Came across this, French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir has filed a lawsuit against Valve demanding that it alter its policy to allow for the resale and transfer of PC games on Steam, the company's digital platform. The ban on the resale of games through Steam is one of a dozen clauses the association says is unfair and illegal, though it's the biggest and perhaps most controversial one. According to a translated version of UFC-Que Choisir's announcement, the transfer and resale of legally acquired games on Steam is a matter of "common sense." Just as users can legally sell a purchased game on CD or DVD, they should be able to do the same in digital form, the group argues. "This gap between the physical and digital world is incomprehensible," the group argues. Valve's policy is also made "all the more surprising [since] no court decision prohibits the resale on the second hand market games bought online and that the European Court has even explicitly stated the principle to the possible resale of software that, remember, are an integral part of a video game." The group is referencing a 2012 decision from the European Court of Justice involving Oracle. In that case, a judge ruled that reselling software on disc was no different than reselling a digitally distributed version. "From an economic point of view, the sale of a computer program on CD-ROM or DVD and the sale of a program by downloading from the Internet are similar," the judge said. "The on-line transmission method is the functional equivalent of the supply of a material medium."
Right or wrong you are typically granted a license to play the game rather than actually purchasing a copy of it. I have no doubt other industries would do this with tangible goods if they could. Being in business is not about being useful, fair or moral. Its about making money and to hell with whatever gets in your way. Sometimes people forget that.
