EU Court: You Should Be Able to Resell Digital Software

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Spacescreamer

Spacescreamer

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The EU Court of Justice has issued a ruling that says people should legally be able to sell games they acquire digitally, such as through Valve Software's Steam distribution service. Prompted by a legal battle between Oracle and German company UsedSoft, who was selling "used" licenses of Oracle's software against Oracle's wishes, the case may not have originally been about games, but the ruling's language covers "computer program" in general.

You can read the full ruling here, but the most poignant part for EU gamers is this section:
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 license 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.

The court is saying that anytime you pay money for a copy of a program, whether physical or digital, and have access to it for an unlimited period, that the rightholder no longer has exclusive distribution rights and no longer owns the game. You do.
The ruling continues, stating, "Therefore, even if the license agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy." Though the court does point out that selling a copy would mean that the seller's digital version would have to be rendered unusable.
While this is only a preliminary ruling, and it only applies to the EU, the fact that a court is stating such things could have major ramifications. Will EU digital distribution services have to introduce a system that allows you to resell your games? How the heck would they even determine the value of a "used" piece of code? We'll be following this story closely as it develops.

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Although the author seems to be concentrating/concerned about digital games more, this surely is an interesting piece of development on a broader spectrum. :)
 
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