EU court rejects EULAs digital games can be resold

The only ruling I heard on the case was in Autocad's favor.

PC Gamer is saying this is just a preliminary ruling and isn't binding yet.

Dhruin: I think that push is already mighty strong. What I didn't expect was for the same thing to happen to other kinds of software! Sheesh, I better keep my XBox Live account safe. I may need to buy Windows 9 with that account!
 
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If there is such a case, US courts will probably side with producers. EU is much more geared towards customer rights while USA towards right of corporations.

Unless it involves EU companies or an industry that the EU dominates. The spirit of Mercantilism is not dead.

Courts always side in their country's own best interests, after all they are a branch of their own government. The deck is always stacked against a foreigner in any country.
 
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From what I can tell, the court is making the point that if you grant someone a license to use something for an unlimited amount of time then that's equivalent to ownership, and thus you can't prevent resale.

There are two quick workarounds to this that I can think of:
1) Instead of an unlimited license, games simply come with a 75 year license. You now no longer own the game therefore can be excluded from reselling.

2) Sell access to a library of games rather than the games themselves. This is what Steam do already, and is more similar to the streaming game model (albeit with a hefty local cache).

In the end the most difference it makes is to indie and drm free games, who are probably fine with reselling anyway.
 
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Hey, Corporations are people, too!

Yes, they are.

German law has both "natural persons" and "juristic persons".

Companies, firms, corporations, they all are "juristic persons".

The other side of the coin is that Germany STILL doesn't have any set of punishment laws against juristic persons. Only individual natural persons within a firm can be punished, and if none can be found - it's fine for the company !

And besides, the EU ruling appears to affect only companies, not private, natural persons, the local newspaper said.
 
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"corporate citizen" is the term used in the united states. it all goes back to the concept of "limited liability" that "limited partnerships" used to take on when they spread they venture capital across many ships. if one ship was lost at sea, they had nine other ships that were still transporting goods - its not a whole loss.

now that we have a news thread on this, should we merge the two?
 
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Here's an idea - go to the upcoming Steam sale, buy 500 copies of that game that's selling for $2.75, then go out and sell them yourself for $7 each. Profitssss!

It's this guy's idea.
 
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Here's an idea - go to the upcoming Steam sale, buy 500 copies of that game that's selling for $2.75, then go out and sell them yourself for $7 each. Profitssss!

You can already do that, well I'm not sure if they have a quantity limit, but you can buy games during a special discount sale and then trade them for other games, or for virtual items like TF2 hats. I've purchased a few games when they dropped below $5 and then traded them for other games when the price went back up.

You simply can't trade games that you've already played. So in the checkout window you can select "Purchase as a Gift" / Add to Inventory, or you can select "Purchase for Myself." If you later decide you want to play a game in your inventory, you can open it and install it, but then you can't trade it anymore.

It wouldn't be that big of a leap for them to allow you to trade unopened games in your inventory for cash in your Steam wallet, but they are never going to allow people to trade games they've already played.
 
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A single digital file, however, can be sold and re-sold thousands of times and it will always be exactly the same experience as a brand new game.

The experience depends on the support. A game played on a weak computer does not deliver the same experience as a power computer.

Since the support is owned by the user, it is the same for books when bought used or brand new. The experience has not to be compared between users but with what the user can expect with what it has in the hands.
 
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Of course, with services like Steam and Origin, this ruling is more a moral victory than a tangible one, since there's no effective way to resell most digital games. However, it's still a nice middle-finger to serve any uppity executive who acts like you're paying for a glorified rental rather than the game itself.

Posturing. A decision taken because it has no consequences, so it costs nothing to enforce.

You do not need anyone to give that style of nice middle fingers. The consequence will be the same and one will only cost you the energy for doing the gesture either figuratively or actually (in much cases, less than the price of a quarter of an apple)

In the meantime, all the actors involved in the process of putting out that judgement, cost much more than the price of a quarter of an apple.
 
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"corporate citizen" is the term used in the united states. it all goes back to the concept of "limited liability" that "limited partnerships" used to take on when they spread they venture capital across many ships. if one ship was lost at sea, they had nine other ships that were still transporting goods - its not a whole loss.

I see. Thank you. I didn't know this historical background.
 
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The experience depends on the support. A game played on a weak computer does not deliver the same experience as a power computer.
For the weak computer owner it is still the exact same experience as if they had downloaded a brand new game directly from the source.

Since the support is owned by the user, it is the same for books when bought used or brand new. The experience has not to be compared between users but with what the user can expect with what it has in the hands.
A used book, car, or DVD that has changed hands just once immediately loses value. Over time and after changing hands many times these products suffer wear and tear. A digital file is always going to be exactly the same experience for any given user, whether it is brand new and downloaded directly from Steam, or whether it has changed hands thousands of times.
 
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A non used car loses value the same.
A unopened item loses value the same.

All of them would offer the same experience as if they were bought from the source.

Used DVDs are to be seriously damaged to deliver a different experience.
 
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A non used car loses value the same.
I appreciate sticking to your guns to the bitter end, but that's just silly. Cars are valued based on their mileage, in addition to the make/model. A 2 year old car with 10,000 miles will certainly not have lost the same value as a 2 year old car with 100,000 miles. similarly, a car sitting on the lot with 10 miles on the odometer will have a higher value than the same car sitting on the same lot that's been used as a demo and has 1000 miles on it.
 
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He was talking about a "non-used" car, which presumably eliminates cars which get purchased and leave the lot. Even throwing out that obvious counterargument, his point still falls apart.
 
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I see. Thank you. I didn't know this historical background.

np. "limited liability" today interprets how a "company" (of men; as opposed to one worker digging his lone mine claim) are protected from individual lawsuits. Without registering as a single corporation a claimant can go after everyone's personal assets individually.

He was talking about a "non-used" car, which presumably eliminates cars which get purchased and leave the lot. Even throwing out that obvious counterargument, his point still falls apart.

I was going to use this analogy myself and having been in computer sales its apt, even though the product is different.

Technology always becomes bigger, faster, better, cheaper. The depreciation value on used video games is not in the wear and tear of the product (I would never buy a used hard drive for instance) , but the fact that it goes out of date so quickly.

David Crane once told me even used cartridges of Pitfall aren't worth very much because there were 300 million of them in circulation.
 
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A non used car loses value the same.
A unopened item loses value the same.

Except for Star Wars Vintage Collectors. ;)

Technology always becomes bigger, faster, better, cheaper.

But what's left behind are the humans,, is humanity.

We currently live in an age that is dominated by logical thinking, by logical reasoning, by technology which is considered superior to … let's say simple baking of potatos.

And if technology is regarded higher than humanity … Then good night. I do hope that I won't have to witness this point in my whole life.

And, besides, a similar thing is currently going on full force for "market values". a current report from Japan tells the public that Tepco used costs as criteria upon acting on the atom reactor damage.

Costs ! Not humanity's safety !
 
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