But you are mixing different things which should not be mixed together.
Just because you are allowed to make backups that doesn't mean that it's your "right" to do this whatever the measures.
The ruling about reselling software licenses was actually made regarding companies which are licensing big amounts of software and want to pass it along.
Games on steam are a completely different thing, and there is a ruling that Steam is allowed to forbid reselling. You can find an article over here:
http://www.golem.de/news/urteilsbeg...-von-accounts-verbieten-darf-1403-105327.html
You can also read about a follow up over here:
http://spielerecht.de/kg-berlin-erneut-unuebertragbare-nutzeraccounts-bei-steam-sind-zulaessig/
I would say though, looking those articles and the more detailed ones they link to, they do paint a picture of a situation that remains confused.
The Steam judgement appears to relate to the resale of entire steam accounts, not merely individual game licences - with the salient point in the judgement being that the provision of services through a Steam account makes the account different than a single piece of software. It also says the case could still be appealed to a higher court in Germany, never mind the EU.
I certainly don't know a great deal about German law specifically, but I think, at a European level, we are still awaiting clarity, and how that will filter down to individual states is hard to say. There is lots of talk about how games are software, but also contain creative media that ought to be treated more like movies than software, creating a “hybrid” legal situation.
In that key case of Nintendo vs GameBox, I think ECJ made their principle clear – that the intent of circumvention must be taken into account, and should be considered acceptable under reasonable circumstances. I think that an indivual circumventing game DRM on their own systems, purely for personal use, without any intent to distribute the copyrighted work, would be seen as reasonable.
I suspect that the EU legal wrangling over Steam is far from over. Not that I would encourage anyone here to become a test case in Germany!
