European court: You are allowed to resell your steam games

Fenris said:
Well then maybe you shouldn't have bought them in the first place.
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The problem is that you only know if a game is any good after you've bought it. Half the reviews out there are biased or paid for so they generally can't be trusted. Youtube videos only go so far. Look at all the glowing reviews for Black Ops when that came out. Compare those reviews to 99% of fans' truthful reviews.
 
from RPS which includes the judgments wording, interesting bits highlighted, on reading this I don't see much wriggle room left for the likes of steam etc.

Well here’s some pretty huge news. The Court Of Justice of the European Union has just ruled that people should be able to resell downloaded games. In an environment where publishers are trying to destroy basic consumer rights like the ability to resell physical products you’ve paid for, this could be one heck of a turnaround for customers. And that’s no matter what it might say in the EULAs. This could have absolutely enormous implications on how services like Steam, Origin, GamersGate and the like work, and finally restore some rights back to the gamer.


The draconian and almost inevitably unenforceable rules we all pretend we’ve read and agreed to whenever we buy an online game are packed with ridiculous attempts to remove our rights of ownership. At best, when those rules are held to their letter, we’re long-term renting the games, with no rights to protect their being taken away from us at any point. So a ruling saying we have enough ownership that we can actually sell them on to others is a massive difference. Of course, it does ask one rather huge question: Er, how?

The preliminary ruling states,

“The first sale in the EU of a copy of a computer program by the copyright holder or with his consent exhausts the right of distribution of that copy in the EU. A rightholder who has marketed a copy in the territory of a Member State of the EU thus loses the right to rely on his monopoly of exploitation in order to oppose the resale of that copy… The principle of exhaustion of the distribution right applies not only where the copyright holder markets copies of his software on a material medium (CD-ROM or DVD) but also where he distributes them by means of downloads from his website.”

This was a result of software developers Oracle taking German company UsedSoft to court for reselling licenses to Oracle products. However, after reaching the European Court, a surprise blow came against the big publisher. And it has massive implications for all of online purchases, including games bought from places such as Steam, Origin, GamersGate, etc. And even further implications for those publishers attempting to ban the far more commonplace reselling of boxed products too.



The specific rule seems to be that if a license is sold indefinitely – i.e. not a license for a year, or similar – that the rightholder “exhausts his exclusive distribution right”.

“Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy.”

That sentence is a really massive deal. It’s the very first time there has been any official sense of ownership via digital distribution, and if it gets implemented by courts, it’s going to change a great deal. From our having the legal right to sell games in our Origin accounts, right down to surely taking away the ability for companies like Valve and EA to block customers’ access to their purchased games for other infractions.

Right now we have companies like Microsoft and Sony looking for ways to make reselling of their products impossible for their next generation of consoles, and presumably relying heavily on the perceived redundancy of the argument if those games were purchased online (as surely the next gen consoles will want to focus on). But pow, maybe not. With a ruling that states,

“The Court observes in particular that limiting the application of the principle of the exhaustion of the distribution right solely to copies of computer programs that are sold on a material medium would allow the copyright holder to control the resale of copies downloaded from the internet and to demand further remuneration on the occasion of each new sale, even though the first sale of the copy had already enabled the rightholder to obtain appropriate remuneration. Such a restriction of the resale of copies of computer programs downloaded from the internet would go beyond what is necessary to safeguard the specific subject-matter of the intellectual property concerned.”

this whole deal just got an awful lot more interesting. It appears to be directly stating that it is inappropriate for copyright holders to insist on the right to be remunerated with every re-sale, which could even have legal implications for the current systems various console publishers have introduced, forcing pre-owned customers to pay a tithe before the game will work properly.

The ruling also makes it clear that if someone does resell a digital copy of a product, they must remove their version of it from their computer – because at that point it does become a copyright violation, as it’s become a reproduction, not a resale. But fascinatingly, it adds, “However, the directive authorises any reproduction that is necessary for the use of the computer program by the lawful acquirer in accordance with its intended purpose. Such reproduction may not be prohibited by contract.” What does that mean for the current exploits publishers are using, too? Could they now be illegal?

How companies like Steam, EA, etc will react will be very interesting. Their current infrastructures certainly don’t support reselling, and they’d probably ban your account if they caught you trying to. This is a ruling whose implications could stretch a very long way. There are bound to be challenges to the ruling made, and we can assume this one will stay in courts for a good while longer.
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interesting times
 
trickycurve said:
According to this new EU law, would it be legal for developers to take a small cut of the money (say 10%) made from second-hand sales? If it isn't, it might not harm them too much.
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Why should they make more money out of you from selling the game on?

So for example if i bought a car brand new from Ford,Then later decided to sell it private i should give ford 10% of my takings?

It just would not happen.
 
Fenris said:
Well then maybe you shouldn't have bought them in the first place.

Personally I do agree with allowing people to sell games that are digitally activated however I only agree with it when there is a physical copy involved.
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what a load of rubbish, why should buying online condem you to no resale, and why should you know the product is for you before puschasing it. :rolleyes:
 
Nevakonaza said:
Why should they make more money out of you from selling the game on?

So for example if i bought a car brand new from Ford,Then later decided to sell it private i should give ford 10% of my takings?

It just would not happen.
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I was merely asking. But since you've decided "it just would not happen", I'd like to point out that Blizzard take a 15% cut of virtual items sold on the RMHA in Diablo 3. Blizzard also have the cheek to take a 15% cut of the in-game currency, which I've always found rather absurd if I'm being honest (surely if they needed that gold, they could just magic some more out of the ether or something? Anyway, moot point about the gold).

I'm just saying it could happen is all.
 
