Anti-Corporate Movement

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/20896275

Stop Killing Games Canadian Petition - Now Open For Signature

Petition E-4965 is the one that is posted to stopkillinggames.com, Ross Scott (Accursed Farms)'s campaign to end the practice of bricking games people have purchased, whenever the publisher doesn't want to support it anymore.

It is open for signing by Canadian Citizens and Permanent Residents, until September 5th 2024.

Please spread the word to your Canadian friends and family who take interest in games, and please add your name to it to support this campaign to help preserve games in some form in perpetuity.

Thank you!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14980892

UK Government Response to the Stop Killing Games Petition

The Government recognises recent concerns raised by video games users regarding the long-term operability of purchased products.

Consumers should be aware that there is no requirement in UK law compelling software companies and providers to support older versions of their operating systems, software or connected products. There may be occasions where companies make commercial decisions based on the high running costs of maintaining older servers for video games that have declining user bases. However, video games sellers must comply with existing consumer law, including the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs).

The CPRs require information to consumers to be clear and correct, and prohibit commercial practices which through false information or misleading omissions cause the average consumer to make a different choice, for example, to purchase goods or services they would not otherwise have purchased. The regulations prohibit commercial practices which omit or hide information which the average consumer needs to make an informed choice, and prohibits traders from providing material information in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner. If consumers are led to believe that a game will remain playable indefinitely for certain systems, despite the end of physical support, the CPRs may require that the game remains technically feasible (for example, available offline) to play under those circumstances.

The CPRs are enforced by Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority. If consumers believe that there has been a breach of these regulations, they should report the matter in the first instance to the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 (www.citizensadvice.org.uk). People living in Scotland should contact Advice Direct Scotland on 0808 164 6000 (www.consumeradvice.scot). Both helplines offer a free service advising consumers on their rights and how best to take their case forward. The helplines will refer complaints to Trading Standards services where appropriate. Consumers can also pursue private redress through the courts where a trader has provided misleading information on a product.

The CRA gives consumers important rights when they make a contract with a trader for the supply of digital content. This includes requiring digital content to be of satisfactory quality, fit for a particular purpose and as described by the seller. It can be difficult and expensive for businesses to maintain dedicated support for old software, particularly if it needs to interact with modern hardware, apps and websites, but if software is being offered for sale that is not supported by the provider, then this should be made clear.

If the digital content does not meet these quality rights, the consumer has the right to a repair or replacement of the digital content. If a repair or replacement is not possible, or does not fix the problem, then the consumer will be entitled to some money back or a price reduction which can be up to 100% of the cost of the digital content. These rights apply to intangible digital content like computer software or a PC game, as well as digital content in a tangible form like a physical copy of a video game. The CRA has a time limit of up to six years after a breach of contract during which a consumer can take legal action.

The standards outlined above apply to digital content where there is a contractual right of the trader or a third party to modify or update the digital content. In practice, this means that a trader or third party can upgrade, fix, enhance and improve the features of digital content so long as it continues to match any description given by the trader and continues to conform with any pre-contract information including main characteristics, functionality and compatibility provided by the trader, unless varied by express agreement.

Consumers should also be aware that while there is a statutory right for goods (including intangible digital content) to be of a satisfactory quality, that will only be breached if they are not of the standard which a reasonable person would consider to be satisfactory, taking into account circumstances including the price and any description given. For example, a manufacturer’s support for a mobile phone is likely to be withdrawn as they launch new models. It will remain usable but without, for example, security updates, and over time some app developers may decide to withdraw support.

Department Culture, Media & Sport

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14896651

Ross: April updates on campaign to stop game destruction

Lots of updates on the campaign! UK petition open! Australia petition probably open soon! Research help wanted! Australian law firm hired! Talking to EU members of Parliament!

Link to UK Petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071/

Link to Australia Petition:

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN6080

Link to outdated list of game shutdowns:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vaNfqOv3rStBQ4_lR-dwGb8DGPhCJpRDF-q7gqtdhGA/edit

Stop Killing Games campaign site:

https://stopkillinggames.com

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/18297918

FTC bans non-compete agreements, making it easier for workers to quit

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14589497

The UAW celebrates their huge win at Volkswagen with 73% of 4000 voting in favor!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14596314

Stop Killing Games | Cold Take | Second Wind (11:24)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14570366

The "Stop Killing Games" Australian Petition is Live

Just like the UK variant, this is an official government petition to look into the issue. Unlike the UK variant, the only signature threshold is 50 signatures - that said, more is better in this case.

Deadline: 20 May 2024

Here’s the Stop Killing Games campaign site for those unaware or not from Australia.

cross-posted from: https://communick.news/post/1013860

A zero-commission crowdfunding platform to support content creators in the Fediverse

About two months ago I was talking about this model for funding artists in the Fediverse where backers would set a monthly "pledge" and then they would be able to define how to split their contribution among their favorite preferred people.

This week I am launching the MVP of this idea. It's not specific to musicians or artists, but instead can be used by any content creator that wants to get any support from their audience.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14439247

EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy

The EU's Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising.

In October last year, the social media giant said it would be possible to pay Meta to stop Instagram or Facebook feeds of personalized ads and prevent it from using personal data for marketing for users in the EU, EEA, or Switzerland. Meta then announced a subscription model of €9.99/month on the web or €12.99/month on iOS and Android for users who did not want their personal data used for targeted advertising.

