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by statusquoantefa 2470 days ago
I know, people here are demanding that after you fill up at an all you can eat buffet, you should be allowed to sell your seat to somebody else.
2 comments

No they are saying that if you buy a meal, you should be able to package it up and sell it to someone else, which you can do. If I go buy a hamburger, I can walk right out onto the street and if someone else offers me money for it I can sell it. What I can't sell is access, which is what a buffet is, you're not paying for the individual item you're paying for access to the buffet.
So what is the difference exactly if Steam says they sell access to the game for your personal account? Would it that be a good analogy then?
It's a very good analogy. I feel the downvotes come from people who are opposed to copyright in principle. That fine and all but once you accept the premise of copyright then forcing the author to allow reselling defeats the purpose. In case of ebooks for example one could easily resell it like 100 times to all the friends first day so anyone could take a look.

This is especially bad for the authors in case of content based product. If you are selling copies of knowledge you acquired then forcing you to allow reselling means you will have to sell for much higher price or not at all. There are opinions and verdicts of EU courts which makes different rules for content based electronic goods. For example you are not forced to grant refunds with those. I really hope Steam wins the appeal or that courts in other countries won't repeat this verdict (it's not case law in most of Europe so what French court decided hasn't much weight in Germany or Poland or whatever other country.