News

Euro court ruling allows re-sale of digital titles
Posted: 04.07.2012 03:08 by JonahFalcon Comments: 17
The Court of Justice of the European Union has made a ruling that has rocked the videogame industry to its core, stating that publishers cannot stop users from re-selling their digital games. According to the Court, "An author of software cannot oppose the resale of his 'used' licences allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet."

This cannot be overrided by an End User's Licensing Agreement (EULA), either, whether sold on Steam, Origin, or any other digital distributor. "Even if the licence agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy," the ruling clarified.

Gamers can sell their copies of their downloaded titles so long as they relinquish their rights to the game.

This will undoubtedly cause sweeping changes to videogame sales in the future, including the retail market. It'll be interesting to see how Steam and Electronic Arts in particular react to this ruling.

No such ruling has been made in North America, and it's doubtful the United States will adopt this ruling in the foreseeable future.
Source: Eurogamer

Comments

By Chosen_One (SI Elite) on Jul 04, 2012
Chosen_One
Hah!
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 04, 2012
nocutius
This is incredible, I could not possibly even wish for this in today's world, it's absolutely brilliant :)

Sometimes I just love the EU :)
By danfreeman (SI Core) on Jul 04, 2012
danfreeman
So if i buy a game on steam and i don`t like it i can get my money back?THANK YOU!!!!
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 04, 2012
nocutius
I don't know about that, but you should be able to resell it.

On the other hand this will almost guarantee the publishers will come up with ever more schemes to hurt used games. So a used game will eventually be just a demo.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jul 04, 2012
herodotus
You can trade games in on GreenManGaming.com already, but with Steam it might proove more complicated. There will be the demands for refunds, as there always are, so that will need to be overhauled. As Steam IS based in the USA who knows when, or IF this will even be adopted.
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 04, 2012
nocutius
If they wanna sell games in EU they will have to adapt, it's either that or completely quit EU and I don't see them doing that at all. I could be wrong obviously but I'd think not adapting and leaving EU would hurt them more than the other way around.
By Jasca_Ducato (SI Core) on Jul 04, 2012
Jasca_Ducato
I'm not sure about the rest of the EU, but digital products (such as games) are one of the few exceptions to the Long Distance Selling regulations (read: buying stuff over the Internet) because you cannot actually return a digital product. This new EU ruling is kind of a pointless victory, as nobody will be able to make their copy of the digital product unusable.
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 04, 2012
nocutius
It is easily possible in case of Steam and Origin, GoG and similar are a different case and could prove to be a bit problematic.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jul 05, 2012
herodotus
As I said Jasco, you CAN trade digital games (non-Steam) on GreenManGaming.com - legitimatey. Now obviously this will not be challenged, not that it has yet anyway.
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jul 05, 2012
SirRoderick
EU! Woot!

*waves his flag about*
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Jul 06, 2012
FoolWolf
If STEAM and Valve are smart they will make game resell possible within STEAM as with gifting etc - and people can bid on used games, and they take a small part of the sale and give some of that profit back to the game maker/publisher - should satisfy most parties. For me - I would mostly like to get rid of some games from my list of games - closing in on 150 games and that list is pretty long - I have to send games to seldom and never more folders to not have to browse through them and if I could sell a few of them - I might be able to trade what, five to ten for a new game - that's ok by me...

Right now though - it means one very clear thing:


TAKE YOUR EULA'S AND SHOW THEM UP YOUR A** ! :D
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 06, 2012
nocutius
As soon as a new law requires EULA's to be printed on sandpaper :)
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Jul 06, 2012
FoolWolf
LOL! :D Good one Nocutius! :)
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Jul 06, 2012
herodotus
Nocc, your avatar expresses more and more with each post:)
By nocutius (SI Elite) on Jul 06, 2012
nocutius
That I'm a nice and a fair guy? :)
By SirRoderick (SI Elite) on Jul 06, 2012
SirRoderick
...yes....that's exactly what everyone was thinking.
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Jul 07, 2012
FoolWolf
...I think the sandpaper thing was both a nice initiative and sounded fair... ;)