[The E]

So recently, the Court of European Justice had to rule in a legal catfight between Oracle and a german shop that specialized in reselling "used" Oracle licenses. Oracle, being the kind of dicks that you would expect them to be, was convinced that since they were technically not selling anything, just granting people unrestricted licenses to use their software, reselling those licenses was bad. And wrong. Possibly badwrong.

Enter the aforementioned court.

In a ruling that is far too legalese to be understood by people without a lobotomy, the court ruled that the process of granting such a license is in no way distinct from actually selling those products, thus making it clear that the company selling that license has no control over what happens to it afterwards.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with you? Simple. It means that, just like you can resell games you bought as physical copies, you have to be able to resell games bought on a purely digital service, like Steam or Origin.
In short, what you buy in those stores is your property, and you are free to do with it as you wish. Yes, this ALSO means that the distribution services have no right to remove your access to those games (As EA is prone to do).

Now, it'll take some time for this to filter down into consumerland, but the basic ruling is there, and can be referenced in future cases.
Which is awesome.


For a more in-depth discussion, refer to this article on Rock Paper Shotgun.

EDIT: Oh, I should also note that this has no bearing on subscription-based games or game services (Games like WoW, Services like OnLive).

[Nuke]

bout damn ****ing time. likelyhood of this being done in the usa: -3%

[Mongoose]

It'll be really interesting to see how Valve responds to this re:Steam, though I doubt it'd make it across the Atlantic.

[The E]

Actually, Steam already has most of the infrastructure needed to react to this in place. All they really need is a function to turn one of your games into a tradable license that can be used like other items in your Steam inventory.

[Dragon]

Looks like legislation is catching up with the technology. About time.
There's a problem though. How to ensure a person doesn't make a backup copy of a game from the Steam folder, sell the original thing and download a cracked exe from the internet to run the copy? You could even skip the last step with some of the most ancient games (I know, because I downloaded an unofficial patch for Red Faction that disabled Steam as a side effect).

[BlueFlames]

It'll be really interesting to see how Valve responds to this re:Steam, though I doubt it'd make it across the Atlantic.

I'm pretty sure that Valve has been trying to come up with a workable system to resell games from your Steam library.  They may have seen the writing on the wall, or it might be a feature that they genuinely want to add to Steam, in which case, it won't take a court case to resell used Steam games.

[The E]

Looks like legislation is catching up with the technology. About time.
There's a problem though. How to ensure a person doesn't make a backup copy of a game from the Steam folder, sell the original thing and download a cracked exe from the internet to run the copy? You could even skip the last step with some of the most ancient games (I know, because I downloaded an unofficial patch for Red Faction that disabled Steam as a side effect).

Ummm. Same way that it's done right now?

What I mean is, that's something the developers have to solve, not something that legislature needs to address (Or rather, it has been adressed in the judgment, since it states that if you do this, you're definitely infringing on copyright).

I mean, mentioning this as a problem is like saying that going outside in the Summer is a problem because you're going to be in sunlight

[Alex Heartnet]

Looks like legislation is catching up with the technology. About time.
There's a problem though. How to ensure a person doesn't make a backup copy of a game from the Steam folder, sell the original thing and download a cracked exe from the internet to run the copy? You could even skip the last step with some of the most ancient games (I know, because I downloaded an unofficial patch for Red Faction that disabled Steam as a side effect).

That right there is the very definition of piracy.  There really isn't any way of stopping it aside from offering a better service then the pirates, like what Steam has been trying to do for a while (and largely succeeding, based on Valve's sales figures within piracy-prone Russia).

Our current economic system is based on having it cost more to produce a larger quantity of goods, which isn't really true when it comes to digital distribution.  You can make a copy of a game file for basically free, something that simply cannot be done with other types of goods.

[Mikes]

Our current economic system is based on having it cost more to produce a larger quantity of goods, which isn't really true when it comes to digital distribution.  You can make a copy of a game file for basically free, something that simply cannot be done with other types of goods.

... yet.

[Nuke]

think of it as making a software license a tradeable commodity. while you hold a license you can use the software, but you also have the right to trade the license for cash, another game, etc. at which point you relinquish all rights granted by that license. it would probibly require you hold on to the license for a minimum time period before you can sell it (say 6 months), so that the game publisher doesn't loose proceeds to used licenses days after a game is released. or you might be required to pay a small license transfer fee (probibly a percentage of the trade in value) to the publisher, this would of course come out of the proceeds from the sale of the game, and would encourage publishers to provide long term support and content for games while providing proceeds to do so. you make $50 from every purchase and $5 from every license transfer.

