French court rules country's Steam users can resell their games

[milk]

GoG will likely die as a user can buy a title there and then resell that title 100's of times if they wish.

No, as I understand it, a user can re-sell a title once. The title can be resold 100 times, but by 100 different users each time. Of course one can chose to sell many copies, but that is piracy, which already exists today regardless of french court's aproval.

 

[Malo]

No, as I understand it, a user can re-sell a title once. The title can be resold 100 times, but by 100 different users each time. Of course one can chose to sell many copies, but that is piracy, which already exists today regardless of french court's aproval.

With GoG there is no DRM and the game can be downloaded fully without any ties to the GoG account itself. By virtue of this law allowing digital products to be sold, someone could potentially keep selling the same game 100s of times via eBay under different accounts as there's nothing removing the game from that user once sold. Even if they only sell it once, there's nothing preventing them from keeping the game anyway. Yes it's piracy but there's no automated mechanism to detect this and remove it from them so anyone buying a game from GoG can simply sell it immediately online.

It's the fact that by law they're allowed to sell it, therefore the system will be horribly abused for stores like GoG. One would hope that any possibly laws would have provisions that it only applies to stores that can control access to the digital game (like Steam) and transfer ownership but we all know that often laws are made in regards to the internet that don't take into account how things work in reality.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

No, as I understand it, a user can re-sell a title once. The title can be resold 100 times, but by 100 different users each time. Of course one can chose to sell many copies, but that is piracy, which already exists today regardless of french court's aproval.

Basically what Malo said. Currently a user could try to do this, but they would be prosecutable under law as they aren't an authorized reseller of the game, hence, if someone is trying to resell a GoG version of a game they could be prosecuted.

It doesn't stop piracy obviously, but it does stop people reselling games bought on GoG.

Now if this French law goes into effect, a user would be free to sell their copy of a GoG game as many times as they wished as there is no way to detect that it is the same person if they create new accounts/identities to sell it.

GoG could, of course, start implementing some sort of DRM to determine if a game is resold, but that goes against CD Projeckt's entire ethos. They are vehemently against DRM of any kind which is what prevents them from truly challenging Steam as being the biggest electronic game store.

Regards,
SB

 

[milk]

I think the no DRM thing is already a hell of a leap of faith onto consumer's honesty as it is currently. Piracy of its games is absolutely easy peasy already. If they do sell games legitimately now, it's because people DON'T WANT to pirate it. That wouldn't suddenly change because there is a new WORSE way to pirate it.
The kind of good willed and informed consumers that buys from GOG (which is a niche store) will probably steer clear of suspicious used games.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think the no DRM thing is already a hell of a leap of faith onto consumer's honesty as it is currently. Piracy of its games is absolutely easy peasy already. If they do sell games legitimately now, it's because people DON'T WANT to pirate it. That wouldn't suddenly change because there is a new WORSE way to pirate it.
The kind of good willed and informed consumers that buys from GOG (which is a niche store) will probably steer clear of suspicious used games.

The problem there is that there is no way to tell. If you use Craigslist or E-bay there's no way to know whether the product you are buying was stolen or not, but people will buy stuff there even if they are against theft.

The same will apply to this new law. Being able to resell it under the guise of being used (can software even be considered used?) gives it an air of legitimacy even if it was stolen or in the case of a DRM free game, fraudulently sold multiple times.

Unlike stolen goods where a thief can only sell it once (thus limiting to an extent how frequently stolen goods appear on Craigslist, Ebay, etc.), however, a DRM free game can be resold multiple times by the same person using different identities/e-mail addresses.

Regards,
SB