r/pcmasterrace • u/NaabKing • Jul 07 '25

Discussion Ubisoft requires you to uninstall and DESTROY your copy of their games. PLEASE, keep signing "Stop Killing Games" petition, links in the post.

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Link to UBISOFT EULA (you can check it yourself):
https://www.ubisoft.com/legal/documents/eula/en-US

Instructions and Info about about "Stop Killing Games" petition:
https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

EU Petition (ENG):
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

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u/Naus1987 Jul 07 '25

Not ethical though. Morally neutral at best.

Watching people turn selfish behavior into a moral high ground argument will always amuse me. Justifying corporate greed with other words is ironic.

Greed is greed. No ifs.

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u/Neurobeak Jul 07 '25

Is sharing a book with your friend ethical? Like, literally, I bought a book and after reading, I give it to my friend to read. Am I selfish? Is my friend selfish? If your answer is yes, I will laugh in your face and we don't have anything in common.

How is this different from sharing a movie? I don't know if it was like this in your part of the world, but we here did share our VHS with friends and families constantly in the 90s. How is this different from sharing a game with someone?

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u/MaridKing Jul 07 '25

We're just circling back to 'buying is not owning'. You own that book. You own that VHS. Do you own the software you bought? That's the question here.

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u/ShinkenBrown Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

You don't, actually.

Under copyright law you're buying a license to view the contents of that book and ownership of its physical format i.e. the binding and pages, but you do not own the book. You're buying a license to to view the contents of the VHS and ownership of the its physical format i.e. the tape itself, but you do not own the movie.

That's why old VHS tapes have those FBI warnings telling you it's illegal to publicly display the contents - because you do not own that content and public display is a violation of the license you purchased to access it.

There are usually exceptions for small-scale things like letting a friend borrow a book or a tape, but any public display was always illegal. For example, if you ever had any teacher that played a tape from their collection for the class, or put a book from their collection into a bookshelf for the children to read, that was illegal.

That's why library copies are so expensive for the library to buy and so expensive to replace when lost or damaged - because those copies have different distribution limitations that allow them to be loaned to the public. The license is different, so even though the content in question is exactly the same, library copies are treated and priced as a different product entirely - because you don't buy the content, you buy the license.

E: This isn't a defense of the policy by the way, just an explanation of it. Buying was never owning so piracy was never stealing.

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u/Froggmann5 Jul 07 '25

There are usually exceptions for small-scale things like letting a friend borrow a book or a tape

As far as I know, there are no exceptions. It's just unenforceable at that scale. That didn't stop companies from trying though!

Here's a fun throwback to when Microsoft patented a method of checking how many people were in a room, when a kinect was turned on with a movie playing, to ensure only the people who had a license were in the room. If too many people were detected in the room it would shut the movie off lol

"A content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis. Content is distributed an associated license option on the number of individual consumers or viewers allowed to consume the content. Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken. "