EDIT:
Also, just a reminder, in the article linked in Piranjade's post, Lars Doucet, the developer of Defender's quest also mentions that he has no problem with such reselling. Is he's also lacking life experience and on ethically thin ice?

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20160628/276019/G2A_Piracy_and_the_Four_Currencies.php

"To be extremely crystal clear, I am not really bothered by 3rd-party key resellers who do not traffic in stolen goods. If they're just exploiting arbitrage, I got paid for that first sale and a key can only be redeemed once, anyway, so I don't really care. But I do care about fraud, theft, and chargebacks"

I know it's just an example but yes the Nvidia codes that come with video cards for instance usually specifically mention on the voucher that they are not for resale.

If you're that hard up for money, do what you gotta do. Me, I try to support small businesses that provide goods or services that I appreciate, so if I'm asked to not resell a key I feel that's reasonable.

Sorry if your feelers got hurt.

Maybe.

Keep in mind some games and software used to directly be tied to hardware, so if you had an Nvidia Voodoo 2 card, the game might only work if you have that exact card installed on your computer.

There are no checks, balances or proofs of how the game code was acquired though. Via legit means than G2A could be a legal way to do this.

I recall having some keys for games for my video card. One was SimCity (2013), know what I did? I gave the key away and didn't consider reselling it.

Don't feed or help the greater evil. While GameStop is making millions by reselling physical copies, the devs/publisher still had to get their initial share legally.

I don't support G2A at all (because the evidence available on the forum here suggests they are quite dodgy and not a legitimate business by any stretch of the term) but I don't really see the issue with selling on keys...

We're not talking about second hand sales of physical copies, where the original developers never get their cut of the additional sales (and one copy can be sold dozens of times potentially), these keys are unused. The developers / publishers got their cut at a price they presumably deemed fair at the time so as long as only one person gets to redeem the game (which is the case) then no one is hurt and no one loses out.

The problem with places like G2A is that you don't know what's a legitimate key bought on sale and resold and what's a copy bought with a stolen credit card (or whatever) and that is likely to be revoked (and cost everyone involved), therefore buying from them supports that market, whether you intend to or not.

If a better run and regulated site were to emerge, I don't see that that would be a problem (let's face it, you can't bulk buy Gog codes anyway so it would be difficult to make a serious living from buying during sales and reselling later).

I'm not hard up for money. I never resold a key. I don't see how a small business is any less supported if person A buys the good then sells it to B than if B buys it directly. Either way the small business got exactly paid for what it sold.

You keep evading answering why should a digital good be treated differently from a physical one? So can you or can you not give one single reason for this?

(and by the way, can you not give a factual argument without appealing to emotions? I'm sure your support of "small business" makes you an amazing guy, but what has business size got to do with it? I'm asking about digital/physical good difference. The unredeemed key could be an AAA title made by huge corporation.
Or how about this, would you be ok to sell a toaster one e-bay, one that you got as part of a promotion, if it was made by a "small business"?)

I could just as well write: "Why are you against DRM? Me, I try to support small businesses that provide goods or services that I appreciate, so if I'm asked to create an online account and have it validated online before I play, that's reasonable. But if you're hard up for many, do what you gotta do." How is than an argument?

Either way, unless you do provide an argument I'm ending this discussion on my part. If someone wants talk about this, I'd happily continue, because this is a topic I'm genuinly interested in, but I'm not wasting any more time going in circles with someone whose only arguments are "think about it", "do you know what x is?" and "Sorry if your feelers got hurt.". Got to go now; there are orphans I have to feed.

If person B buys a bundled key from you, isn't he less likely to buy the bundle?


I'm trying to provide some perspective that I think should/could factor into the decision. If it isn't "factual" enough for you, feel free to discard it.

Cheers

Sorry, but that is completely wrong. Please read up on the first-sale doctrine. A small excerpt from Wikipedia: The first-sale doctrine was originally intended for physical copies but within the EU the highest courts have already ruled that it also applies to digital copies, respectively licences in general. See the Oracle vs. Usedsoft case. See or [url=http://www.computerworld.com/article/2505356/it-management/eu-court-rules-resale-of-used-software-licenses-is-legal----even-online.html]here for details. There have been more similar cases like SAP vs. Susensoftware or Microsoft vs. Preo Software which all confirmed that software can be resold. The only caveat in the last mentioned case was that Preo Software was not allowed to issue Certificates of Authenticity for the sold software as that would violate Microsoft's trademark. But Microsoft was also forbidden by the court to continue sending letters to buyers from Preo Software in which they claim that the sale was illegal.

Indeed, everyone can sell access to copies as long as he does not sell them more often as he legally bought them. Though delivery via Mega would be quite unusual. ;-) But selling software in form of keys that can only be redeemed once is perfectly legit as long as the key was not obtained fraudulently or sold multiple times.

?
Your perspective would have been relevant if the discussion was "is it ok to re-sell separately unbundled items?" Physical or otherwise.

The question I'm asking is "Why should the re-sale of digital (of which you can't make multiple copies) items be treated differently from physical?" Bundled or otherwise.

Well why didn't you say so? lol

In general I tend to agree with you, but in this particular instance there are circumstances involved that I think are somewhat exceptional.

Have these courts addressed the matter of DRM?

The worst part is that any affiliation with G2A lends their business legitimacy.

No. The only question the court was asked and which it answered was if reselling licences is legal even without the copyright holder's knowledge and consent.