Is the Steam DRM just a one-time verification check? Or is it much more?

[Commander Bello]

Yes.

You can choose to allow Civ 5 and all it's required components, or not.

You have a choice here. Picking on one particular aspect of a system and deciding that you don't want it to have access to the internet at any point is arbitrary and pointless. But its still your choice to make.

So, since you agree that I shall have the freedom to make this undisputed decision for Civ5, I assume this means I shall have the same freedom to make the undisputed decision with Steam, right?

 

[tom2050]

Let's try to avoid phrases like "idiot", "paranoid", "slave to Steam" and whatnotever.

I would like to raise a quite simple question:
Do you agree with the idea of personal freedom in terms of anybody having the right to make his own, undisputed decision about which software he wants to allow to access the internet or not?

To me, this seems to be a simple yes or no question.

This will answer your question:

Sometimes I wish for freedom from speech.

He displays many classic signs of being anti-freedom.

 

[Chalks]

So, since you agree that I shall have the freedom to make this undisputed decision for Civ5, I assume this means I shall have the same freedom to make the undisputed decision with Steam, right?

Civ 5 is built on the steam platform. In the same way that you don't get to choose to remove the foundations from your house, you don't get to separate them like this.

As has been repeatedly stated by 2k reps here, the integration with steam is intrinsic and complex, and the DRM side of things is not even the main feature that made them choose to use Steam.

You cannot ignore this and keep acting like they have a simple launcher/application relationship that can be bypassed. The heart of major functionality is the steam platform.

 

[Commander Bello]

Civ 5 is built on the steam platform. In the same way that you don't get to choose to remove the foundations from your house, you don't get to separate them like this.

As has been repeatedly stated by 2k reps here, the integration with steam is intrinsic and complex, and the DRM side of things is not even the main feature that made them choose to use Steam.

You cannot ignore this and keep acting like they have a simple launcher/application relationship that can be bypassed. The heart of major functionality is the steam platform.

Yet, Steam offers an so-called "offline mode".
Since you agree that one shall have the freedom to chose Civ5 to stay offline without any need to have this decision disputed, the very nature of Steam being put into the coding of Civ5 to me seems to make it obvious that such an offline mode (if fully functional) should do what you agree for with Civ5, no?

 

[Chalks]

Yet, Steam offers an so-called "offline mode".
Since you agree that one shall have the freedom to chose Civ5 to stay offline without any need to have this decision disputed, the very nature of Steam being put into the coding of Civ5 to me seems to make it obvious that such an offline mode (if fully functional) should do what you agree for with Civ5, no?

Unfortunately you are rather difficult to understand.

Steam's offline mode allows you to play your games without an internet connection - if what you are asking is if you should be free to play your games in situations where an internet connection is not possible then I would agree - which is why I believe Steam to be a very reasonable platform since it allows for this with ease.

 

[Commander Bello]

Unfortunately you are rather difficult to understand.

Steam's offline mode allows you to play your games without an internet connection - if what you are asking is if you should be free to play your games in situations where an internet connection is not possible then I would agree - which is why I believe Steam to be a very reasonable platform since it allows for this with ease.

I really don't understand your problems in this regard.

The question was simple: Shall have any user the undisputed right to chose whether a certain software on his computer will access the internet, yes or no?

Since Steam offers a so-called "offline mode" and you agreed to above question, as far as Civ5 was concerned, I really do not see any reason why you have to mention things like technical impossibility for internet access or your own satisfication with Steam in general.
All this was not asked for.

So, maybe for more clarity: Shall a user be allowed (by built-in means in the Steam software) to have the decision whether Steam will access the internet, yes or no?

 

[Chalks]

I really don't understand your problems in this regard.

The question was simple: Shall have any user the undisputed right to chose whether a certain software on his computer will access the internet, yes or no?

Since Steam offers a so-called "offline mode" and you agreed to above question, as far as Civ5 was concerned, I really do not see any reason why you have to mention things like technical impossibility for internet access or your own satisfication with Steam in general.
All this was not asked for.

So, maybe for more clarity: Shall a user be allowed (by built-in means in the Steam software) to have the decision whether Steam will access the internet, yes or no?

