While the UK High Court is busy banning piracy sites, the French High Court has just finished up another battle within the gaming industry. The French High Court has just ruled that Valve must make some drastic changes to their digital games storefront, Steam, stating that all French users must be allowed to resell their digital games. The legal dispute was led by the French consumer rights association, the UFC Que Choisir, who initially filed the lawsuit against Valve back in 2015. As it stands currently, purchases made on Steam are tied to your account, and once redeemed, cannot be resold--only refunded under certain circumstances.

The court ruled that not allowing for consumers to resell their digital library goes against European law, and that Valve has 30 days to comply, or will risk a daily fine of 3,000 Euros for up to six months, until a change is made. Valve, not pleased with the ruling, has decided to appeal the decision, with a representative claiming, "We disagree with the decision of the Paris Court of First Instance, and will appeal it. The decision will have no effect on Steam while the case is on appeal".

Previously, Valve dealt with an Australian legal battle, in which the courts ruled that Valve must implement a refund policy, which it appealed, and then lost against. A year after, Steam added a refund policy for games purchased on the storefront. Should Valve's appeal be dismissed, it could also open the gates to other digital storefronts being investigated, fined, and forced to add a method of reselling their digital titles.

Source

 

[eriol33]

very interesting, but I am not sure whether it will do the good for the developers.

 

[deinonychus71]

I wonder why our dear LREM specifically targetted video games.
Why not the music industry and movie industry then?

Ooh right. Cause they have personal interests in that and that wouldnt be technically feasable anyway.

 

[snobbysteven]

Most people probably think this is great and everything, but overall this could reallyyyy screw us if this happens. Increased price of digital games, less game developers, less games. As much as I would like to get some money for my old games, this is really bad.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Why not the music industry and movie industry then?

I mean, the Movie and Music industry both are mainly rooted into streaming services (Spotify, Netflix et. al) at this point, rather than direct sales.

Video games in that regard are still pretty much the only digital medium that hasn't been converted in a streaming service (although Google Stadia kind of wants to change that, but I doubt it will), mainly due to technical limitations (not everyone has Silicon Valley levels of internet speed), so it makes sense to go after them first from that point of view.

EDIT: Also, this is a whataboutism.

 

[Subtle Demise]

That in itself is egregious, Steam API integration should be an entirely optional element of software that can be disabled at will. Launchers are getting more and more embedded and the amount of resources they hog only ever goes up. I truly miss the days of just double-clicking on an executable and getting straight into the game, I really don't need a zillion mandatory launchers to complicate a process that used to be so simple.

Yep. Right now I have my entire PC library spread out across Origin, Epic Games Launcher, UPlay, and Steam. There are a few exceptions like GOG who still do standalone installations, but even pirated games often require that the respective launcher be at least installed for the crack to work.

As for the court ruling, I feel like Valve has enough money that they may find it cheaper and easier to just pay the fines rather than spending time and money developing and maintaining a complicated digital resale system. Assuming they lose the appeal, but I think they will win honestly. Game companies keep insisting that game licenses are services and not goods, including software and firmware on game consoles. If Valve loses then the precedent is good for consumers, assuming they are also held responsible for abuses of a theoretical resale system.

I can also imagine that if by some small chance they are forced to implement it, then it will certainly be geolocked. Likely only be able to re-sell games purchased in the region where the law applies, and only to other people in that region.

 

[Attila13]

finally after so many god damn years? digital copy finally got resale value?

They always were, while there was an option to buy games as gifts and store them in your library and resell them after they got removed from the storefront. (ex. licensed games that like games tied with movies and such)

 

[Subtle Demise]

Most people probably think this is great and everything, but overall this could reallyyyy screw us if this happens. Increased price of digital games, less game developers, less games. As much as I would like to get some money for my old games, this is really bad.

How so? If Gamestop can be considered a legitimate business, why would this do any damage? It's the same license transfer concept but physical media just has a physical token tied to it.

 

[DEFIANT]

i just wanted to chime in and ask....how will this work for online games or games that cant be played without an online connection? will this force severs to stay online or cause lawsuits when a digital game gets sold that cant be activated because the server is no longer being maintained?

 

[Foxi4]

Yep. Right now I have my entire PC library spread out across Origin, Epic Games Launcher, UPlay, and Steam. There are a few exceptions like GOG who still do standalone installations, but even pirated games often require that the respective launcher be at least installed for the crack to work.

As for the court ruling, I feel like Valve has enough money that they may find it cheaper and easier to just pay the fines rather than spending time and money developing and maintaining a complicated digital resale system. Assuming they lose the appeal, but I think they will win honestly. Game companies keep insisting that game licenses are services and not goods, including software and firmware on game consoles. If Valve loses then the precedent is good for consumers, assuming they are also held responsible for abuses of a theoretical resale system.

