Copyright question

[blueonblack]

There's a place in my town that has six or eight PCs in it that charges for LAN time by the hour. They have a lot of games there so you can bring your friends in and frag each other. My question is on the software. If they have eight systems set up do they have to purchase eight copies of every game they want to be able to sell time on to their customers?

Seems awfully cost-prohibitive at $50-$60 each for a new title.

[d_stilgar]

Steam has a Steam Cafe service where you can play all the games in their library for a monthly fee. It must be cheap enough that it's affordable. I've really wanted to start a lan center like that.

On the copyright issue. EULA will be difference for all titles, but the law for the most part will allow you to install on as many machines as you like but only be playing on one machine per purchased copy. There are an infinite number of exceptions to that though and most are defined in the individual game's EULA.

[Okele]

There's a place in my town that has six or eight PCs in it that charges for LAN time by the hour. They have a lot of games there so you can bring your friends in and frag each other. My question is on the software. If they have eight systems set up do they have to purchase eight copies of every game they want to be able to sell time on to their customers?

Seems awfully cost-prohibitive at $50-$60 each for a new title.

This will answer all of your questions. http://www.lancenters.com/

There is also steam. I was in the market a few years ago to start a LAN center. If you have 8 machines, and each machine has 10 games on it at 60.00 a game. Thats 600.00 x 8 = 2400.00. If you can get 20 customers a week to pay 4.00/hr for 30 hours that = 2400.00, games paid for. =)

And of course, that is not the only expense, I was just pointing out the cost-prohibitive question/statement. It wouldn't take that long to repay on those games, its a matter of setting up the budget to continue adding new games, and streamlining games people aren't playing.

[blueonblack]

Okele, HUGE +rep for that link, thanks!!

[Okele]

NP man. I'm back in school to get a bachelors in IT, it will make it easier down the road to get funding for a LANcenter. God knows we need something in my area, the nearest one is like 40 minutes away.

[x88x]

Here's a link for Steam's program. I'd never heard of that before; it looks pretty sweet. Looks like you have to actually sign up to get a price quote, but hey, it's Valve, it's gonna be reasonable. :D Good luck with this if/when you get it up and running, BoB.
https://cafe.steampowered.com/

[SgtM]

I'm sure there has to be some kind of volume license you can buy.

[Konrad]

Most software assumes that for each copy of the software purchased, one "license" is issued; you can make as many copies on as many media as you like, provided you only have one copy running at any single time. The DMCA allows developers to implement whatever bull**** copy-prevention, registration, and anti-tampering they like while making it illegal for consumers to circumvent these measures (outside of a few special exceptions). Microsoft is notorious for carrying things "too far" and even other companies like Blizzard have experimented with contaminants ... people have challenged Windows Activation on legal grounds and won - Microsoft is not legally permitted to force acceptance of their EULA terms under "duress" nor harvest your personal information (even anonymously), it is even legally responsible for any repercussions of said information being abused or improperly safeguarded, but then again it is not obligated to provide continuing support for your "as-is" product either. Various national, federal, and state laws can adjust legal rights for either party, but most align themselves in full compliance of de-facto DMCA "guidelines". The reality is that the gears of the legal machine can move in both directions but the big corps have massive legal and financial momentum on their side while the typical consumer does not. Another reality is that not everyone in the world recognizes the supremacy of American or EU laws; an internet cafe in Sweden or China has plenty of it's own legal details to contend with, but can probably copy and distribute foreign software with little fear of legal retribution.

If your internet cafe has 12 machines and purchases, say, 4 copies of WoW, then it can legally run up to 4 simultaneous copies of WoW at any time and on any machine without any real legal difficulty ... even if they didn't bother to open 3 of the boxes and used aftermarket hacks or warez to spoof or bypass registration keys while installing. Such stuff is technically illegal but nobody will bother to prosecute for something so ambiguous and financially insignificant, even when their attourney's sternest warnings are politely disregarded. They will not hesitate to prosecute in instances where they perceive (or can claim) a real loss in revenue, where they can be confident that the offender's intent is to profit through copyright infringement, and where they have clear proof; such as, for example, the internet cafe returning or reselling their 3 unopened copies of WoW without also limiting the number of copies they allow to run, or worse yet, "lifting" the valid CD keys from these copies for their own continued use before returning/reselling them.

[farlo]

wow may be a bad example as you can freely download the client from blizzards site, but the key is required to create an account. in order to access the servers, it also requires the monthly time card.

[Konrad]

lol, WoW would be a bad example. I don't play it, shows what I know, but yeah Blizzard's practically giving the game away for free to get you hooked. SC2 should suffice for my illustration then ...