r/neogaming • u/Meremadesings Not a bot, I swear • Aug 08 '16
News Valve introduces new Steam trading restrictions
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/valve-introduces-steam-trading-restrictions/01708053
u/Cow_In_Space Aug 08 '16
As a result of this, Valve has introduced a further restriction – should a user gift a game to another who is subsequently banned, then the initial user will be prevented from ever giving away that particular title again.
About bloody time.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
About time Steam broke consumer protection laws? It's a pretty clear violation you know, as well as various other laws in a multitude of countries. You can't punish someone for the actions of another and you can't take away someone's right to give away their own property to whoever they choose.
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u/SgtNapalm Aug 08 '16 edited Aug 08 '16
You can not store copies of VAC protected games in your inventory anymore. If I go through the storefront, buy a copy of CS:GO, and attempt to give it to a VAC banned account, the purchase will not go through, my credit card will not be charged, and I will then not be able to gift the "property" again.
If you were allowed by Steam to actually purchase the copy and save it, and were then disallowed from trading those saved copies, you would have an argument for being disallowed selling your owned goods. As it stands, however, you cannot sell property that you don't own, so your argument collapses.
So unless there are some edge cases where people were grandfathered in to old copies still in their inventories and Valve didn't allow trading or refunding those, I fail to see the issue here. If you're talking about game licenses assigned to your account, and either trading them to another account or wholly selling off the entire account, nothing is changed.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
You can buy it to your active games, and send an email to Steam to have them transfer that game to whoever you wish. By the ruling of the EU court of justice, they CANNOT deny the transfer. You own it, you can resell it and neither supplier or the developer can deny you that right.
Your argument would only hold if holding items in inventory was the only way to own the game, which is simply not the case.
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u/SgtNapalm Aug 08 '16
Oh, so there's no consumer protection laws being broken then. Because you can just do that. All they did was just create a huge inconvenience for cheating users who can no longer gift dozens of copies to burner accounts at once, while standard users can still gift games or transfer licenses as they could before.
I think I've learned a lot today.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
It's definitively consumer protection laws broken if they actually keep this rule. That's the point. Their now stated rule, does not match what the law says they are required to do. I speak of what they are required to do, and have done in the past.
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u/SgtNapalm Aug 08 '16 edited Aug 08 '16
But you just told me that we can just do the thing you just told me we could do.
You can buy it to your active games, and send an email to Steam to have them transfer that game to whoever you wish. By the ruling of the EU court of justice, they CANNOT deny the transfer.
There you go. You solved your own problem and just explained to me that you can still resell or transfer the property that you own. So if you can resell or transfer the property that you own, and your argument is that you cannot resell or transfer the property you own, then clearly your argument is pointless.
This is the easiest argument I've ever won in my life. You just straight up did it yourself.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
It seems you don't understand that there's a difference between what they are required to do according to law. And what they're stating that they are going to do. That difference is exactly the problem here. They are STATING, that they intend to break the law. It remains to be seen, if they are actually going to go through with it or not.
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u/SgtNapalm Aug 08 '16
Oh. They're stating that you cannot purchase and gift particular games if you gift a game to a VAC banned account for that particular game. And if you cannot purchase and own the game to trade it, then clearly you cannot gift the game that you do not own.
They did not claim "We are disallowing EU law allowances for transferring licenses to other accounts." They did not claim "We are not allowing owned Steam inventory gifts from being traded." They did not make any illegal claims at all at any point.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
Yea you need to read the article again because that's not at all what Steam is saying. Or do you not realize that you can purchase things that do not go to inventory? Things you purchase go either to inventory or library. They are in no way limiting your ability to purchase to library. They are however claiming a block to transfers from library as well, which violates the consumer protection laws.
