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Steam, GoG and Others Must Allow Reselling of Downloaded Games in EU

Jan 09,25(7 months ago)
Steam, GoG and Others Must Allow Reselling of Downloaded Games in EU

欧盟法院裁定:可转售已下载游戏

欧盟法院判决,消费者可以合法转售之前购买并下载的游戏和软件,即使存在最终用户许可协议。

版权耗尽原则与版权界限

欧盟法院裁定消费者可以合法转售之前购买并玩过的可下载游戏和软件。这一决定源于软件经销商UsedSoft与开发商Oracle在德国法院之间的一场法律诉讼。

法院确立的原则是分销权的耗尽(版权耗尽原则¹)。这意味着,当版权持有人出售一份拷贝并授予客户无限期使用该拷贝的权利时,分销权即告耗尽,允许转售。

这一决定适用于欧盟成员国的消费者,涵盖通过Steam、GoG和Epic Games等平台获得的游戏。最初的购买者有权出售游戏许可,允许其他人(“买方”)从发行商的网站下载游戏。

判决书写道:“一项许可协议授予客户无限期使用该拷贝的权利,该权利持有人将该拷贝出售给客户,从而耗尽其独家分销权……因此,即使许可协议禁止进一步转让,权利持有人也不能再反对转售该拷贝。”

实际上,流程可能如下:最初的买家提供游戏许可证的代码,在出售/转售时放弃访问权限。然而,缺乏明确的市场或此类交易系统带来了复杂性,并且仍然遗留许多问题。

例如,关于注册转移如何进行的问题。例如,实体拷贝仍将注册在原始所有者的帐户下。

(1)“版权耗尽原则是对版权所有人控制其作品分销的普遍权利的限制。一旦在版权持有人的同意下出售了作品的副本,则该权利即被认为‘耗尽’——这意味着购买者可以自由转售该副本,而权利所有者无权反对。”(来自Lexology.com)

转售者在转售后无法访问或玩游戏

发行商在用户协议中插入不可转让条款,但该裁决否决了欧盟成员国中的此类限制。虽然消费者获得了转售的权利,但限制在于出售数字游戏的人不能继续玩它。

欧盟法院指出:“获得有形或无形计算机程序副本的原始购买者,其版权持有人的分销权已耗尽,必须在转售时使其下载到自己计算机上的副本无法使用。如果他继续使用它,他将侵犯版权持有人的独家复制其计算机程序的权利。”

允许为程序使用进行必要的复制

关于复制权,法院澄清说,虽然独家分销权已耗尽,但独家复制权仍然存在,但它“受合法获取者使用的必要复制的约束”。规则还允许制作使用程序所需的目的副本,任何合同都不能阻止这一点。

“在这种情况下,法院的答复是,任何获得版权持有人分销权已耗尽的副本的后续获取者都构成这样的合法获取者。因此,他可以将其计算机下载到第一获取者出售给他的副本。这种下载必须被视为计算机程序的复制,这是使新的获取者能够根据其预期目的使用该程序所必需的。”(来自《欧盟版权法:评论》(埃尔加知识产权法评论丛书)第二版)

对备份副本销售的限制

值得注意的是,法院裁定备份副本不能转售。合法获取者被限制转售计算机程序的备份副本。

“计算机程序的合法获取者不能转售程序的备份副本。”这是根据欧盟法院(CJEU)在Aleksandrs Ranks & Jurijs Vasilevics诉微软公司案中的裁决。

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