The EU consists of 450 million people. It may seem that 1.3 million is a lot, but it really isn't. And when the thing they're asking for has other negative consequences for the 450 million people, the number of signatures becomes less compelling as an argument by itself.
450mil, and how many of them would be affected? I doubt there would be even 300k people against it if we only got 1.3mil positive signatures.
Do you assume the law is supposed to be perfect first try? We can patch it later if people hate it despite it having literally 0 negative impact on anyone or anyone's business.
It would undermine intellectual property rights and copyright laws, which would indeed affect every European citizen. This is also what the EU Commission said in their response.
I have explained this in my other replies below. You can read those if you want.
Undermining those would be a pure positive though. Even if you cut 3/4 of the protection time, that's still gonna be like 20 years which is an insane amount of time. Making their hold over everything weaker in general would be a winning scenario for everyone except corpos.(which have to adjust for the people, that's how laws work)
It goes against the conclusions in the Draghi report, which the EU pursues in an effort to ensure the competitiveness and economic growth for the European Union.
I have explained this in the discussion below, I will refer to that.
so let me get this, i am literally paying taxes to work, to eat, to refill the gas tank, to buy a house, to granting free healthcare to everyone but god forbid a software house is required to foresee an EOL treatment for their online titles? if this would require touching copyright laws then ffs change them asap! it's not something bad, it's just being fair to your customer! only 20 years ago this would have been pure madness: you pay for something that whatever-it-is is your. period. we just want to have that right respected today!
You can't just change copyright laws, because they're pretty much universal.
And by changing you essentially mean weakening, i.e. a creator has less rights over their creation - which is what's being requested by wanting game companies to hand over their creations once they don't wish to operate them anymore.
That's a pretty bad route for the EU to pursue. Imagine companies like Disney or Warner Brothers or the Pokémon Company. They would instantly retreat from the EU as a market to operate in, in order to protect their intellectual properties - which are essential to their existence.
Consider how much western companies fight tooth and nail to prevent Chinese companies from infringing upon their intellectual properties by making knock-off products or simply copying them straight up, and how much lost revenue that results in for western companies who essentially see their hard work being stolen.
That's what this initiative kind of says should be legal under certain conditions.
That's not happening. That's not in the EUs interest or in the interest of the European citizens. It would undermine their long-term prosperity and the competitiveness of the European market.
no one is pretending it to change rather than being restricted. adding restrictions to what is universally applied for your continent only is perfectly fine and allowed, you wouldn't touch anything common to other part of the world. in this scenario both european products and american/chinese products would need to comply with this so that would become common ground and therefore no one would be advantaged or disadvantaged by this on european ground.
That doesn't really make sense. If the EU was to weaken its intellectual property rights and copyright laws, the US (and the rest of the world) would not be obligated to follow suit - and most likely wouldn't.
The result would just be that the EU would make itself a less desirable market to operate in for companies, which is of course good for all other markets. More business for them!
If the EU shoots itself in the foot, the rest of the world isn't automatically going to do the same.
It also doesn't resonate with the lay of the land. The US is notoriously known for de-regulating - believing that the fewer rules imposed on companies, the greater the innovation and economic growth you get.
The US is not going to pivot away from that belief, especially not in the area of tech where the US has a huge competitive advantage - in part because of few regulations.
At the same time, the EU has come to the realization that it has too many regulations and that this is a cause of its stagnant economy. This is all covered in the Draghi report on European competitiveness. And there is wide agreement in the EU that the conclusions in the Draghi report should be pursued in order to ensure the future prosperity of Europe. So likewise, it makes no sense to then pivot on that strategy and impose more laws to regulate companies in ways that only further weaken the EUs competitiveness.
It's just not happening. It's a passion project from gamers and the emotions are high and it's all born out of love and that's great. But there's more to a market economy and a functioning society than the whims and desires of some gamers.
And that's not to say that the EU isn't doing something about gaming - it's actually doing a lot! But asking the EU to undermine intellectual property rights and copyright laws, a bedrock of international society, is asking for too much.
i see your point but i don't think our rules are what makes our economy stagnant. also if the US won't follow our rules China can't wait to fill in the gap so it's not really about how are we going to regulate ourselves rather than who's going to take over our market if we'd have such laws. also you keep say that would undermining intellectual property but that's really not true, your intellectual property stays yours, you would just need to think of a proper EOL for it. that is nt something extra, it is something that should be done regardless of a law imposing it, again it just makes your deals fair to the customers. no one wants to pay for something that's going to be ripped off your hands against your will. no EULA can save you from how unfair this is.
As far as the EU market is concerned and its competitiveness and economic prosperity, then I will just refer to the Draghi report. The conclusions in that report provide the political direction that the EU is moving and has been moving for some time. And what gamers are proposing with Stop Killing Games is contrary to what's being advised in the Draghi report - and not in a small way. It's not happening for that reason alone.
You're saying that it doesn't undermine intellectual property rights, but that's wrong. I mean, have you read the EU Commission's press release? I'll quote the part:
"The Commission considers that at this stage it cannot propose a legal obligation to keep video games playable after they stop being provided commercially. This is due, also, to existing intellectual property rights. Under EU copyright law, rights holders enjoy exclusive rights over their creations. In addition to copyright, other intellectual property rights may also be relevant as they may protect different visual and technological aspects of a video game."
It's the "legal obligation" part that undermines intellectual property rights, because you are imposing an obligation on the holders of the intellectual property, and that does weaken their rights to the intellectual property. You are dictating what they must do with it. And as the statement says, then under current law, the holder of the intellectual property holds "exclusive rights" to it. This is what Stop Killing Games wants changed. They want a say in those rights. The EU says no.
Beyond that, I think the broader issue is mostly that gamers don't actually understand what they're paying for when they pay for something that's gaming related. That's struck me throughout this movement, that gamers are pretty clueless about the difference between a digital product they own, fully or in part, and then games as a service where they're essentially paying for access but not owning anything.
That all seems confusing to many people, and I think that's an area where clearer information to consumers would be beneficial. At least if you're informed upfront - about what you're paying for, and actually understand it, then you can also choose not to pay.
And we've seen the EU dictate such in other areas before, that such details needs to be expressed in less "legal text ways" and more "common tongue" so to speak. So that's something that might benefit the gaming market, I think. And I think the EU is moving in that direction already, for example with not long ago dictating that in-game payments need to be shown in local currency and not gems or stars or whatever.
883
u/c0mander5 Jun 17 '26
Can't pass a laws making it so we own the things we buy, but there can sure as shit be laws banning adult content and social media.