GOG will transfer your dead relative’s game account, but only with a court order

"We'd do our best to make it happen... with the help of the justice system."

See full article...

 

[Albino_Boo]

I think this makes it sound harder than it is. If any part of the estate goes into probate, there will be a court order. Unless I missed it the article doesn’t require the court order to specifically identify the GOG account. Whether, GOG would actually require that might be an open question. And what it means to work through the EULAs of individual titles sounds like a mess, but it’s their mess. (Best guess if they do decide to transfer ownership, they’re not actually going to do a title-by-title review.)

Now… good estate planning means you skip probate by having your assets fall into a trust. Ironically, the better job you do at estate planning, the harder it might be to pass along your GOG library.

Good luck in asking a court to make a non transferable licence transferable.

Given the current legal situation, I'm not sure GoG could be expected to do anything else. They can't get sued by a publisher if they're obeying a court order.

Updating the legal codes so that software is treated the same as older media seems to be the answer to me. I can inherit other stuff, why not software?

Because you are buying a single non transferable license.

 

[Albino_Boo]

This still isn't ideal but its a shame GOG isn't the champion of PC gaming while Steam is. No shade to Steam and Steam has features that are better than GOG, but GOG's push for DRM free is inherently more consumer friendly and IMO aligns most with the openness of PCs.

GoG sell no other AAA games beyond CD Projekt RED's. CD Projekt RED sell the majority of its games on Steam. On Stream there is the option for CD Projekt RED to turn off DRM. CD Projekt RED does not do that. GOG's policy is just gimmick because the parent company doesn't use it on its main sales platform.

 

[Venator]

While a fair explanation, it still sounds like a situation they don't want to have to deal with presumably because of monetization, not just legal grey area. There should be an easier way.

 

[Venator]

GOG already does this. When you buy a game from them, you get a DRM-free installer you can download and stash anywhere. With that installer, you can reinstall the game on any machine(s) you want without having to authenticate against your GOG account.

This makes the question of "how do I pass on my purchases?" less pressing in their case, because if you want to do that, you already can. Just download all the installers and store them on a hard drive somewhere, then tell your next of kin where the hard drive is. If they have the hard drive with the installers, they have as much access to your purchases as you ever did.

There could still be scenarios where a next of kin needs to access a decedent's GOG account for other reasons, in which case it makes sense for them to have a policy in place to allow that with the appropriate legal documentation. But you can obviate the need for your next of kin to ever have to contact GOG with just a little advance planning.

The open nature of offline installs make things easier in multiple aspects. When I started playing Diablo last month, it's very easy to run the DevilutionX mod on the raw game files, a mod with quality of life improvements like being able hold click to attack (vs. click spam). Also, you can run the game through Proton or Lutris or whichever game client.

 

[tenocticatl]

Or you can just put your credentials in your will. It's not like any of those services check if you're alive.

 

[Zabieru]

Or you can just put your credentials in your will. It's not like any of those services check if you're alive.

IANAL, but your lawyer will thank you for NOT putting that in the will. Put it in a letter that goes with the will. Put it in a separate document. Don't put it in the will.

For one thing, it doesn't belong there. For another, that will could very, very easily end up in court. (In that case, it's possible that the letter/document will too, but you'll likely have a much easier time arguing to redact the password if it's not in the will.) Even if it doesn't, it's going to be shared by a lot of people besides whoever you willed your password to, quite likely including random lawyers you may never have met.

 

[Zabieru]

GoG sell no other AAA games beyond CD Projekt RED's. CD Projekt RED sell the majority of its games on Steam. On Stream there is the option for CD Projekt RED to turn off DRM. CD Projekt RED does not do that. GOG's policy is just gimmick because the parent company doesn't use it on its main sales platform.

Uh... Do you think it might be possible that CDPR might actually want people to use GOG instead of their competitor's platform? I mean, it seems like that might be a goal of theirs. And if it was, they might want to preserve their big sales pitch about DRM-free games, and have that be a GOG-only extra that you don't get if you buy their games somewhere else. That might be a rational decision they might make in pursuit of that goal.

But nah, you're probably right: they offer their games DRM-free on their own sales platform because they DON'T want anyone to buy them DRM-free. That makes a lot of sense now that you put it so clearly.

 

[Bigdoinks]

"That's the last straw son, I'm hereby disinheriting you from the family gal games."

