French court rules Steam’s game resale ban is invalid
French consumer organization UFC Que Choisir appears to have won a major victory over Valve on Tuesday regarding Steam’s terms and conditions. Among other things, the ban on the resale of game licenses has been declared invalid.
The verdict was handed down on Tuesday by the Paris Supreme Court, the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris; Next Inpact writes about it. The verdict invalidates multiple clauses of Valve’s terms and conditions relating to Steam. The most important concerns the ban on the resale of game licenses.
UFC Que Choisir filed a legal case against Valve in late December 2015. The consumer organization felt that licenses for digital games should be able to be resold, just like games on physical carriers. In doing so, the organization invoked the Copyright Directives of 2001 and 2009 but also a ruling from July 2012 by the European Court of Justice.
It stipulated that buyers may resell downloaded software and that persons who acquire the second-hand software have a legal right to use it. This is based on the exhaustion of the distribution right: if rightholders put their work into circulation, they cannot prevent further sale under certain circumstances, whether it concerns a tangible or intangible work.
An important conclusion drawn by the Paris High Court is that the game licenses are purchased from Steam users and are not part of a subscription. “The game is made available to the user for an unlimited period. It cannot therefore be a subscription; it is a sale of a copy of a video game, for a predetermined price that is paid by the user in one go.” , is stated in the judgment. Steam’s practice that games are linked to an account with all kinds of game stats should not be an obstacle either.
The resale ban has been ruled invalid and thus unenforceable by the Supreme Court. The verdict has broader consequences than just for Valve: download platforms other than Steam are no longer allowed to ban resale in France and later perhaps in Europe.
The Supreme Court rules that Valve will post a link to the full ruling on the home page of steampowered.com and its mobile apps for three months. The company must do this within a month, under penalty of 3,000 euros per day late, with a maximum of 540,000 euros. Valve has also been ordered to pay 20,000 euros in compensation for damage to the ‘collective interest of consumers’. The company has to pay an additional 10,000 euros to cover the legal costs.