fee that is less than the price of the whole package.

I have lost quite a few cds, and some companies are nice about it and will replace it for very cheap and some will charge quite a bit more. I think the most I paid for a replacement was $15 for a game that had 4 cds and originally cost $50.

However, you do have to prove you owned it in someway though, either a CD key or receipt or something and they also try to hide this pretty well in their troubleshooting sections of their respective websites.

Xooxer wrote:

You seem to think they have to tell you. It's common sense that you can't own the rights to the game. You'd have to pay thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars for that right. You're nobody special. You get a chance to play the game like everyone else, that's it. That's all the CD key does for you. If you expected to own the software, you're going to find the law doesn't agree, and for good reason.

He's not saying he owns the right to the game, he owns the rights to the data which he bought. And he does own the rights to the data.

That data is not your property. You can't sell it, heck, you can't even give it away. Your argument is false on it's face. You own the box, not the art. You can sell the box, erase the CD, but you can't profit from it. That's what ownership is. You do not have it. Blizzard does.

Yes, you can. If you could not, how in the world could companies like Electronic Boutique and Gamestop exist, in the way they do, legally? You're absolutely right--they couldn't!

And again, you don't own the music either. You have the right to listen to it, to play it privately with friends or in your home or car, but that's it. (Even playing it for your friends could be considered a violation.) If I own a CD, and I want to play it in my restaurant, guess what, I have to pay the record company for that right. If I am caught playing their music without paying for it, I can be fined big bucks. Even though I legally own the physical CD, I can't profit from it.

He owns the data on the CD. He cannot claim the music as belonging the the store, but it is perfectly acceptable to play that music in that store you own because you aren't profiting from it, and even if people were visiting your store because of the music, there is no way a court could prove it. Testimony from store visitors wouldn't be enough, and would the people who like your hypothetical store testify anyway?

Now advertisement is a completely different story--the point behind music on advertisements is to attract customers.

Ignorance isn't a valid defense. If you didn't read the EULA, then how did you get the contents including the EULA in the first place? Most games auto-run an install when you insert the CD, and unless you specifically circumvent that and *manually* explore the CD.... No judge would listen to this line of argument.

Pleading ignorance is acceptable in many cases, actually. You'd be surprised. You can get away with laws that aren't in the knowledge of the commoner at least once; this applies especially to newer laws.

And no game I have ever purchased have automatically installed themselves.

Toasters aren't software.

Consumer Law applies everywhere.

Perhaps you miss the part where software is an abstract thing, while toaster is a solid piece of physical matter. That bit helps.

Software is every bit physical as a toaster. The CD and the electrons that compose the software can all be touched.

Unless I sign a contract as part of the purchasing process, the contents of any contract thrown on after the fact don't apply.

Um, no.

This is a big part of Consumer Law, so um, yes.

Nope. You don't buy rights to use a toaster. You actually do buy that physical toaster.

Just as he is doing with the physical CD and data.

The toaster would violate trademark, not copyright, because of the logo.

Seriously? Why would one place a logo of GE on a duplicate toaster?

Copyright pertains to copy, not hard physical matter.

To clear a few things up (as I couldn't make much sense of "Copyright pertains to copy") Copyright is more applicable to arts where as patents are more applicable to mechanical or technical things, both of which are physical things.

You didn't have to [agree to pay Blizzard].

Then, by Consumer Law, he does not have to pay Blizzard to play the game.

Use your imagination, or some brains. Nobody else seems to have any trouble dealing with licensing.

He is using his imagination, and if terms aren't very CLEARLY defined (as the law states they need to be), he can make a good case and win. That is what he's doing here, by the way.

Can Blizzard revoke my key for not having hardware specs inside of the listed required? What about pricing?

Yes.

That is actually something else that violates Consumer Law. Look it up if you'd like. They cannot do such a thing without having you sign a contract before purchasing the "license to play."

Alathon wrote:

When you purchase a product, you don't get to be the one saying what you bought - The person selling you the product does.

GameStop and their ilk are distributors, they don't own the software either. They have a deal with Blizzards distribution that specifies that they are allowed as official distributors of the software - Which means they are allowed to sell the product to other businesses and private persons. They purchase the game at a price lower than they sell it, and as a business have more rights to it than you do - The right to redistribute it. Once you purchase it, you do not have that right.

Seriously. Think about this for a moment - If GameStop owned the game, it could also modify the contents of the game to its liking. Actual game stores could include flyers for their store inside the packaging or other things to make the deal better for a person buying it from there. It would be ridiculous. You'd never know if you were buying the actual game or a modified version.

I'll say it again because it seems to be something you're ignoring: Purchasing a product does not entitle you to do whatever you want with said product.

You can argue that its ridiculous and that you completely disagree - Thats fine. But this is the law, and thats how it is.

