European Courts Rule In Favor Of Consumers Reselling Downloaded Games
Steam LogoCould this be the victory we need for a “gamer’s bill of rights” ?
DRM is an oft-cited acronym, and resonates negatively in the gaming community. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favor of reselling downloaded games. Simply put, legally purchased and downloaded games will be treated like physical copies of the game, and consumers can then sell their ‘used’ game.
This is great news for the gaming community at large, but creates quite a headache for game publishers that have been doling out DRM-protected games for years now.
The rights we have as gamers tend to reach only as far as the publishers will allow us within the confines of the games published. Platforms like Steam and Origin will be faced with consumer reactions, and the gaming community is experienced in handing out criticism to the publishers, and if said publishers act favorably in accordance to the new ruling, they could ultimately benefit from implementing a lucrative re-seller’s market on a platform like Steam. Publishers could demand a cut of the resale value from a secondary market, but publishers and platforms could ultimately retain their users and dedicated fans.
As the EU court ruling states:
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 (CD-ROM or DVD) but also where he distributes them by means of downloads from his website.
To put digital rights management into perspective, let’s take a look at the Blizzard/Battle.net model—for every Blizzard game purchased, users are required to register an account through Battle.net, Blizzard’s online game store and account management system. Users are then responsible for registering a single account with a valid email address, credit card details along with a billing address (alternatively, a valid Paypal ID). Now, each game purchased comes with a digital registration key which is bound to a single account once registered, rendering the user powerless to sell their game due to the personal information tied to the account registered, and that account may be home to more than just the game title said user wants to re-sell.
The ruling denotes a very important point here, which ties into DRM-locked titles:
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 agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy.
To reiterate, this ruling makes a massively consumer-sided statement, and rattling the publishers business of their product’s tightly-sealed conditions. By preventing publishers the right to force DRM on players to the full extent they have been for the past few years, there’s a very real chance that this EU ruling could hold its ground on North American soil as well.
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