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[Game Guru]

You know something I noticed about RPS's comment on the ruling...

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”.

What would prevent a digital distributor from licensing a game to a user for say... 200 years or so to get around this ruling? No person is going to live for 200 years, and 200 years is a 'limited time.' It would effectively be a rental so long that the renter would be dead before he needed to return the rental.

 

[Version 3.0]

What would prevent a digital distributor from licensing a game to a user for say... 200 years or so to get around this ruling? No person is going to live for 200 years, and 200 years is a 'limited time.' It would effectively be a rental so long that the renter would be dead before he needed to return the rental.

I'm sure that's just one of many ways that might work to sidestep this ruling. It's very likely going to be a case of the letter of the law failing to regulate the intent of the law.

 

[Buddha Beam]

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I'm all for consumers having rights. That being said, this seems like the kind of thing that could easily destroy digital sales. It certainly opens the door for it's destruction by expanding upon the decision, at any rate.

The only upside I can maybe see is that used licenses would move so fast (in some cases), that you'd be lucky if you got it for cheap.

 

[NullPointer]

You know something I noticed about RPS's comment on the ruling...



What would prevent a digital distributor from licensing a game to a user for say... 200 years or so to get around this ruling? No person is going to live for 200 years, and 200 years is a 'limited time.' It would effectively be a rental so long that the renter would be dead before he needed to return the rental.

So EA wouldn't shut down a game's servers for 200 years? I'm OK with this.

 

[commish]

I just saw this. I can think of about 93 different ways games companies can get around this. I also disagree with some of the analysis in the decision... it's doubtful this gains much traction. But I'm all for a new set of IP laws that recognize the current environment.

 

[2MF]

I just saw this. I can think of about 93 different ways games companies can get around this.

They can try to use loopholes, doesn't mean they would succeed in convincing anyone that their BS is legal. This ruling makes it pretty clear that ownership rights including resale hold for downloaded software... Any company attempting to find loopholes does so at its own risk from now on.

 

[syllogism]

Gamasutra article on this is pretty good

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/..._trading_law_in_Europe_could_mean_for_you.php

 

[Atomski]

I feel like this is going to hurt gaming... specially little indie games that rely on being cheap and such. People will just resale or trade them giving them a much smaller chance at profit. :/

Plus publishers will find ways to punish gamers with stupid shit (more held back content and premium stuff) who don't mind paying in the first place..

the long term effects of this make me paranoid.

 

[2San]

I feel like this is going to hurt gaming... specially little indie games that rely on being cheap and such. People will just resale or trade them giving them a much smaller chance at profit. :/

Plus publishers will find ways to punish gamers with stupid shit (more held back content and premium stuff) who don't mind paying in the first place..

the long term effects of this make me paranoid.

Well at worst indie devs will make less profit in Europe. USA seems to highly dislike consumers.

A positive effect this will bring(in the worst case scenario), will probably have no more day one dlc(getting the complete game on disc) and DLC getting cheaper and DLC not getting instantly become useless to moment you break or sell your disc. The gaming industry have exploited consumers to a great extent taking advantage of the bare bones digital laws. It really isn't a bad state to be in and it actually has my preference.

 

[2MF]

I have contacted the developer of a software (not a game) which states in its licensing agreement that you cannot transfer your license to another person. I sent a link to the ruling and an article about it, and asked if they're planning to comply with the ruling.

Curious to see what's the response and if the licensing agreement is updated.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

I feel like this is going to hurt gaming... specially little indie games that rely on being cheap and such. People will just resale or trade them giving them a much smaller chance at profit. :/

Plus publishers will find ways to punish gamers with stupid shit (more held back content and premium stuff) who don't mind paying in the first place..

the long term effects of this make me paranoid.

Anyone out there who is against basic consumer rights is a huge asshole, indie or not. Too bad this judgement will get loopholed to hell and no judgement like this would ever happen in America for sure. The entertainment industry lobbying assassin's would be out in seconds.

 

[Dalthien]

Yay! Always nice to see the good guys win a battle.

 

[Gaaraz]

How hard would it be to implement some sort of marketplace where you sell second hand games, but they add a slight 'tax' of sorts that goes partly to the service but mostly to the developer?

As far as I can tell, that would:

1) Help encourage people to buy more new DLC games, knowing they could get some resale value
2) Give the developers a constant stream or revenue, potentially long after the game would have been pulled from the shelves in stores
3) Avoid any waste, I have so many games I've bought through Steam/XBL/PSN that I've played once and will never play again

Seems win/win/win to me, but I've probably overlooked some huge detail...

 

[mclem]

How hard would it be to implement some sort of marketplace where you sell second hand games, but they add a slight 'tax' of sorts that goes partly to the service but mostly to the developer?

Fundamentally, what you're really talking about is charging a nominal fee for license transfer. I think they're probably permitted to do that, as long as the cost isn't restrictive. One for the courts, though.


One thing that struck me overnight: Every time I come up with something of a similar structure - buying access to an entertainment product for use on multiple discrete occasions - it's of a limited duration. Disney world annual passes? Non-transferable. Gym membership? Non-transferable (at least in my experience!). Netflix sub? Non-transferable.

This bothers me; I don't like the implication that the product that offers you *less* (limited duration vs. potentially infinite duration) is also okay to be *more* restrictive; it strikes me as a double-standard. In effect, services are being punished for offering infinitely long access to the product. I think that's a flaw in their ruling, although not an insurmountable one.

 

[Version 3.0]

How hard would it be to implement some sort of marketplace where you sell second hand games, but they add a slight 'tax' of sorts that goes partly to the service but mostly to the developer?