Naff8000 said:
what a load of rubbish, why should buying online condem you to no resale, and why should you know the product is for you before puschasing it. :rolleyes:
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Well the first part is simple, how do you resell a digital product? Think about it, you buy a game on steam and you can then play that game regardless of steam being online or not.

I assume you see the issue? How can the developer/publisher make sure the person who originally bought the product is not still playing the game after selling it on? It's the equivalent of renting a DVD and just ripping the film but in this case the DVD doesn't even have the basic copy protection they do now.

The only way (and a way that publishers may be forced to move to) is true cloud gaming, i.e streaming the game direct from a server.

People seem to be doing exactly what the EU court are doing by making this ruling, not actually thinking about what it means. The current state of digital based game sales is just not compatible with resale.


A quick note of the second part, he said he bought games he hadn't spent "5 minutes on", that isn't just not knowing the game is for you, that's buying without thinking.
 
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Buying a steam/origin game grants use of their servers. Obviously there will be a server/admin overhead in facilitating on-line sales.

Digital Game content providers will no-longer be able to hide behind their locked down distribution platforms when refusing re-selling. However due to the admin/server aspect of this I am sure they will be able to make a charge off the customer for transferring digital ownership. (Just as say selling a game on ebay costs postage). They will also surely be able to wipe dlc/online character progress from the account due to the fact that you only own the game, not what is held on their servers.
 
Fenris said:
Well the first part is simple, how do you resell a digital product? Think about it, you buy a game on steam and you can then play that game regardless of steam being online or not.

I assume you see the issue? How can the developer/publisher make sure the person who originally bought the product is not still playing the game after selling it on? ....
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It could be done quite simply.

For example if its a Steam game I must use the steam client to move it on, therefore steam will remove the game from my account and will be added to AN Others.
 
Squark said:
He should have done his research better before purchasing the game then
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Perhaps but as we know game reviews are not to be taken as gospel as peoples tastes differ and heavy sponsorship on some sites tend to sway a score on way or the other. Why should a consumer be punished to wanting to try something new?

This kind of practice will just stop my friend and myself from giving something a shot on the off chance, particularly if priced at full.

You might be OK spending £20-30 (which I don't begrudge you) on games you don't like or will never play again but unfortunately not all of us have that sort of cash to burn. I don't see why PC games should differ from consoles. I have a PS3 and when I'm bored of the games I just eBay them to save space and get a few quid back.

I'm more bothered about retail products as I prefer a box, manual and a disc to install from (download speeds for a 30GB game still don't cut it) but you can argue the fact does it really matter how the product is distributed, it's still the same product at the end of the day is it not?

As I said earlier I think the piracy card is way over played, if a person spends 1-2k on a gaming rig they can more than afford to pay for games and they probably do buy them. A kid using the family computer can't afford to pay for the game (no job as they are 12) so they will pirate the latest game.
 
I have read through four pages and must say their are some selfish single minded people on here that only think about themselves.

Quite simply if this all goes ahead and Steam / EA are forced to allow games to be transferred we can simply say good bye to PC gaming in a few years. Developers will loose revenue due to people swapping games for minimal fee's.

I know time are hard but you have to look at the bigger picture and the effect it will have on developers. The PC gaming market is small enough as it is I don't think it can afford something like this to go through.
 
Just saw this. What a ridiculous thing, clearly whoever issued it has no clue about the whole thing.

As if publishers need another excuse to steer away from PC games, and as said it'll be damaging for small devs. Nobody will bother with sales any more either, or worse we'll end up with subscription models on all games meaning we're just paying short term for services and loose the right when we stop paying.
 
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orderoftheflame said:
Just saw this. What a ridiculous thing, clearly whoever issued it has no clue about the whole thing.

As if publishers need another excuse to steer away from PC games, and as said it'll be damaging for small devs. Nobody will bother with sales any more either.
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This does not just affect PC gaming - It will be applicable to ALL digital software - consoles et el, so those moves by Microsoft etc to stop second hand xbox games are about to crash
 
Fenris said:
Did I not just say I was fine with physical copies?

Just for reference I am generally against the current state of second hand game sales, however I consider it a problem as a result of the high prices of games. Unfortunately the reason for the high price is actually justified due to the much smaller demographic of games compared to the only realistic comparison to the games industry which is film, however film has multiple avenues for profit such as cinema, rentals, tv all on top of DVD/BR sales. Games only have one realistic avenue which is direct sales, with rental only now getting bigger with things like netflix/lovefilm etc.

Unfortunately it is not as simple as "Other industries have a second hand market therefore it's fine" because it isn't, the second hand game market is almost unique in the way it functions.
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Why does it matter it are physical copies ?

Besides, I can't sell my ''retail'' steam games now can I ?

You should be able to get your money back ( or at least partially) for **** games...
Far too much **** has been made by devs in the past couple of years.

You are acting like the game market is in such bad weather...
 
Komedy said:
This does not just affect PC gaming - It will be applicable to ALL digital software - consoles et el, so those moves by Microsoft etc to stop second hand xbox games are about to crash
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You've already been able to resell console games for years, and the attempts to properly try and stop it have only been recent.

PC gaming hasn't had it in years, it's going to completely screw the small developers into the ground, the only devs that aren't churning **** out, and the big names will just turn to subscription model and screw their customers even more.
 
I think steam already knew this was coming eventually, after all the Steam Trade system was implemented, i guess it could technically be upgraded.

Either way, if anything can come out of this, EA is getting hurt so i am somewhat in support.

...Of course they could implement a competitive regime, make it so that one can only sell for 90% or something of the original sale price.

Making it less attractive to do so, unless you REALLY want to get rid of the game FOREVER.
 
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