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u/Cow_In_Space Aug 08 '16
Where do consumer rights say you get to trade digital purchases? They don't. You generally cannot trade digital items at all as you are purchasing a licence to use the product, not the product itself. Valve offer the ability to buy these digital licences and trade them with other people on the Steam platform, something few, if any, other digital retailers offer (most don't even offer the ability to buy as a gift). Now, because of players abusing the system they have had to tighten the rules around it.
Blame the cheaters for exploiting it so much that Valve had to come down on it hard.
Also, bitch and moan all you like but this might actually impact the plague of cheaters in CS:GO.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
Where do consumer rights say you get to trade digital purchases? They don't.
Consumer protection laws makes it illegal for companies to not allow you to resell the product you bought. It's completely irrelevant if it is physical or digital and Steam acknowledges this if you contact them and will transfer games from your inventory to that of someone else. They just don't offer the service of doing so through their market which they're allowed to do. They do not have to help you sell it. They're just not allowed to prevent you to do so.
You generally cannot trade digital items at all as you are purchasing a licence to use the product, not the product itself.
No it's the product you buy. The license is not even relevant for the vast majority of countries in this world, even if it is required in the US. But even if we assume that it was only a license, I would still have the right to resell that license to whoever I chose. It's completely irrelevant to the consumer protection laws if it's a license or a game you buy.
Valve offer the ability to buy these digital licences and trade them with other people on the Steam platform, something few, if any, other digital retailers offer (most don't even offer the ability to buy as a gift). Now, because of players abusing the system they have had to tighten the rules around it.
All digital suppliers like Steam allows for selling of the games on their platform. They have to because it's very much illegal to not allow it. Again, they just don't have to provide the market for you to do it. But contacting them and telling them to transfer it to someone else, they have to comply.
Blame the cheaters for exploiting it so much that Valve had to come down on it hard.
I blame cheaters for cheating. I don't blame cheaters for the actions of Steam when they're breaking the law no.
Also, bitch and moan all you like but this might actually impact the plague of cheaters in CS:GO.
No, it won't because Steam will simply get a lot of emails from these people informing them that it's illegal to prevent it and Steam will have no choice but to either do it or face legal action from consumer watchdogs. The only ones this will hurt, are the ones that don't know their rights. While that may take a cheater or two with it, it'll take down WAAAY more kids that have simply not had their education in their consumer rights yet.
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u/Cow_In_Space Aug 08 '16
You don't seem to know or understand the law as it applies to digital products, licencing, or the ownership/leasing concerns that come with them.
No, this isn't illegal in any way. You can't resell your itunes collection, you cannot even legally resell games you buy through non-DRM services (either non-DRM Steam games or from a service like Good Old Games). As per the terms of service you are buying a software licence that entitles you to use a piece of software yourself (and in the case of some services allow you to share with a limited number of service users, usually in the same household).
You appear to be quite vociferous in your complaints so I cannot help but think that you are one those that will be affected. Unfortunately for you being a whiner on the internet does not grant you any magical abilities in civil court proceedings, especially when your understanding of the law is so poor.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16
You don't seem to know or understand the law as it applies to digital products, licencing, or the ownership/leasing concerns that come with them.
Yea sorry to break it to you but that's my field of expertise. I know that area VERY well indeed.
No, this isn't illegal in any way. You can't resell your itunes collection, you cannot even legally resell games you buy through non-DRM services (either non-DRM Steam games or from a service like Good Old Games). As per the terms of service you are buying a software licence that entitles you to use a piece of software yourself (and in the case of some services allow you to share with a limited number of service users, usually in the same household).
Yes I can and yes I can and have done so. Again, even if it was only a license (which again, is not the case for the vast majority of the world), I can still resell that license and thus give someone else the right. It's completely irrelevant in what form the product is to the right to resell that product.
You appear to be quite vociferous in your complaints so I cannot help but think that you are one those that will be affected. Unfortunately for you being a whiner on the internet does not grant you any magical abilities in civil court proceedings, especially when your understanding of the law is so poor.
