EU rules publishers cannot stop you reselling your downloaded games

[VAOZoky]

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that publishers cannot stop you from reselling your downloaded games.

More specifically: "An author of software cannot oppose the resale of his 'used' licences allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet."

The Court said the exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by the license is "exhausted on its first sale".

The ruling means that gamers in European Union member states are free to sell their downloaded games, whether they're from Steam, Origin or another digital platform - no matter what End User License Agreement has been signed.

The ruling continues: "Therefore, even if the licence agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy."

The ruling suggests that if you've bought a license for a game off your mate, you're within your rights to download it from the publisher's website. "Therefore the new acquirer of the user licence, such as a customer of UsedSoft, may, as a lawful acquirer of the corrected and updated copy of the computer program concerned, download that copy from the copyright holder's website," the Court said.

Whether Valve and EA will make changes to their websites to reflect the ruling remains to be seen.

The ruling in more depth:

"Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy - tangible or intangible - and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy. Therefore, even if the licence prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy."

There is one condition, however. If you resell a license to a game you have to make your copy "unusable at the time of resale". Now you will do that, won't you?

"If he continued to use it," the Court explained, "he would infringe the copyright holder's exclusive right of reproduction of his computer program. In contrast to the exclusive right of distribution, the exclusive right of reproduction is not exhausted by the first sale."

 

Finally :thumbup:

[MTFDarkEagle]

Nice :)

[Kenan]

It makes perfect sense. If I buy a car, I have every right to sell it, not be stuck with it for the rest of my life. Same should go for software.

[159th_Viper]

It makes perfect sense. If I buy a car, I have every right to sell it, not be stuck with it for the rest of my life......

 

That example would have made a lot more sense if you were capable of Copy/Paste'ing yourself a new car prior to sale ;)

 

It's not all Sunshine and Roses :)

[Grimes]

We can already trade games on Steam, however it must be done before you add the game to your library. So it is similar to having an unopened box and you are basically free to do whatever you want with it. Gift it to a friend, use it yourself, or trade other players for other games or in-game items. Diablo 3 has built in features to buy and sell items for real world money and Blizzard simply takes a small % of the sale.... I could see something like this being added to Steam. There are obvious limitations though. For instance anything with an extra layer of DRM probably can't be sold/traded. For example HL2 is on my steam account and only my steam account, I could re-sell/trade it easily. If I bought DCS on Steam I wouldn't be able to sell/trade it because the key would be tied to me ED-Net account.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Grimes

[Kuky]

That example would have made a lot more sense if you were capable of Copy/Paste'ing yourself a new car prior to sale ;)

 

It's not all Sunshine and Roses :)

 

you can copy/paste the content but you still need a licence to activate the software, if you sell your copy you have sold your licence also and that prohibits yo from having same licence running on your PC after this sale.

[EtherealN]

The difference here is that we are talking about a service, not a good. This is a very major distinction. If I offer to cook your food for you in perpetuity, do you have an automatic right to transfer this?

 

I'll abstain from commenting on this directive further since IANAL and I haven't even had time to study it closer (never trust mainstream media in details etcetera).

[159th_Viper]

you can copy/paste the content but you still need a licence to activate the software, if you sell your copy you have sold your licence also and that prohibits yo from having same licence running on your PC after this sale.

 

Yeah, that's the theory :)

 

In any event, without access to the relevant Law Report we are farting against the wind insofar as intelligent interpretation of the judgement is concerned.

Edited July 4, 2012 by 159th_Viper

[monotwix]

If I had an intelligent judgement, I would play a game twice to see if…

I can make it to court.

The court is going to say I’m not intelligent when I play/buy/sell games sue me.

I’m I going to face an extradition to the US without EU court?

Who’s intelligent now?

Edited July 4, 2012 by monotwix

[cichlidfan]

All I know is that if it were possible about a third of my Steam library would be 'free to a good home'! ;)

[monotwix]

Sweet strawberry, that is the spirit.

[joey45]

Core blimey gov'ner.