[MP-Ryan]

I'm interested if the same interpretation will appear in North America, but I'd be hesitant to necessarily celebrate this as a win.

There are two ways companies can go in response to this:

1.  Make licenses a tradeable commodity, even on services like Steam and Origin.  I can see Valve wanting to go this way; I can't see the other publishers who list their games on Steam agreeing.

2.  Turn Steam / Origin / etc into subscription-based services where you pay a monthly fee to access certain portions of their catalogue (or a certain number of titles at a time).  Show of hands who doesn't think this is a much more likely alternative based on what we know of the corporate world of Triple-A gaming.

[The E]

2.  Turn Steam / Origin / etc into subscription-based services where you pay a monthly fee to access certain portions of their catalogue (or a certain number of titles at a time).  Show of hands who doesn't think this is a much more likely alternative based on what we know of the corporate world of Triple-A gaming.

This is certainly going to be an attractive option for the business managers, buuuut I am unsure whether they can convince their customers that it's a good idea. It's one thing to do this for a service like OnLive, where you're just streaming video data onto your screen, but to do it for locally executed programs? Unless you can offer really good incentives to do this (that is, unless you are an MMO), running something like this sounds like a rather expensive experiment.

That isn't to say they aren't going to try it, but they're going to have a hard time convincing people that it's a good thing. What _I_ expect is them offering special incentives to buy games new, timed special offers and the like (Buy this on release day, get DLC x for free!, and similar things).

[QuantumDelta]

Playstation Plus got a lot of crap for this, but they stuck it out and still seem to have a functional/profitable business model.

[The E]

Also compare EA's "Online Pass" model.

[newman]

Looks like legislation is catching up with the technology. About time.
There's a problem though. How to ensure a person doesn't make a backup copy of a game from the Steam folder, sell the original thing and download a cracked exe from the internet to run the copy? You could even skip the last step with some of the most ancient games (I know, because I downloaded an unofficial patch for Red Faction that disabled Steam as a side effect).

What's to stop a person from torrenting the whole game and never even have a legal copy in the first place? The same reasons that compelled them to buy an original as opposed to pirating it. People who buy originals don't do it because they have to. Once a person has already bought a game, I'd say chances are good that person isn't going to resort to pirating it later on. Selling a game usually means "played it, done with it" anyway. If I could, I'd sell my copy of Skyrim on Steam in a heartbeat. I had my fun with it but after exploring every nook and cranny of that world and doing every quest I could find I really, really doubt I'll ever run it again.

[rev_posix]

I'm interested if the same interpretation will appear in North America, but I'd be hesitant to necessarily celebrate this as a win.

There are two ways companies can go in response to this:

1.  Make licenses a tradeable commodity, even on services like Steam and Origin.  I can see Valve wanting to go this way; I can't see the other publishers who list their games on Steam agreeing.

2.  Turn Steam / Origin / etc into subscription-based services where you pay a monthly fee to access certain portions of their catalogue (or a certain number of titles at a time).  Show of hands who doesn't think this is a much more likely alternative based on what we know of the corporate world of Triple-A gaming.

#2... If that happened, I would almost be willing to bet that the publishers would see a dramatic spike in software piracy.  I sure as heck wouldn't pay a monthly fee for something like this.

(Not a thread jack) I'm also not a Playstation+ member, or do I have plans to buy an XBox for similar reasons.

I would imagine that Valve would be more likely to jump into option #1 than EA, who has a history of trying to bend the end user over for as much money as they can, every time they can.

[rev_posix]

*snip*
That isn't to say they aren't going to try it, but they're going to have a hard time convincing people that it's a good thing. What _I_ expect is them offering special incentives to buy games new, timed special offers and the like (Buy this on release day, get DLC x for free!, and similar things).

As I see it, they already do this with the "Limited Edition Collectors Edition" releases, which is why I've been looking a bit at pre-ordering Borderlands 2 (Markus bobble head and weapons chest, nifty!)

For example, I pre-ordered the Little Big Planet 2 collectors edition specifically because of the included extras (book ends, sack boy plushy-thing) and the DLC that would have otherwise cost me more on top of the price of the game.