Valve and game developers have a bit of a fight on their hands here, with a French court ruling that Valve should allow users to re-sell their digital games.
Reported by the French website Next Inpact, the French consumers group UFC Que Choisir had a victory against Valve as French courts have ruled against them on the topic of reselling digital content. From what I've read and tried to understand, the courts have basically said that when you buy something on Steam it is indeed a proper purchase and not a subscription.
Valve has been ordered to pay damages at €20K plus €10K to cover some costs. On top of that, they will also have to publish the judgement on Steam's home page (presumably only for users in France) and for it to remain visible for three months. If they don't, they will get a fine for each day of €3K. To Valve though, that's likely pocket change. The bigger issue though, is how other countries inside and outside the EU could follow it.
Speaking to PC Gamer who got a statement from Valve, they are going to fight it. Of course they will though, they could stand to lose quite a lot here and it would set a pretty huge precedent for other stores like GOG, Epic, Humble, itch and all the rest.
There's a lot to think about with this situation. Valve could end up changing the way they deal with this, just like they did with the nicer refunds option which came about after legal issues too. Imagine being able to sell and transfer a game over to another Steam user. Valve could take a cut of that most likely too.
Something to think on there is how this could affect game developers too, I'm all for consumer rights but I do try to think about all angles. We could end up looking at higher prices overall, no release day discounts, more micro transactions, more games updated as a constant service, games that require an online account as a service so you're not paying for an actual product and so on as developers try to keep more income when many smaller developers are already struggling.
Interesting times.
Hat tip to Nibelheim.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: chancho_zombieI don't think valve will allow copies to sell in their own marketplace, stupid politicians they want valve to shoot at their own legs.But there’s no other sensible way to do it. What Valve sell is already licenses, not self-contained products. The same argument used in favour of piracy (it’s not stealing because it doesn’t take anything away from the seller) applies here in reverse: if a gamer sells an executable, they can also keep it and keep selling more copies. There’s no way to manage that if you look at it this way. A single person could buy a game from Valve then resell it for 1$ less to every other gamer in the world. That’s an extreme example, but it’s the kind of unsustainable opportunity you would create with this kind of law (not that we’re talking about an actual law at this point).
As much as I want to have control over the software I buy, by not being hindered by DRM, it has to be considered a license for it to be commercially practicable. It doesn’t matter that it’s a perpetual, permissive license, just as long as it protects the rights of the content creators and authorized distributors. Valve need to retain control over what is being sold somehow, otherwise it’s really just piracy with benefits since now the pirates get to make money off of it.
So if you’re selling licenses to download and use software via a Steam account, where else are you going to resell them but on Valve’s own systems where they can manage who rightfully owns those licenses?
Koopacabras Sep 19, 2019
Last edited by Koopacabras on 19 September 2019 at 10:34 pm UTC
Also, for those wondering why they're going after Valve only, you can absolutely bet that if this becomes EU legislation, it'll affect all online digital stores. Valve are just the test case here.
Quoting: KimyrielleQuoting: fagnerlnIs hypocrisy that a defensor of freedom want a intervention from state.
Preventing people from abusing their freedoms is one of the most basic reasons for governments (and thus, laws) to exist in the first place. If we wouldn't have laws preventing you, it would be in your "freedom" to murder somebody because you don't like their face. Humans are by nature greedy and egoistic. They one thing that can guarantee a stable society is a strong government that steps in when people abuse their power and makes some laws telling them not to.
*snip by mod, don't be rude to other users*
You don't know what freedom means. Isn't freedom to kill someone, people have natural rights, life is the more important one.
THE STATE KILLS WITHOUT REASON, the "strong government" steal from peoples to turn them slaves, state abuses their power, not the peoples.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 20 September 2019 at 11:17 am UTC
Quoting: subWhy doesn't this automatically affect other digital game stores in France immediately?A precedent needed to be set in France when it comes to digital goods .
Someone hast to go to court against Epic, GOG, ... separately, one by one?
Hard to believe, as the concepts of the stores are basically the same, when it comes to DRM and not being able to resell the purchases made.
In fact whether a game's license was a purchased good or a lease was until that court ruling up in juridical limbo and it was left to customers and sellers to figure themselves out .
What Laurie Liddel did here is argue ( AND convince the judge) that a game digital or not is a good of cultural value and therefore rules of ownership should apply . Also she relied and used previous E.U rulings to substantiate her claims.
Lastly the way she has argued various points are almost preemptively addressing any rebuttal during an appeal. The way she has crafted her argument in court was quite the show ...
I'd be curious to see what Valve will come up with during appeal because really in terms of French law she pretty much slammed every fucking door shut right behind them ...
Last edited by TheSyldat on 19 September 2019 at 10:55 pm UTC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
However not sure if there is a major consensus that it's a good idea.
Last edited by Shmerl on 19 September 2019 at 10:46 pm UTC
Last edited by pb on 19 September 2019 at 10:54 pm UTC
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