In recent years, digital video games have become particularly popular. No more need to go to a store to get a physical copy of the latest video game that makes your heart beat, it is possible to buy it directly online. In this sense, the Steam platform has developed enormously.
But in 2015, UFC-Que Choisir took Valve to court. According to the association, the company must authorize the resale of dematerialized games purchased on the Steam platform. It took 9 years for French justice to definitively rule on the subject. No, you do not have the right to resell your dematerialized video games.
Prohibition on reselling your dematerialized games
The media The Informed noted the decision taken by the Court of Cassation. This is the highest court in France. The UFC-Que Choisir could well turn to the Court of Justice of the European Union to try to win its case but this has no reason to be given “the absence of reasonable doubt as to the interpretation of European Union law”.
For French justice, Valve is correct, considering that the principle of exhaustion of rights did not apply to dematerialized games. This principle simply authorizes the purchaser of cultural property to dispose of it freely after purchase. But dematerialized games do not really belong to us. This is what this legal decision supports.
The Court of Cassation confirms that dematerialized video games are protected by copyright and not by the European directive specific to the legal protection of computer programs, contrary to what UFC-Que Choisir argued. “Video games constitute complex hardware comprising not only a computer program, but also graphic and sound elements that (…) have their own creative value”. This is what the Court of Cassation declared, to the great dismay of the consumer association.
Thus, dematerialized video games are subject to the copyright regime. Result ? Publishers have the right to retain their distribution rights. But what about physical video games, you may ask? Well, you always have the right to resell them. The real difference is that dematerialized games are considered a “online service”unlike their physical version. And that allows authors to keep full rights. Quite simply.
This court decision should therefore be a real blow to the anthill and anger more than one consumer.
- Dematerialized video games cannot be resold
- This is the decision of the Court of Cassation after an almost 10-year legal battle between UFC-Que Choisir and Valve (Steam)
- Dematerialized video games are protected by copyright
