Resale ruling may change how software is sold
By Stewart Mitchell
Posted on 4 Jul 2012 at 16:04
The EU case that ruled software could be sold second-hand could have far-reaching consequences for the software industry and lead to a shake-up in ebook, film and music distribution.
The European Court of Justice yesterday ruled that it was legal for downloaded Oracle software to be resold, providing the initial buyer deleted or disabled the copy on their machine, or companies sold all licences that were bought together.
“It clearly means that if they purchase software and download it then they can on-sell that as long as they delete their copy,” said Luke Scanlon, a lawyer at Pinsent Masons. “However the court based its judgement on the fact that the software sold by Oracle was sold as a perpetual license and so it wasn’t limited in time. And the reasoning was that the company has received adequate compensation regarding the value of the software itself. Basically, Oracle was saying you can have this software forever.”
Scanlon said the case could cause major disruption in the industry, forcing developers into a software-by-subscription model of gradual upgrades rather than standalone versions, and more experimentation with rolling service contracts.
There has been long-standing consensus that licenses for programs downloaded over the internet are not transferable. Today’s ruling disrupts that consensus
“Software providers will have to deal with the issue – and they might do it through upgrades," said Scanlon, suggesting separate versions would allow old editions to be sold off, so rolling upgrades might be a better business model. “It now makes sense to say ‘Here’s a licence for two and a half years, and there’s an obligation on us to provide you with new software ongoing’, which might prevent on-sales.”
However, there remains some confusion over which types of software were covered in the ruling, with the Business Software Alliance believing it only applied to software licensed in a specific way, although it said it was still reviewing the situation.
“There has been longstanding consensus that licenses for programs downloaded over the internet are not transferable. Today’s ruling disrupts that consensus,” said Thomas Boué, BSA's director of government affairs in EMEA. “Nonetheless, we believe the ruling pertains only to the narrow subset of the market that involves downloads of software subject to permanent licenses.”
About time.
The whole "If you buy it in a box you can resell it, whereas if you download it you can't" thing was, frankly, ludicrous.
By PaulOckenden on 4 Jul 2012 
Sounds good but...
Will this lead to a subscription based service on Steam and other services like it Would it not be better just to have a system where you a guaranteed that if a service ceases to continue the games become DRM free and yours to do as you please with then or even after a certain length of time anyway.
By karlroe on 5 Jul 2012
Game's on!
I guess it also means that the likes of EA, Blizzard etc. will now completely abandon the PC versions of their games. Oh, wait a minute, Blizzard's not too good with consoles, are they? Well, though.
By Josefov on 5 Jul 2012
About time the PC was no longer the parriah of game retail
Resale. This is something that the PC market has long been denied, and while piracy is as ripe on the DS and XBOX as the PC ever was, we've been stuck with single use CD keys and draconian DRM and almost no resell capability.
Instead of complaining, the digital resellers should be rubbing their hands together. Imagine a "buy from friend" link on Steam or Origin, where the platform holders can claim a fixed admin fee and people can sell games to other. Especially if the sale simply remains as "credit" in the platform holder's system...
Digital sellers should have been doing this long ago.
I would go further and force distributors to allow retailers to deactivate game keys and issue new ones, so that I could take my boxed copy of BattleField 3 back to the shop for a buy-back. The retailer could then login to EA/Origin and cancel my CD code and be issued with a new one to resell. Distributor gets admin fee, retailers gets money, customer is happy and spends more money on games. WHY ARE WE NOT ALREADY DOING THIS???
By cheysuli on 5 Jul 2012
About time the PC was no longer the parriah of game retail
Resale. This is something that the PC market has long been denied, and while piracy is as ripe on the DS and XBOX as the PC ever was, we've been stuck with single use CD keys and draconian DRM and almost no resell capability.
Instead of complaining, the digital resellers should be rubbing their hands together. Imagine a "buy from friend" link on Steam or Origin, where the platform holders can claim a fixed admin fee and people can sell games to other. Especially if the sale simply remains as "credit" in the platform holder's system...
Digital sellers should have been doing this long ago.
I would go further and force distributors to allow retailers to deactivate game keys and issue new ones, so that I could take my boxed copy of BattleField 3 back to the shop for a buy-back. The retailer could then login to EA/Origin and cancel my CD code and be issued with a new one to resell. Distributor gets admin fee, retailers gets money, customer is happy and spends more money on games. WHY ARE WE NOT ALREADY DOING THIS???
By cheysuli on 5 Jul 2012
Good news, but only half the issue.
This needs to be taken a stage further, and it made illegal for EULAs to contain clauses which strip consumers of their rights. If the clause is not related to copying or public performance, then it is nothing to do with copyright. In which case it has has no place in a EULA.
By Anteaus on 6 Jul 2012
Going to Court: VZBZ vs Steam
It's in the news now that the German equivalent of the UK's Consumer Association, VZBZ, have now started proceedings against Steam in an attempt to enforce the EU CoJ ruling. Might be worth a mention in future articles as Steam particularly would have a strong impact on the resale of 2nd-hand games.
By DiabloFish on 3 May 2013
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