 

[Albino_Boo]

Uh... Do you think it might be possible that CDPR might actually want people to use GOG instead of their competitor's platform? I mean, it seems like that might be a goal of theirs. And if it was, they might want to preserve their big sales pitch about DRM-free games, and have that be a GOG-only extra that you don't get if you buy their games somewhere else. That might be a rational decision they might make in pursuit of that goal.

But nah, you're probably right: they offer their games DRM-free on their own sales platform because they DON'T want anyone to buy them DRM-free. That makes a lot of sense now that you put it so clearly.

A multi billion dollar company would never create a brand image while cynically protecting its profits. A Polish company would never set up it's online sales platform in Cyprus to avoid tax. Don't be so nieve.

 

[phaolo]

Or...just put your id and password to [whatever password manager you have] in your will and call it done.

True, but this could be also risky (for the online part). Companies could decide to automatically close accounts older than 100 years, if there hasn't been any inheritance

 

[uesc_marathon]

Easy PR win for Gog. Good for them.
I've been preferring gog over steam when I have the option for several years now. Need to get around to re-buying all my Falcom games on gog at some point.

 

[Mungus the Unhyphenated]

There's not really a lot of difference between GOG and Steam's functional handling of deceased accounts. GOG admits that they don't rigorously check who's behind the login. Steam says nothing but functionally, they're no different.

GOG says that you'll have to show a court order to "officially" take over an account as an heir, but any licensing questions are up to the game publishers and EULA terms.

Steam says they don't as a matter of policy transfer accounts to heirs, which at least in the US translates to "If you want to push the issue, lawyer up and get a court order" which is what probate can do for you anyway. And the rest of Steams mostly non-statement leaves questions of license transferability in the hands of the software publishers and EULAs again.

Ultimately, GOG's response is "nicer" from an informal PR standpoint, and they have no DRM to enforce access control anyway, but they admit that the user account is only worth so much versus license transferability under EULAs.

Steam's approach is very likely to be corporate-legal-department-approved; par for the course in the US. But ultimately a court order is likely to get you the same from them as with GOG, and you're still left with a gray area under EULAs.

Access to digital libraries is relatively easy, and likely to being cracked open with the right legal documentation in hand. But EULAs are the real problem, and one way or another the storefronts are going to find a way to take the position that they're not responsible/liable for any violations of EULAs.

Ultimately, it's up to the heir to determine how they feel about the legalities of account use and rights to use software. Do you play the paladin IRL and approach not only the digital storefront with legal documentation and court orders, but also every software publisher/license holder as well? Do you hoist the Jolly Roger, break out the decedent's stored passwords, log in and set sail? Or do you fall somewhere in between?

 

[VerticalBlank]

IANAL, but your lawyer will thank you for NOT putting that in the will. Put it in a letter that goes with the will. Put it in a separate document. Don't put it in the will.

For one thing, it doesn't belong there. For another, that will could very, very easily end up in court. (In that case, it's possible that the letter/document will too, but you'll likely have a much easier time arguing to redact the password if it's not in the will.) Even if it doesn't, it's going to be shared by a lot of people besides whoever you willed your password to, quite likely including random lawyers you may never have met.

Exactly. Here in the UK, once probate is granted the entire will becomes public information. Don't put anything confidential, such as account credentials, in there.

 

[Qurious]

Or . . . hear me out . . . you could just write down your login and password and give it to someone when you die.

Your plan will work better if you write it all down and give it to someone before you die instead.

 

[Boskone]

Because you are buying a single non transferable license.

Good, then non-transferrable licenses would have to go away.

 

[Geeklaw]

Ooooh I know what article I'm going to talk to Lawyer Wife about over dinner tonight and pick her brain. Granted this isn't her area of practice (estate law), but she does deal with tech law all the time as she works for an algorithmic trading house, so she might know some of the tech side of things.

As someone with insight into trusts, estates, and probate work as much as GOG's position feels like a cop-out it does make a certain amount of sense. The probate process generally allows estate administrators to distribute tangible and intangible property without a court order, but it's not terribly difficult to get a court order to support those distributions to ensure that the potential devisees cannot object to the distributions later. It certainly isn't the most convenient process (that would be just sharing the login and password), but it wouldn't be impossible.

 

[vikarti]

So it's ok if it's by court order is ok?

What would happen if there are than one heir?

Also, if it's ok in cases of interitance - how long until divorce or bankruptcy courts decide they want to get themselves involved?
Also, court order of which country? Is Palestine considered country for this purpose? What about South Sudan? What about Taiwan?