I can also imagine that if by some small chance they are forced to implement it, then it will certainly be geolocked. Likely only be able to re-sell games purchased in the region where the law applies, and only to other people in that region.

It's not a question of whether they'd be able to pay fines or not, it's a matter of whether they'd be allowed to trade at all without providing such a solution. I direct you guys once again to Oracle v UsedSoft, the highest courts of the land have already affirmed the right of users to resell their software licenses, including licenses for software acquired online. For those unfamiliar with the case, it concerned the Exhaustion of Rights principle - the rights of a right-holder are considered "exhausted" upon the first authorised sale of a work - this means that the work can be resold without the right-holder's permission. This model often referred to as the First-sale doctrine, particularly in the United States - the developer gets a cut from the first sale, the initial distribution run - what happens to the copies after that is none of their business, they have been compensated for them. The wheels of the legal system turn slowly, but they always catch up.

 

[Bladexdsl]

How so? If Gamestop can be considered a legitimate business, why would this do any damage? It's the same license transfer concept but physical media just has a physical token tied to it.

no it's not! physical copies have to be there to be sold digital ones can be obtained much easier and sold on a large wider marketplace to the whole world not just one store!

 

[Subtle Demise]

i just wanted to chime in and ask....how will this work for online games or games that cant be played without an online connection? will this force severs to stay online or cause lawsuits when a digital game gets sold that cant be activated because the server is no longer being maintained?

Don't think it will affect those at all. I imagine those games where the server gets shut down would be de-listed and I doubt they would allow de-listed games to be resold. Also, there is now a preservation exception in the DMCA that allows for reverse engineering of server code in order for consumers to run and use private servers when the official ones go down.

 

[deinonychus71]

I mean, the Movie and Music industry both are mainly rooted into streaming services (Spotify, Netflix et. al) at this point, rather than direct sales.

Video games in that regard are still pretty much the only digital medium that hasn't been converted in a streaming service (although Google Stadia kind of wants to change that, but I doubt it will), mainly due to technical limitations (not everyone has Silicon Valley levels of internet speed), so it makes sense to go after them first from that point of view.

EDIT: Also, this is a whataboutism.

Whataboutism not a "automatically win the argument" wildcard although people love to think so. It is used against faulty comparison fallacies, otherwise it makes no sense.
Digital content is digital content. Steam do offer digital licenses, just like Uplay, Battlenet etc but also like VUDU (not in France ok), Amazon, Itunes, etc.

They're just arbitrarily trying to apply a legislation on some of it while leaving the rest (where quite a few of our legislators DO have interest in) alone.

Direct sales are pretty much still alive (thankfully). You can still buy music off amazon, you can buy music from Itunes and you'll get it DRM free.
For video content, you do -buy- it to be streamed indefinitely. You own the license indefinitely (or until the service cease to exist).

And how is that even an argument "well most people mainly just stream today", there are people who don't.
So with that logic the day Stadia becomes mainstream it'll be ok for video games too just because more people directly stream, even though we'll still pay full price?

UFC is like the SNCF of consumer associations (there, free faulty comparison), they love to bitch about stuff that will end up biting us later.

 

[Subtle Demise]

no it's not! physical copies have to be there to be sold digital ones can be obtained much easier and sold on a large wider marketplace to the whole world not just one store!

What do you mean? Do ebay and sites like play-asia not exist for physical media? Garage sales? Facebook marketplace? Our own trading forum?

 

[Foxi4]

What do you mean? Do ebay and sites like play-asia not exist for physical media? Garage sales? Facebook marketplace? Our own trading forum?

Tfw a young Templing accidentally discovers the post office.

 

[Dontuuch17]

Man, all I foresee is tons of abuse if this becomes more widespread.

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

Ugh, why do governments feel the need to police the internet or global business'.

Reselling Steam games was and is already an option. Not exactly directly within the platform, but honestly I would prefer to keep things as is. As others have iterated, I cannot see having it directly within steam, especially with rampant account hackers and bans; this would be a hacked users nightmare.

 

[Ryccardo]

Why not the music industry

Most legal downloads are drm free nowadays in the first place, aren't them? (for one time that Apple does a mostly-original and pro-consumer thing...)
Movies, for "whatever" reason, weren't caught in the same flow - but do enough people actually buy them digitally to have a mass of complainers?

 

[Chrisssj2]

finally after so many god damn years? digital copy finally got resale value?

Only for france..

 

[Teletron1]

good to see Microsoft was talking about digital transfer of ownership even the ability to allow someone to borrow ownership / they were also talking about a disc to digital service

it's only the right thing to do when it becomes a full digital age hopefully this has a trickle effect even for movies and music (scary thing with movies some companies like to pull movies from your library) MA/Old UV

 

[tianchris]

I wonder if some companies will just let gamers to rent it's product rather than sold it. I mean it's the easiest way to avoid this ruling. I wonder what the rate will be to rent games in the future.