With a physical good you’re transferring ownership of that “thing”,
A use-right is also a thing that can be sold and for which stuff like the first sale doctrine applies. Possession and property of the use right is all yours, even if it does not include the right to make additional copies, that is, to sublicense.
At least that’s how it works over here, always has. You can get perfectly valid Windows Pro keys here on the cheap, there’s a small cottage industry buying up volume licenses at bankruptcy proceedings and the like and unbundling them. If Microsoft can’t stop that then Valve won’t, either.
I’m sure someone will challenge it in the EU then at some point.
In the US not all licenses are transferable, and that includes things like “accounts”.
Valve and gog have the same policy. I’m fairly confident that both of them didn’t decide to violate the law in the same way that’s also consistent with how other digital licensing arrangements work without consulting with some lawyers on their user agreements.
In the US not all licenses are transferable, and that includes things like “accounts”.
That’s maybe a service that you can’t transfer but it’s still holding property of the account holder. More like escrow.
As to lawyers, well, they aren’t hiring lawyers to follow the intent of the law but to write terms that they think they might get away with, at least for a while, and if not, not be nailed for fraud or such. Corporate lawyers are just as slimy in the EU as they are elsewhere.
A use-right is also a thing that can be sold and for which stuff like the first sale doctrine applies. Possession and property of the use right is all yours, even if it does not include the right to make additional copies, that is, to sublicense.
At least that’s how it works over here, always has. You can get perfectly valid Windows Pro keys here on the cheap, there’s a small cottage industry buying up volume licenses at bankruptcy proceedings and the like and unbundling them. If Microsoft can’t stop that then Valve won’t, either.
I’m sure someone will challenge it in the EU then at some point.
In the US not all licenses are transferable, and that includes things like “accounts”.
Valve and gog have the same policy. I’m fairly confident that both of them didn’t decide to violate the law in the same way that’s also consistent with how other digital licensing arrangements work without consulting with some lawyers on their user agreements.
That’s maybe a service that you can’t transfer but it’s still holding property of the account holder. More like escrow.
As to lawyers, well, they aren’t hiring lawyers to follow the intent of the law but to write terms that they think they might get away with, at least for a while, and if not, not be nailed for fraud or such. Corporate lawyers are just as slimy in the EU as they are elsewhere.