As far as I can tell, that would:

1) Help encourage people to buy more new DLC games, knowing they could get some resale value
2) Give the developers a constant stream or revenue, potentially long after the game would have been pulled from the shelves in stores
3) Avoid any waste, I have so many games I've bought through Steam/XBL/PSN that I've played once and will never play again

Seems win/win/win to me, but I've probably overlooked some huge detail...

The only major detail you've overlooked is that publishers aren't on board. Too many of them think they should have complete control over what they sell, even after you buy it, and consider anything less than one full-price copy per customer to be "lost" money. It's actually sad that we would need the courts to step in and let them know that their product isn't special, that it can be bought and sold like anyone else's, and that consumer rights apply.

 

[Jay Sosa]

Yay! Always nice to see the good guys win a battle.

yup, thank god for europe

 

[SuicidalSteve]

Would this deal include PSN and XBL digital content as well?

 

[mclem]

A fun extra realisation:

The CJEU disagreed. It said: "the exhaustion of the distribution right under Article 4(2) of Directive 2009/24 extends to the copy of the computer program sold as corrected and updated by the copyright holder" (para 68).

What constitutes an 'update'? Does this imply that you're entitled to a free copy of a game if you participated in the free beta for it? After all, the full game is an 'update' from the beta version. Can I present an argument that pretty much every damn bit of software in the world is an updated version of "Hello World"?

I fear that's dangerous without more solid definitions of what constitutes an update.

 

[Htown]

Would this deal include PSN and XBL digital content as well?

Presumably it applies to all digitally distributed software.

I'd expect change to happen slowly while the various companies talk to their legal and engineering teams to figure out a way to make this work, and I'd expect the U.S. divisions of these companies to gear up for battle to make sure this doesn't happen in the United States.

 

[The Hermit]

yeah used sales will destroy DD


just like they destroyed retail

or make them price the games accordingly.
Otherwise some games will still sell for 60 bucks.

On the other hand, if used sales of DD catches on, then F2P future will be inevitable.

 

[Yoshi]

A fun extra realisation:



What constitutes an 'update'? Does this imply that you're entitled to a free copy of a game if you participated in the free beta for it? After all, the full game is an 'update' from the beta version. Can I present an argument that pretty much every damn bit of software in the world is an updated version of "Hello World"?

I fear that's dangerous without more solid definitions of what constitutes an update.

It just means that if you sell a licence which comes with updates (be it free updates or sold at an additional cost) they are being sold with the licence, so the buyer has access to the updates, too. It also explicitely says "buy", you don't buy being part of a beta test.

 

[commish]

They can try to use loopholes, doesn't mean they would succeed in convincing anyone that their BS is legal. This ruling makes it pretty clear that ownership rights including resale hold for downloaded software... Any company attempting to find loopholes does so at its own risk from now on.

Companies use loopholes at their own risk every single day. I'm guessing this decision won't change anything. Even if it did start having an impact here in the U.S., I think publishers would just start to monetize their games in different ways.

 

[thepotatoman]

They can try to use loopholes, doesn't mean they would succeed in convincing anyone that their BS is legal. This ruling makes it pretty clear that ownership rights including resale hold for downloaded software... Any company attempting to find loopholes does so at its own risk from now on.

As far as I can tell, the ruling never said anything about making sure DRM includes a way to transfer licences. Tampering with DRM is still considered to be illegal in most cases so there is really no legal way to transfer your licence for most video games and other software.

Thats a pretty big issue that was never addressed and makes this inapplicable to most games out on the market. Its the games made by the super small indies and occasional rebel like CD Projekt that have to worry about this right now. It probably still wouldn't be a big deal at first, but if some CD Key reseller website becomes super popular and starts stealing sales from those companies, it may push them to use DRM too.

I'd imagine this would lead to another ruling to see if restrictive DRM is a violation to the first sale doctrine. That's where things really get interesting. Saying that you can't take legal action for practices is one thing, but banning a business practice is another issue entirely. I doubt the EU can really do anything about that loophole without another ruling, and I could easily see that ruling going to the side of corporations.

Edit: hell there is even still a question if a whole Steam account applies. Even though that steam account is filled with stuff that should apply as a "purchased sale", the account itself can easily be considered a service, and thus the first sale doctrine doesn't apply. And of course if you can't sell your account then there is no way to really sell most games on steam.

It does seem as though I could take my DRM free Kings Quest files from my steamapps folder, burn it to a CD, send it to some guy that paid me money for it, and never get prosecuted for it as long as i uninstall my Kings Quest files and never download them again. Now that just seems freaky.

 

[thepotatoman]

A fun extra realisation:



What constitutes an 'update'? Does this imply that you're entitled to a free copy of a game if you participated in the free beta for it? After all, the full game is an 'update' from the beta version. Can I present an argument that pretty much every damn bit of software in the world is an updated version of "Hello World"?

I fear that's dangerous without more solid definitions of what constitutes an update.

Well for one it says the licence is considered a sale if the licence is for an unlimited period of time. And for two you are only selling your licence, so obviously the person you are selling to is not going to get any more or less features then you originally had. This just says that if the original purchaser would have had access to an update, then the second hand purchaser should have access to the same exact updates, or at the very least those updates don't all of a sudden make the licence a service instead of a sale.

 

[Card Boy]

Sorry for the bump but TotalBiscuit has a say on the issue here and it's effect on DD stores such as Steam/Origin etc

Starts at 6:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3yhI0uwWg&feature=plcp

I actually want someone to do this and take it to court. It's a win for consumers, TB explains the negatives in the video.