Sony has started removing YouTube videos showing Concord running on fan-made custom servers, raising new questions about how far the company will go to shut down the community revival.
I firmly believe that anything “written off” in that manner - this includes movies, too, in particular - should have to be released into the public domain as part of that process.
Any business that’s paying less taxes is harming the public good; we should at least benefit in some small way from that.
It’s more likely they have contractual obligations with marketing companies, retailers, data centers, etc. If a product is discontinued they can get out of those obligations. Sure they will write off a loss and reduce the taxes they pay, but it’s not as if a bigger loss nets them more money somehow.
Really what needs to be regulated is all of the excessive exclusive B2B contracts which mean a company can’t just sell a product for a small amount of money to someone to maintain it when they’re done with that product.
You’ve said something with such absolute certainty that is not making sense to me.
Now I’m not versed in Japanese tax law, but Japan does follow International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I’m also not versed in the capitalization of video game development expenses.
A business is going to write down their asset based on their ability to generate future revenue from it. With Concord dead on arrival, it would be fair to say that they would write down everything related to the individual game development. If they left any asset on the books it would be related to the IP/trademarks/copyrights/etc (maybe some transferrable technology if they are getting really specific).
I’m not able to make the connection between issuing takedowns on community servers/videos and the accounting write off of an impaired asset. Issuing takedowns seems more in line with IP protection.
This is likely going to be the main reason for the takedown notices, Sony will be exercising their legal rights in order to defend their trademarks & copyrights on Concord assets.
If a company doesn’t defend them vigorously, then any unlicensed works that are allowed to exist are then used as legal precedent moving forward to null/void such copyrights and trademarks.
As an aside, Sony is a global corporation and can likely choose to write down these losses in the most preferred region to maximise the tax offset - so likely either the US, or Ireland.
I guess the loss could be argued against in court given that there is player activity, even though it’s not endorsed nor hosted by them. Just speculation
A seller doesn’t get to walk in your home, hand you a check and take your couch. The same should not be allowed for digital goods. A voluntary refund should never revoke ownership rights. But we don’t actually have ownership rights any more, do we? Or any rights.
Digital ownership is probably going to happen, but it’s going to take a generation of politicians to die off. Once we get more people that understand computers and digital goods aren’t magic, there can be change.
In case you weren’t aware, we’ve never had digital ownership. All software has been licensed since the dawn of software, including physical media you’ve bought
Are you using a product that is no longer sold because you have the physical media? If the rights holder decides to go after you to compel you to stop or even try to collect damages, they fucking can.
They historically haven’t because it’s a terrible PR move and they might not have a chance in court due to the physical nature of the transaction; but you’ve never “owned” software in the same way you’ve never owned a movie or music. The sale has always been a license and a physical copy.
The problem has always been the pesky physical copy, which couldn’t be revoked. Since we’ve moved to digital, boomers don’t recognize that this is theft in the digital world they’d never stand for in the real world, and the elite take advantage.
But we don’t actually have ownership rights any more, do we?
When it comes to video games, we’ve never had ownership rights. Buying a game has always been just buying a license. The only thing that’s changed is that now publishers have a mechanism with which to enforce it.
That is absolutely untrue. Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files. No serial numbers to redeem, no servers, no downloads or updates. Sometimes you’d get a booklet with the game that had some codes in it that the game would ask for on startup to make making copies a little more difficult, but that was it.
You’d literally have everything you need just on the CD, disk, or cartridge. We 100% owned the game and the system it was played on, and the only way to revoke that would have been to physically break into your house and steal it.
This whole games as services thing is about 20 years old tops, and it wasn’t even remotely approaching the standard for quite a while after that.
Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files.
I can do that today too. I can buy from gog, download the installer an burn it to a DVD. I now own a physical object with the game files that gog or the game publisher can not easily take away from me. I’d still just own a license, not the game, and the license can be revoked. They just couldn’t really keep me from playing the game even after it was.
You need to understand the difference between having something in your possession and having the rights to it. You never owned any video game, even in the days of cartridges, they were always licenses.
