Reselling DL-ed Games Legal in EU

[Kalah]

<img src="/images/news/EUdownload.jpg" align=right vspace=5 hspace=5>A court in the European Union, which is a big thing in Brussels, has recently <a href="/http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs ... ">ruled</a> that regardless of EULAs, buyers of games (and other types of software) are <a href="/http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... s">allowed to resell them</a>. This also applies to <i>downloaded</i> software.



The fight against the sale of used games has been going on for some time now, and the big producers have realized that distributing games digitally is an effective way of stopping this. Most distribution services (both for consoles and PCs) tie the games to a personal account you cannot sell, nor do they open up for the reselling of individual licenses. However, <a href="/http://www.oracle.com/index.html">Oracle</a> recently filed suit against a German company which sold licenses for Oracle products without their permission ... and they lost. The recent ruling in the EU court found that these sales were legal.



For us gamers, this means that we are allowed to resell the license to a downloadable game (for instance if you have completed it) just as you can by taking your physical copy to a shop and selling it used. <b>It does not matter what the user licences (EULAs) say about the matter. Many of these say excplicitly that you as a customer are not allowed to resell this copy/license on to someone else, but EU citizens may now (by law) ignore this</b>. The ruling also seems to suggest that taking action to prevent this ... is in itself illegal. In other words, if you live in the EU and want to resell a downloaded game, any DRM preventing you from doing this is illegal.



So, what are the consequences of this? Right now, probably <a href="/http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... arket">not much</a>. As before, we are of course not allowed to make copies of our games or licences and sell <i>those</i> (which is as it should be), but the EU court has confirmed what I have been banging on about for years: we <i>are</i> allowed to do whatever we wish with the individual copies we <i>do</i> buy. Burn them, eat them, give them away ... or resell them.



This thing is about to get bigger, though. As it is, this ruling applies to the EU only. What, then, happens to distributors who are working on a global scale ...?

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1341441436

[Kalah]

On a related note, the EU Parliament has also voted to reject ACTA. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was intended to standardise copyright protection measures, seeking to curb trade of counterfeit physical goods, including copyrighted material online. Critics have argued that the agreement would violate people's freedom of expression on the web; it has been likened to another controversial piracy act; SOPA.

[Avonu]

>>>It does not matter what the user licences (EULAs) say about the matter.

It doesn't ever matter what EULA say. In many cases EULA is against local laws and local law is more important then some "ink on the paper" added by software companies. Local law >> EULA and it will never change.

>>>As before, we are of course not allowed to make copies of our games

Not true, it depends on country in which you are living and its law. In Poland you can make copy of programm (make, not download, and only 1 copy for personal use/backup) and also modify it to run it, even if producent doesn't allow you to that in EULA. EULA in these cases has nothing to say.

[Torur]

Nice to know, though I live outside the EU. Never liked the union...

Politics aside, this is good news. It is good to see that the legislative authority is protecting the right of the people to own the stuff they buy and not sucumming to pressure from the multinational company's.

[Kalah]

Not true, it depends on country in which you are living and its law. In Poland you can make copy of programm (make, not download, and only 1 copy for personal use/backup) and also modify it to run it, even if producent doesn't allow you to that in EULA. EULA in these cases has nothing to say.

Good work - by removing the last few words of my sentence, you changed its meaning and missed my point completely.

I said you cannot make copies of your games and sell those. You will also notice that I said the same thing you just did: we are allowed to do whatever we want with our games, including (of course) make backup copies.

[Avonu]

Oh, you did?

Sorry for that.

[hellegennes]

The fact about copies is nonsense. Of course what Kalah says it's true, you cannot sale illegal* copies of the game. However, there's no limit about how many copies you wish to have of your software. That a state law or EULA can have a say about this makes no sense, unless they have they have the right to invade your private property. They also have no say in how many copies you can make and give them to your friends, again, unless there's a weird law not allowing you to lend stuff to your friends.







* I'm pointing this out, because all software products are copies anyway, apart from the gold.
Edited on Thu, Jul 05 2012, 06:08 by hellegennes

[GreatEmerald]

>Good work - by removing the last few words of my sentence, you changed its meaning and missed my point completely.

I had to re-read that sentence a few times to understand what you truly intended to mean. So keep things clear if you don't want things like that to happen

[Kalah]

Or you n00bs could learn some English.

[hellegennes]

Don't listen to them Kalah, I understand perfectly just by reading it once. :p

[Avonu]

Or you n00bs could learn some English.

No problem, when could we start? (free lessons ofc ):devil:

[Kalah]

@Avonu: You'll get all the lessons you need from reading my stuff.

[ShadowLiberal]

Good news, now if only they'd rule other things that restrict your right to resell software you legally bought, such as

-Product Keys necessary to register an account to even use the game/software you bought.

-Activation Limits on the # of installations you can do without being forced to call up and beg for more (some people get a new computer every year or two, or have hard drives that just die, hence everything needs reinstalled. This is a big part of why Windows XP is taking so long to die Microsoft)

-Forcing users to have Internet connections to use offline features that don't need the Internet.

[ThunderTitan]

>>It doesn't ever matter what EULA say. In many cases EULA is against local laws and local law is more important then some "ink on the paper" added by software companies. Local law >> EULA and it will never change.<<

Actually i remember that a french court ruled even the stuff that's compatible with the local law doesn't matter because you only sign it after buying the game/software...

So in the EU we where always safe... so those UK guys that signed away their souls should be fine...

[hellegennes]

"UK guys"



Is this new talk for "British"?

[ThunderTitan]

>>Is this new talk for "British"?<<

Northern Ireland says hi.

[hellegennes]

Since when are Irish (independent or not) not British?

[GreatEmerald]

Great Britain < UK is what TT is trying to say.

[hellegennes]

I know what he is trying to say, but British does not only apply to GB but to all of the British Islands' citizens. I would say British Isles, which includes the whole of Ireland, but some would disagree. As far as I know, passport holders of Northern Ireland are described as British Citizens under nationality.

[ThunderTitan]

Since when are Irish (independent or not) not British?

Since United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

That and Ireland doesn't use the words British when describing the Isles any more for obvious reasons, see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Is ... ng_dispute


And now that 've humbled you, i was obviously using "uk guys" as an informal way to say british...