 

[vikarti]

<dup>

 

[Azure_Sentry]

Its almost like this is the place for a body elected to tackle issues where there are gaps in the law to take over. Too bad we don't have a responsive and functional one of those in the US to pass a (relatively) simple piece of legislation that would allow this transfer of ownership via a will. Its not THE most important thing to be tackled but certainly it is part of an area where laws need a major update in general to reflect the increasingly online nature of goods and services.

 

[DropBear]

GOG is not supposed to be involved. If you care any amount at all about your digital ownership, YOU WILL HAVE A LOCAL COPY OF EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED GAME YOU "OWN". Which means your inheritors only need a sizable hard disk AND NOTHING ELSE to enjoy whatever you deem worthy of bequeathing them. Which is THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT of GOG - if I need ANYONE'S, like literally ANYONE ELSE'S approval to launch a program, then I haven't actually bought that program. And that's something I'D NEVER pay any money for.

 

[DropBear]

When all you own is an ephemeral vector of voltages or magnetic moments then you own nothing.

You ARE an ephemeral vector of voltages and magnetic moments. Deal with it.

 

[PhaseB]

GoG sell no other AAA games beyond CD Projekt RED's. CD Projekt RED sell the majority of its games on Steam. On Stream there is the option for CD Projekt RED to turn off DRM. CD Projekt RED does not do that. GOG's policy is just gimmick because the parent company doesn't use it on its main sales platform.

How about you test and check your information before confidently spreading falsehoods?

The only CD Project game I have on Steam is Cyberpunk. I just started it from the directory (started the red launcher and from that the game) and unlike with other games Steam did not start up at any point while the game (up to the load save file selection screen) ran fine. So at least that game is running DRM free even when bought on Steam...

 

[Maton]

Password sharing is against terms of service and can lead to account deletion.

That's it. After the account is 120 years old, they'll know it is not in the hands of the same person and will be obliged to delete it.

At least with GOG, the games are all DRM free. So, what we're really talking about are other platforms like Steam.

 

[Deleted member 807857]

When all you own is an ephemeral vector of voltages or magnetic moments then you own nothing.

That also describes a bank account, funny enough.

 

[C.M. Allen]

This is exactly what I fucking hate about "ownership" of digital goods. It's just done at the pleasure of some corporation deigning to let you (or your survivors) access what you already bought and paid for. Sometimes things disappear because of some IP lawyer shit behind the scenes. Sometimes maybe you move to a region where you're not allowed to watch your movie or play your game.



I think it's high time we had laws that govern digital purchases so they have the attributes of true ownership: you can give them away, you can loan them out, you can sell them, you can put them in your will. Otherwise it's really just a rental.

Corporations will absolutely say they're "bound by general law" when the vagueness suits them.

I'll go one step further than recognizing ownership rights of digital goods -- I think it's long past time that there be a regional, national, or even global rights & licenses database that keeps track of the digital properties a given individual has purchased, providing that individual access to their digital properties indefinitely. The 'super cloud of all things digital' that cuts producers and distributors out of the loop after customers purchase rights or licenses to digital goods. You should not need the permission of the digital store to acquire or use the licenses to your digital goods after the sale. No more of this "you pay for it, but it's not really yours, and we can take it away at any time" horsesh**.

To give a more concrete example, GoG (or Steam, etc) would simply facilitate the initial sale, like any other storefront. After that, they should have no further say in your access to or usage of the digital goods you buy from them. Whenever you want access to your purchases, sign in to your 'rights and licenses' database account and download or stream as needed. GoG would not be involved in any capacity.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Good, then non-transferrable licenses would have to go away.

There's this thing called the law. Judges actually have to apply it, not wishful thinking

 

[Albino_Boo]

As someone with insight into trusts, estates, and probate work as much as GOG's position feels like a cop-out it does make a certain amount of sense. The probate process generally allows estate administrators to distribute tangible and intangible property without a court order, but it's not terribly difficult to get a court order to support those distributions to ensure that the potential devisees cannot object to the distributions later. It certainly isn't the most convenient process (that would be just sharing the login and password), but it wouldn't be impossible.

Probate doesn't magically make pensions inheretable. Courts actually need to have grounds to make non transferable assets transferable.

 

[Matthew J.]

At the base is the fact that GOG accounts and content are subject to limited, personal, non-transferable licenses—"This is the standard for digital services and goods,"

Such a thing shouldn't even exist, let alone be a "standard."

Write your congressman.