At the time, Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb, said: "EU law requires that consent is the genuine free will of the user. Contrary to this law, Meta charges a 'privacy fee' of up to €250 per year if anyone dares to exercise their fundamental right to data protection."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/13967961

Microsoft will now urge you to ditch local accounts on Windows 10

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/14370937

Canada to start taxing tech giants in 2024 despite U.S. complaints

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/13892163

X blocks posts in India after election commission order

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14399569

Discord Users Are Being Tracked Through Data-Scraping Site

Internet-scraping outfit Spy.pet claims to have harvested more than four billion public messages made by nearly 620 million users on more than 14,000 Discord chat servers – and is selling access to this trove.

The website presents the data it's collected in several ways. Each known user has a profile, which contains all known aliases, pronouns, connected accounts to other platforms such as Steam and GitHub, Discord servers joined, and public messages. If you wanted to quite literally spy on a Discord user or users, Spy.pet lets you do that, for a fee.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/29632065

Over 100 staff at Just Cause developers Avalanche have unionised

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14374682

The "Stop Killing Games" UK Petition is Live

For those wondering, this is an official government petition with two signature tresholds:

• 10,000 signatures: government will respond to this petition
• 100,000 signatures: this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament

Deadline: 16 October 2024

Here's the Stop Killing Games campaign site for those unaware or not from UK.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8296785

The largest campaign ever to stop publishers destroying games | Accursed Farms

cross-posted from: https://floss.social/users/kde/statuses/112235210025144872

We have now reached (and surpassed) 1000 Supporting Members! 🎉

We have now reached (and surpassed) 1000 Supporting Members! 🎉

But as KDE grows and takes on more and more ambitious projects, the effort to raise funds also increases.

If you would like to help, please consider becoming a supporting member and get your name inscribed in Plasma's Hall of Fame:

https://kde.org/fundraisers/plasma6member/

Or, if you prefer, you can make a one time donation:

https://kde.org/community/donations/
https://kde.org/fundraisers/yearend2022/

@[email protected]
#donations #charity

From the reports it is nowhere near proprietary systems, yet. Its a great development though and it shows what a single person can do for the community. We should shower this person with praise!

I‘m currently using an old iphone since I bought it before I knew much about apple and it was advertised for its long lifespan.

The problems I have with apples policy and the way I cant use this phone like i want to are driving me to want a different phone.

But the discussion I had about alternative OSs feels very biased. A lot of folks seem to be mostly focused on privacy^tm^, not owning your device.

What do I mean by that?

If you buy a computer, most people got windows with it. Some upgraded as soon as a new OS came out, some waited until the old one ran out. But it used to be that you can keep your device many years until it cant really run anything anymore. With linux its a different ballgame but out of the scope of this post.

Phones are a fashion item

Not so with phones. Some drop support for their phones like a hot potato but no phone keeps being supported after 5 yrs (apple) or three yrs (android phones mostly), some even earlier.

Manufacturers keep telling us its for safety or performance but the advancements in mobile computing arent that huge imo.

Privacy is a trend

And people seem to not care, not even most alternative os users. Graphene OS, running on pixel phones, seems to also drop support when the manufacturer support runs out.

This is, at its core, a terrible situation. But nobody seems to talk about it. These phones are not broken, they are getting intentionally „soft bricked“. The manufacturers could release the codes to sign software for these devices from what I read. They could make it easy for the community to support them.

We are being manipulated

But they condemn our hardware to the landfill and us to do their bidding and buy new as well as ruining our climate even further.

Thats why decided to go with postmarket os and buy an old phone. I‘ll try to get it working as best I can and also try to help with development since I have some skills.

please help

That said, if you have tech skills, consider helping with making old phones work longer either by testing postmarket os or others. Alternatively you can help developing this community project.

But even without tech knowledge, you can sign this petition to make manufacturers open their devices to us after support ends.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13914800

Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

In an interview with Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza at GDC in late March, where a new suite of AI-powered creation tools was demoed, I asked about the reputation Roblox hac gained and the notion that it was exploitative of young developers, since it takes a cut from work sometimes produced by children.

"I don't know, you can say this for a lot of things, right?" Corazza said. "Like, you can say, 'Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labour,' right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income. So, I can be like 15 years old, in Indonesia, living in a slum, and then now, with just a laptop, I can create something, make money and then sustain my life.

Now thats what I'm fkin talkin about! :)

This week I'm refurbishing a 15+ yr old computer which was stalling on windows 10 and got abandoned. Currently making a huge backup to an Icy box (the self built variant of a wd passport or similar).

On wednesday, a friend comes over and we're repasting the old i5. I might add some ram and a better but used cpu later which should give this thing another 10 yrs as a server. The mainboard is full of features and would accept a 4 core with 8 threads and 16 GBs of DDR3. Nothing to play recent games on but maaaaany docker containers will run on this baby! :)

Let me know what you're doing to spit on consumerism and built-for-the-landfill-economy.

Reminder: I made a petition on change.org to make consumer electronics manufacturers open their devices after they stop supporting them. Please sign it, your support is needed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.one/post/12734168

From its start, Gmail conditioned us to trade privacy for free services

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13807777

Discord to start showing ads in-app this week - Dexerto

In early March 2024, Discord revealed that “sponsored quests”, or ads would be added to the platform to help “support game developers” through the popular chat app. 

Discord didn’t initially share a release date, or even how they’re going to implement ads into Discord’s overall design, other than mentioning that the sponsored quests would “tastefully” be integrated. 

A report from The Wall Street Journal claims that Discord’s sponsored quests will be landing on the platform this week, and will be displayed at the bottom left of the app.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/11304633

Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk facing pressure as study finds $1,000 appetite suppressant can be made for just $5