Steam has confirmed (for users who were unaware) that They do not own what they buy on their platform. You pay for a license to use it, but you are not the owner. And believe it or not, it can make a big difference in certain cases.
Steam has started serving a notice in your shopping cart. When you open it with items inside and before making payment, it appears at the bottom right and literally says: “Purchasing a digital product grants a license to the product on Steam”. From engadgetwho are the first to have talked about it, say that it is the first time they have seen it. And certainly, so do we.
Steam and its license terms
Although the notice is new, it has been inserted very recently and stealthily, Its consequences are nothing new. The certainty is that even if you pay a fortune for the games, you do not own them, but rather they allow you to play them.
The inclusion of this notice now seems to be aimed at legally “covering” oneself from the new legislation that is coming into effect against misleading advertising and that should precisely do so. precise distinction between product or license. For example, the governor of California has published a rule requiring digital marketplaces to make it clear to customers when they purchase a license solely to access those services.
The rule will not apply to permanent offline downloads, but it will apply to digital copies of video games, music, movies, television shows or e-books from an online store. Companies that fail to comply could face fines for false advertising if they do not explain in clear language the limitations of a particular digital purchase.
This type of legislation is necessary as the elimination of The Crew by Ubisoft from players’ libraries after the game’s servers shut down. And when purchasing software there can be a big difference. A license is simply a permission to access the content provided by the service. But if the content is not available, the company responsible can say that you did not have the right to access it permanently.
And the situation does not only affect Steam. It is from all online stores that sell digital products. Or to be more precise, licenses in most cases.
Source: www.muycomputer.com
