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Subject: EU Rules You Can Resell Downloaded
Replies: 30 Views: 3632

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:14pm
...Games. Well heres 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 youve paid for, this could be one heck of a turnaround for customers. And thats no matter what it might say in the EULAs. This could have absolutely enormous implications on how services like Steam, Origin, GamersGate * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:15pm
and the like work, and finally restore some rights back to the gamer. The draconian and almost inevitably unenforceable rules we all pretend weve 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, were 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 * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:15pm
them on to others is a massive difference. Of course, it does ask one rather huge question: Er, how? The preliminary ruling states, * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:15pm
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 * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:16pm
(CD-ROM or DVD) but also where he distributes them by means of downloads from his website. * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:16pm
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. * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:16pm
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. Its the very first time there has been any official sense of ownership via digital distribution, and if it gets implemented by courts, its going to change a great deal. From our having the * +

newt182 3.07.12 - 05:17pm
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. * +

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