Fuck that, when I bought Chrono Trigger for the SNES, I owned that game. I still own that game. Nintendo has not broken into my home to rescind my license to a physical cartridge that I purchased.
But as the other person replying said, with physical media they’d have to break into your house; probably not happening without them wining some kind of devastating lawsuit against you.
Anyway the point we’re all making by pointing out this seemingly pedantic distinction is that digital media is sold in the same way physical was (just, without the need to transport a physical object to provide access to the media); this is what allows media companies to now take advantage. Whether it’s losing all your “owned” movies when the PS3 store shut down, or your games being “stolen” when Ubisoft shuts down the license server, etc.
Laws haven’t caught up because this transition happened gradually and without such poor practices; and now through regulatory capture will largely be ignored.
It’s a class war and they’re winning, even though they have no idea what the consequences will be as long as they get to live in opulence and control for now.
You always have. Physical copies are sold as a license to use the product but not copy it (in some jurisdictions this is limited to “copy with intent to distribute”). This is also true of movies, music, and other media. This has been true since physical media has been available.
Under our current laws, “owning” a piece of media means control of the copyright; seems pedantic when the common terminology for having a piece of physical media is “owning”; but the point is that they would never sell you ownership; they would have to sell you a non-revocable license.
To be fair, everyone was offered a refund for that game. So technically they probably haven‘t paid for it anymore.
I still totally agree that Sony shouldn‘t go after private Concord servers. This game is very interesting, because it was an unbelievable failure despite having pretty solid gameplay. And preserving that on private servers provides a great way for other developers to learn, and maybe prevent, the tons of other issues leading to the game‘s failure.
How dare they try and play a game they paid for.
This is 100% proof Sony is going to write this off as a tax write off
I firmly believe that anything “written off” in that manner - this includes movies, too, in particular - should have to be released into the public domain as part of that process.
Any business that’s paying less taxes is harming the public good; we should at least benefit in some small way from that.
It’s more likely they have contractual obligations with marketing companies, retailers, data centers, etc. If a product is discontinued they can get out of those obligations. Sure they will write off a loss and reduce the taxes they pay, but it’s not as if a bigger loss nets them more money somehow.
Really what needs to be regulated is all of the excessive exclusive B2B contracts which mean a company can’t just sell a product for a small amount of money to someone to maintain it when they’re done with that product.
You’ve said something with such absolute certainty that is not making sense to me.
Now I’m not versed in Japanese tax law, but Japan does follow International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). I’m also not versed in the capitalization of video game development expenses.
A business is going to write down their asset based on their ability to generate future revenue from it. With Concord dead on arrival, it would be fair to say that they would write down everything related to the individual game development. If they left any asset on the books it would be related to the IP/trademarks/copyrights/etc (maybe some transferrable technology if they are getting really specific).
I’m not able to make the connection between issuing takedowns on community servers/videos and the accounting write off of an impaired asset. Issuing takedowns seems more in line with IP protection.
This is likely going to be the main reason for the takedown notices, Sony will be exercising their legal rights in order to defend their trademarks & copyrights on Concord assets.
If a company doesn’t defend them vigorously, then any unlicensed works that are allowed to exist are then used as legal precedent moving forward to null/void such copyrights and trademarks.
As an aside, Sony is a global corporation and can likely choose to write down these losses in the most preferred region to maximise the tax offset - so likely either the US, or Ireland.
How does community-run servers prevent them from writing off their losses?
I guess the loss could be argued against in court given that there is player activity, even though it’s not endorsed nor hosted by them. Just speculation
Sony refunded everyone who bought the game though.
A seller doesn’t get to walk in your home, hand you a check and take your couch. The same should not be allowed for digital goods. A voluntary refund should never revoke ownership rights. But we don’t actually have ownership rights any more, do we? Or any rights.
Digital ownership is probably going to happen, but it’s going to take a generation of politicians to die off. Once we get more people that understand computers and digital goods aren’t magic, there can be change.
The average EU politician is 50. They were 25 when Napster did its thing.