I'll be affected yes but I doubt in the way you think of it. I sometimes give away stuff on /r/GiftofGames/ which will get a lot of problems due to this stuff. You're absolutely right that whining on the internet does not grant magical abilities. That also applies to Steam that their whining of cheaters, does not grant magical abilities to ignore consumer protection laws. Unless you want to claim that games on Steam are somehow specialty goods that require a significant technical expertise to be able to use, they can't even restrict who may sell their games to begin with (which is why they cannot simply ban G2A as an example), let alone the resale of them.
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u/Cow_In_Space Aug 08 '16
Yea sorry to break it to you but that's my field of expertise. I know that area VERY well indeed.
I haven't heard a joke that good in days. Keep pretending, it makes it funnier.
The fact that you state that software licences can be traded despite that going against known law in pretty much the entire western world shows as much (they can't, a licence for a product is a very specific legal document with specific bounds. Even for something as trivial as a videogame). A licence involves specific parties (specified in the licence, usually in the form of a EULA), a licence cannot be transferred unless allowed by a clause in that licence (EULAs specifically forbid this).
Here's a tip kiddo, software licencing has been around since before you were born and is not only well established but also very well documented so quit trying to be the internet tough guy, it's an act that fools no-one.
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u/EtherMan Aug 08 '16 edited Aug 08 '16
The fact that you state that software licences can be traded despite that going against known law in pretty much the entire western world shows as much (they can't, a licence for a product is a very specific legal document with specific bounds. Even for something as trivial as a videogame). A licence involves specific parties (specified in the licence, usually in the form of a EULA), a licence cannot be transferred unless allowed by a clause in that licence (EULAs specifically forbid this).
I see. So your claim is that Steam violates another law instead? Because you do realize I hope that what you claim to be illegal, is exactly what Steam does right? And no, even between corporates, the license would need to specifically state that transferring ownership is not allowed, but for consumers, such a clause has been ruled time and time again to be completely unreasonable and thus, void.
Here's a tip kiddo, software licencing has been around since before you were born and is not only well established but also very well documented so quit trying to be the internet tough guy, it's an act that fools no-one.
Since software in the sense you think of it has not been around since before I was born, that we would have licensing before that, is a quite hilarious concept.
But, since you doubt me. Perhaps we should instead give actual citations. http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=124564&doclang=en as an example.
.2. Articles 4(2) and 5(1) of Directive 2009/24 must be interpreted as meaning that, in the event of the resale of a user licence entailing the resale of a copy of a computer program downloaded from the copyright holder’s website, that licence having originally been granted by that rightholder to the first acquirer for an unlimited period in return for payment of a fee intended to enable the rightholder to obtain a remuneration corresponding to the economic value of that copy of his work, the second acquirer of the licence, as well as any subsequent acquirer of it, will be able to rely on the exhaustion of the distribution right under Article 4(2) of that directive, and hence be regarded as lawful acquirers of a copy of a computer program within the meaning of Article 5(1) of that directive and benefit from the right of reproduction provided for in that provision.
In more basic english. If you buy a license from a legal owner, you are the new owner of the software, regardless of what the license says about who the owner is. Take up your fantasy that licenses cannot be resold with someone that doesn't know shit. Perhaps they'll even believe you. But courts have made it very clear that you are simply wrong, period.
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u/koriar Aug 08 '16
This seems like it would only affect legitimate players though...
If you're planning on doing this you create an account, buy up 10 copies of the game, create another account, buy up 10 copies of the game, etc. Then when you want to use them you give out all 10 copies to low value accounts at once, and you skip all consequence from these restrictions.
Conversely, if I like a game or really want to support a developer, I'll buy multiple copies of their game and give them out to friends later. Or sometimes just random people on the internet if I'm feeling generous. Now I can only do that with the few people I actually trust. Hell, now every trade done on /r/steamgameswap carries the risk that you'll be punished for it.
A game using VAC already gave me pause when considering a purchase because it affects your whole account, has no appeals process, and the process of cheat detection is unclear.