Yeah, this… doesn’t really make sense, unless the goal is to get Steam to adopt a policy of delisting the specific offending games in the UK.
I am not a lawyer, but… this seems spurrious?
I don’t know, I can’t find a single example of a platform or ‘retransmitter’ being successfully ruled against, in cases where the content itself already had worked out a rights/royalties agreement with the rights holders… unless it can basically be proven that the platform operators / retailers knew that the content itself was not properly liscensed, and sold it anyway.
So basically they would have to prove that Rockstar and EA never had the proper liscensing, and also that Valve knew that.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that Rockstar and EA probably did/do have the proper liscensing.
That being said, the UK leaving the EU… makes all of this exceptionally confusing to my layman self, as to the exact current standards and precedents that are currently in play and relevant.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You always sue starting from deepest to shallowest pockets.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
… but that only makes sense if you genuienly believe that Rockstar and/or EA have less cash than Valve, and/or Rockstar and EA never had their own relevant liscensing agreements.
I may be wrong, but as best I can tell, there is no precedent in UK law for a platform/retailer being found liable under the cited Section 20, unless the content being distributed/retransmitted/sold itself did not have proper liscensing arrangements.
My theory?
The entire Publically Traded gaming world seems to be mobilizing and coordinating efforts to get every kind of secondary organization they are connected to, to sue Valve, right now.
Because they are all financially imploding, and they’re trying to do as much damage as possible to Valve, who isn’t a part of their club, as a means of trying to level the playing field.
All these people on the boards of top gaming companies… are also on the boards of other top gaming companies, they know each other, they have people and contacts who sit in all the gaming industry lobbying groups, and the astroturf fake ‘gamer advocacy’ groups, in the IP rights groups, etc etc.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 hours ago
So what you’re saying is, this lawsuit, and likely many others, is publishers-and-their-investors-who-want-to-not-have-to-go-through-steam-and-have-or-want-to-have-competing-but-monopolies-on-their-own-games-and-storefronts backed.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 hours ago
That hurt my brain to read, but I think, basically yes.
Its a cabal of mostly vertically integrated companies vs basically a horizontal monopoly that gatekeeps all of them, that’d they’ve all tried and failed or are currently failing to break through.
And yeah, petulant publishers does sound like a match to me.
Its basically mob tactics, just higher class.