There will be no change as long as the EU is fundamentally a liberal institution.
The EU is working it’s way towards digital ownership. Gdpr and dma are steps in reducing corporate power and granting ownership over identity.
In case you weren’t aware, we’ve never had digital ownership. All software has been licensed since the dawn of software, including physical media you’ve bought
Are you using a product that is no longer sold because you have the physical media? If the rights holder decides to go after you to compel you to stop or even try to collect damages, they fucking can.
They historically haven’t because it’s a terrible PR move and they might not have a chance in court due to the physical nature of the transaction; but you’ve never “owned” software in the same way you’ve never owned a movie or music. The sale has always been a license and a physical copy.
The problem has always been the pesky physical copy, which couldn’t be revoked. Since we’ve moved to digital, boomers don’t recognize that this is theft in the digital world they’d never stand for in the real world, and the elite take advantage.
When it comes to video games, we’ve never had ownership rights. Buying a game has always been just buying a license. The only thing that’s changed is that now publishers have a mechanism with which to enforce it.
I’m not sure why you are downvoted, this is 100% correct.
That is absolutely untrue. Games used to be sold as a physical object containing the game files. No serial numbers to redeem, no servers, no downloads or updates. Sometimes you’d get a booklet with the game that had some codes in it that the game would ask for on startup to make making copies a little more difficult, but that was it.
You’d literally have everything you need just on the CD, disk, or cartridge. We 100% owned the game and the system it was played on, and the only way to revoke that would have been to physically break into your house and steal it.
This whole games as services thing is about 20 years old tops, and it wasn’t even remotely approaching the standard for quite a while after that.
I can do that today too. I can buy from gog, download the installer an burn it to a DVD. I now own a physical object with the game files that gog or the game publisher can not easily take away from me. I’d still just own a license, not the game, and the license can be revoked. They just couldn’t really keep me from playing the game even after it was.
You need to understand the difference between having something in your possession and having the rights to it. You never owned any video game, even in the days of cartridges, they were always licenses.
“Having” is not the same as “owning”.
Fuck that, when I bought Chrono Trigger for the SNES, I owned that game. I still own that game. Nintendo has not broken into my home to rescind my license to a physical cartridge that I purchased.
You’ve never owned Chrono Trigger.
Sorry, another way in which the world was a lie.
But as the other person replying said, with physical media they’d have to break into your house; probably not happening without them wining some kind of devastating lawsuit against you.
Anyway the point we’re all making by pointing out this seemingly pedantic distinction is that digital media is sold in the same way physical was (just, without the need to transport a physical object to provide access to the media); this is what allows media companies to now take advantage. Whether it’s losing all your “owned” movies when the PS3 store shut down, or your games being “stolen” when Ubisoft shuts down the license server, etc.
Laws haven’t caught up because this transition happened gradually and without such poor practices; and now through regulatory capture will largely be ignored.
It’s a class war and they’re winning, even though they have no idea what the consequences will be as long as they get to live in opulence and control for now.
Legally speaking, you own the physical cartridge, but you only own a license to the software on the cartridge.
Practically speaking, no one will break into your house to control what you do with the cartridge.
I don’t see why I should pay for a license, especially when it can be revoked any time for any reason. That’s just not a valuable product
You always have. Physical copies are sold as a license to use the product but not copy it (in some jurisdictions this is limited to “copy with intent to distribute”). This is also true of movies, music, and other media. This has been true since physical media has been available.
Under our current laws, “owning” a piece of media means control of the copyright; seems pedantic when the common terminology for having a piece of physical media is “owning”; but the point is that they would never sell you ownership; they would have to sell you a non-revocable license.
There was a physical release
To be fair, everyone was offered a refund for that game. So technically they probably haven‘t paid for it anymore.
I still totally agree that Sony shouldn‘t go after private Concord servers. This game is very interesting, because it was an unbelievable failure despite having pretty solid gameplay. And preserving that on private servers provides a great way for other developers to learn, and maybe prevent, the tons of other issues leading to the game‘s failure.