Sorry, it is difficult to understand your posts.

If you are asking if I think users have some sort of "right" to demand access to games, but then to dictate the requirements for such games then no, they do not. Civilization 5 will require an initial online activation, and although it is your right to not buy the game if you do not agree to this, there is no "right" to demand to have a particular feature removed just because you don't feel like complying with it.

There is no reason for you to object to the online activation. You're connected to the internet now, if you installed it right now then you could play straight away. Objecting to a particular part of this process that will have no noticeable effect on you does nothing but make life difficult for yourself.

 

[mjs0]

Let's try to avoid phrases like "idiot", "paranoid", "slave to Steam" and whatnotever.

I would like to raise a quite simple question:
Do you agree with the idea of personal freedom in terms of anybody having the right to make his own, undisputed decision about which software he wants to allow to access the internet or not?

To me, this seems to be a simple yes or no question.

I believe this is far from a yes or no question as you'll see below...but in the spirit of cooperation I will say:

Yes, I think that is absolutely reasonable, and without the need to alter any software product a user can exercise this right today either by

• not buying software unless it explicitly and unconditionally warrants that it will not access the internet without permission.
  OR
• by taking personal responsibility (which is after all the price of personal freedom) and learning to use a firewall.

Ah, but wait, is that what you meant? Surely you don't want the personal freedom of the purchaser to trump the ownership rights of the seller to sell their software in whatever configuration and under whatever licensing terms they choose. (Short of exploiting an unfair and anti-competitive monopoly of course.)

After all, having a right in no way implies the means to exercise that right will necessarily be available without some effort on your part. An analogy would be that your right to freedom of speech does not imply you have the right to demand air time on national television to present your views.

 

[Senethro]

Pretty much agreeing with what mjs0 said.

Offline mode means you can use Steam offline, not that you can permanently prevent it connecting to the internet. That would be a bit silly as people could buy the whole Steam catalogue, download it then cancel the payment.

This will answer your question:

He (Senethro) displays many classic signs of being anti-freedom.

Yeah, I'm a Terrist and hate freedom.

 

[Commander Bello]

Pretty much agreeing with what mjs0 said.

Offline mode means you can use Steam offline, not that you can permanently prevent it connecting to the internet. That would be a bit silly as people could buy the whole Steam catalogue, download it then cancel the payment.

This now confuses me.

Do you imply that even when being in offline mode the Steam software allows for deactivation (for whatever reasons) of the software in my account?
To be more precisely, do you imply that although I have explicitly told the Steam software not to go online it might, retrieve information from the Steam servers and then cancel my locally run account? Without myself having allowed it to be in online mode, neither by accident, mistake or by choice?

 

[Chalks]

This now confuses me.

Do you imply that even when being in offline mode the Steam software allows for deactivation (for whatever reasons) of the software in my account?
To be more precisely, do you imply that although I have explicitly told the Steam software not to go online it might, retrieve information from the Steam servers and then cancel my locally run account? Without myself having allowed it to be in online mode, neither by accident, mistake or by choice?

If you unplug your internet cable, it's going to be pretty difficult for it to do any of those things, isn't it?

 

[mjs0]

This now confuses me.

Do you imply that even when being in offline mode the Steam software allows for deactivation (for whatever reasons) of the software in my account?
To be more precisely, do you imply that although I have explicitly told the Steam software not to go online it might, retrieve information from the Steam servers and then cancel my locally run account? Without myself having allowed it to be in online mode, neither by accident, mistake or by choice?

There is no indication that once you go offline the Steam software establishes any meaningful connection with the Steam servers. I did suggest earlier in this thread that if the flows that Ori observed turned out to be deliberate they could be used for that purpose if one were looking for a possible 'bad' meaning for them.
I did not intend to imply that was the case and have seen no evidence that it is, but it is reasonable to speculate this as a possible if most unlikely potential use for them

However, If you run the Steam Client even in offline mode with an active internet connection there are no guarantees that it will not do precisely that...unless you have blocked it with your firewall of course.
At the end of the day it all depends how likely you see this scenario, because short of a legal contract there is nothing other than customer dissatisfaction and class action lawsuits (that cost money to defend even if ultimately futile) to prevent any software company from doing this.
I'm not sure I see Steam as any more likely to do damage in this way (intentional or accidental) than any other product with the ability to connect to online servers.
Look at what happened to users of McAfee AV recently, they got PCs bricked by a rogue AV update.