I was with you until that last statement. State law doesn't equate with moral law. Rather, when too much time passes it becomes a dead dogma, not a living idea. I just remember that from my philosophy class -- I can't remember who said it first.

On the issue of whether or not something is yours after you buy it--that may be a tougher item to call. Do you have the right to modify your car? How about your lawn mower? So why are digital products any different? I could certainly sell a modified car or lawn mower.

I think that they are different, but I don't have a solid argument to support why. I suppose it has something to do with what you were saying about people modifying a product and reselling it, but that argument only works in the context of a reseller. If there isn't a reseller, perhaps the real reason is that digital media, unlike physical objects, are practically impossible to trace. Therefore, unsafe goods can be easily pushed into the market at great speed, and the desire to purchase the original product could be diminished much quicker because of mass distribution. If I sold a 1000 dodge rams tomorrow with a cheaper and vastly inferior parts, dodge wouldn't be too happy with me. Well, something like that. Anything anyone could add or correct would be great. Of course, taking this argument the other way, what if I produced a much better version of the dodge ram. Would dodge really have grounds for being upset? Especially if they sold more dodge rams because of my modification? So this analogy only applies to physical, traceable goods once again.

Alathon wrote:

GameStop and their ilk are distributors, they don't own the software either. They have a deal with Blizzards distribution that specifies that they are allowed as official distributors of the software - Which means they are allowed to sell the product to other businesses and private persons. They purchase the game at a price lower than they sell it, and as a business have more rights to it than you do - The right to redistribute it. Once you purchase it, you do not have that right.

You're right, but I was referring to how you can sell games to Gamestop, and referring to the client end where it is completely legal to resell games.

Seriously. Think about this for a moment - If GameStop owned the game, it could also modify the contents of the game to its liking. Actual game stores could include flyers for their store inside the packaging or other things to make the deal better for a person buying it from there. It would be ridiculous. You'd never know if you were buying the actual game or a modified version.

If they modified the game to their liking, who would buy? It's proprietary software at the point.

And you're missing that I am not trying to hint at people owning the software, but rather the data and anything on the CD.

Mizukouken Ketsu wrote:

Requirements to run WoW, as said on the package.
- Pentium 3
- 800MHz CPU speed
- 512MB of RAM
- 32MB graphics card
- DirectX 9.0c
- 6GB of HDD space

Now, I have exceeded those requirements with flying colors, and yet I still experience latency issues on their servers with a T1 connection.

My system
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)
- 1,280MB of RAM
- 96MB graphics card
- DirectX 10, if not 9.0c
- 33GB of total HDD (I know that's god-awful, but it's plenty for this issue)

Perhaps you don't know what you're talking about? Unless, of course, it's NEVER Blizzard's problem when there's server lag; it's ALWAYS the player's computer/connection. ALWAYS. Blizzard's got a PERFECT record regarding their servers. >_> Not...

As for hacking, I was talking about on the private servers, not the regular servers hosted by Blizzard. Whether that hacking is client-side or not, it's still hacking, and I was just mentioning hacking in general. So get off your acid-induced ego-trip and come back to Earth for a bit. Things are much more interesting.

Your computer is down right crap to play World of Warcraft. Most games that list a minimal system requirements, MEANS minimal. You are never going to get the best performance out of a game running something barely over the minimal system requirements. And as each expansion pack comes out, the requirements are slowly being raised. It isn't Blizzard's fault you are trying to play their game on a outdated machine.

Have you ever tried to play, like Doom 3 with the bare minimal system requirements, and then suddenly hit a area with a ton of effects? If you have, like I have, the results aren't usually fantastic.

Just to note, although a bad FPS might not be a server issue, is is a Blizzard issue, as I have a beast of a machine, and when in cities or crowded areas I drop below 15 FPS. I can run UT3, TF2, and almost any other First Person Shooter on high settings with a framerate of over 30. This is a design issue that seems to stem from the high data rates of the citys(people coming in view, out of view, and lots of things happening). This may not be lag, but it is an issue with the client server relationship, but it is likely poor coding on the client side.

As for Pentium 4 dual-core: I'm pretty sure they exist, I believe we have 4 of them in the office here, and no I don't mean Hyperthreading. Although it is possible they are just the Core-duos, I'm just pretty sure they aren't.

A T1 line's only advantage over the offerings of, say, your local cable company is the steady and even upload/download rates. Besides that, most high speed options have better down rates than a T1, but there is something to be said for having a good up rate.

I actually play on an Oceanic server, so I get a ping rating around 150-250 normally(I'm in the US), but I still don't have any lag issues. I was actually able to snip a kill before anyone in my group had touched it the other night(low-level, slow respawn, 1 hit kill). Everyone else in my group was in the Oceanic area, and there were about 10 other people waiting for the respawn(it was seasonal quest). I hit it first out of all them despite the worse ping rate.