Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: This is all done to get around the first-sale doctrine

[quote name="Commander Tansin A. Darcos"]Original Subject: Re: I wanna buy Xenonauts, but I know nothing beyond its dev's ambitions The game makers are essentially using the ability for a particular copy of a game to be 'locked' to an account and requiring authentication of the account to be able to play the game as a way to get around the U.S. Supreme Court's 1908 decision in <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbs-Merrill_Co._v._Straus">Bobbs Merill Co. v. Straus</a></i>. Most people don't bother to set up a separate account for each game (which, as I note below, is a pain-in-the-ass to have to do); were buyers to do that, separate each game to a different account it would defeat this whole thing, since you could simply move the game to a new machine (probably uninstall it), then sign in to the account for that game from the new machine. I'm presuming that the account feature on XBox Live - which I have never used an XBox so I know not how it works - is similar to the way Steam does, you can install the game any number of places, but you can only play it from one single place at a time, which you get the ability to do so by logging into their server and be authenticated. I pointed out the flaw with this in a video I did more than three years ago - that there is a link Jonsey put up on the main website here - that if the company decides to stop running the servers or goes out of business (the way Hostess did, which means until someone else buys the asset, nobody gets to eat Twinkies until the bankruptcy court decides the issue), you're hosed. Your game is now worthless and thanks to DRM you can't play the game that you paid for. So now, if you want to sell a game, you have to sell your <i>account</i> (and all the games attached to that account), which the publisher probably claims you can't do. I'll bet there's a provision in the EULA for all of these on-line systems that your account is non-transferable. Whether that would stand up to legal challenge is another matter. The fact remains, they're using this 'feature' of account-locking to deprive buyers of a game of the resale rights they've held for <i>105 years</i>. The Supreme Court decided back in 1908 in the case of <i>Bobbs Merill Co. v. Straus</i> that the publisher of a work has the right to control that work's distribution <i>with the first sale only</i>. After that, as long as you part company with the copy, you can give it away, loan it out, or sell it to someone else. (There are nuances and exceptions which aren't really applicable in this case, that's how lobbyists make their money.) The publisher has no right to any money from this resale, and has no right to say anything about what you charge, whom you sell it to, or anything else. You bought that copy, you own that copy, and you can transfer it to a third party. This was why publishers tried to claim when you bought a game, you only bought the <i>disk</i> and all you have is a <i>license</i> for the game, it was <i>not</i> a sale. Well, if you uninstalled the game, you are now no longer using a license, and you can effectively sell it. But mandatory authorization changes all that. Now, with the ability of publishers or distributors to 'lock' a copy to an account, and failure of users to be aware that if they ever want to resell the game to someone else that they will have to use a separate account - which, of course, is a pain in the ass - for each game, is allowing publishers and distributors to 'get away' with defeating the "first-sale doctrine" right of transfer that the user has had on a purchase of a game or any other copyrighted material that has been sold for 105 years. [/quote]