 

[Senethro]

What? Did I just describe your cunning plan?

The offline mode is for offline use, not for people afraid of kilobytes.

I may be several years out of date regarding this, but I thought Offline mode credentials expired after a few months anyway requiring you to renew them. I haven't been able to find explicit information regarding this but was surprised at 2K Eliz saying a one time activation was all thats needed.

 

[Akka]

God, I can't believe that it has gone for so many pages.

Some people can't grasp the concept of "privacy" and place blind trust into a corporation to be honest.
And they call "paranoid" people showing less naïveté.

Seems pretty obvious who has the more logical point of view. It's not like the slippery slope is anything new under the sun.

 

[Commander Bello]

*sigh*

Seems that even simple yes/no-question need a page of explanations, although the same question (yet for a diffent software product was easily answered). Anyway, as being a patient guy...

If you are asking if I think users have some sort of "right" to demand access to games, but then to dictate the requirements for such games then no, they do not. Civilization 5 will require an initial online activation, and although it is your right to not buy the game if you do not agree to this, there is no "right" to demand to have a particular feature removed just because you don't feel like complying with it.

As far as I see it, this point already has been discussed, since you agreed on the topic of having the right to disallow Civ5 internet access.

There is no reason for you to object to the online activation. You're connected to the internet now, if you installed it right now then you could play straight away. Objecting to a particular part of this process that will have no noticeable effect on you does nothing but make life difficult for yourself.

Once again, this was not the question.

Let me repeat it for you: Does a user have the right to undisputedly choose, which software on his computer will have access to the internet? Even more, if that software contains a so-called "offline mode"? Yes or no?

After all, having a right in no way implies the means to exercise that right will necessarily be available without some effort on your part. An analogy would be that your right to freedom of speech does not imply you have the right to demand air time on national television to present your views.

To the first sentence I agree. My effort would be to either go to the TV studio or provide their team with electricity (maybe drinks and snacks as well) at my place and to be prepared (in terms of having prepared my speech and so on) for the transmission.

But you would agree that under the assumption of having been granted the chance of having "air time on the tv" it would be "strange" if the transmission would be switched on and off by something/somebody about which I do not have control when I was told not to be on the air?

 

[Alki]

*

Let me repeat it for you: Does a user have the right to undisputedly choose, which software on his computer will have access to the internet? Even more, if that software contains a so-called "offline mode"? Yes or no?

The answer would be, no. Many software license agreements impose limits on what the user of the license may do. If you don't agree you shouldn't buy the software.

 

[Senethro]

Its not your right to play video games. When you enter into a contract with Valve as customer/service provider you agree to certain conditions. Note that there will be no penalty if you do enforce your belief that you should micro-manage traffic from your computer, but you may experience a degradation of the quality of service you receive from Valve.

So given that you can have your rights and eat them too, what is the problem? Just put a strict firewall block on Steam when you're not updating or renewing credentials.

 

[Commander Bello]

Originally Posted by Commander Bello
*

Let me repeat it for you: Does a user have the right to undisputedly choose, which software on his computer will have access to the internet? Even more, if that software contains a so-called "offline mode"? Yes or no?

The answer would be, no. Many software license agreements impose limits on what the user of the license may do. If you don't agree you shouldn't buy the software.

So, here we have the first one who clearly states that even if a certain software products offers an so-called "offline mode", I do not have the right to choose if I will allow it to access the internet.

Any followers of that opinion?

 

[Senethro]

So, here we have the first one who clearly states that even if a certain software products offers an so-called "offline mode", I do not have the right to choose if I will allow it to access the internet.

Any followers of that opinion?

Offline mode means what Steam wants it to mean, its their service.

 

[Commander Bello]

Its not your right to play video games. When you enter into a contract with Valve as customer/service provider you agree to certain conditions.

Right. Completely right.

But where does it state to access the internet even when having been put to the so-called "offline mode"?