Why is not possible to sell digital games and movies that you own to others like physical media?
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Because when Microsoft announced they were doing it everyone screamed and whined about GameStop.
In simple terms. If it’s a physical DVD that you have and you sell it to someone else, as long as that person has a DVD player, they can watch it unobstructed by a third party.
If I have a digital copy of a movie Z and movie Z is validated against a third party database when I watch it that says that I’m person X and person X can watch movie Z. If I give the movie to person Y, the keeper of that database has to change an entry that says person Y and not person X is now the one that can play that copy of movie Z. That third party has no incentive to change the database entry for movie Z and wants person Y to buy movie Z themselves and create a new database record to validate access to movie Z
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Depending on the legal jurisdiction you live in, you might not own the software even if you buy a physical copy. All you own is a disc and the right to use a copy of the software for personal use (referred to as a license.) Violating the end-user license agreement means the company has the option of terminating your license, meaning *technically* it becomes software piracy for you to use the software.
Of course, some more consumer-friendly countries have decided that EULAs are complete bullshit and that if you pay for software, that copy is yours no matter what. It’s a shame that logic isn’t universal.
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This is exactly what GameStop is trying to fix. They are creating an NFT marketplace ((NFTs are not just for overpriced JPEGs)) so that you, the consumer who paid for a digital item, will actually own that digital item instead of just a license that has stipulations on what you can and can’t do with it. Then you can resell you digital video games, ebooks, video game character skins, etc etc etc.
I think it’s because your generally don’t “own” them. You license them. And the license is not transferable.
A lot of you guys are basically talking about a solution that the blockchain provides and you don’t even know it. Lol
When it comes to physical goods of any kind, the First Sale doctrine applies. What this means is that a copyright holder can only sue to prevent the first sale of its copyrighted work. Let’s say you want to sell a Marvel T-shirt that you made from scratch. Disney could stop you from selling that. But let’s say you sell it to your cousin. Your cousin can freely sell it however he wishes. Disney can’t stop him. They can only stop the first sale of a physical good involving their trademark.
This doctrine would apply to physical games, it does not apply to digital items. When you buy a digital item, you are buying a license to use it. A license, unlike a physical item, can be freely restricted by the grantor of the license. In cases of video games, the grantors of the digital licenses could allow you to sell your license to another, but they don’t want to allow that — they would make no money off such sale.
You don’t own the games or movies. You are just granted a license to use them in a certain way (mainly in private).
With physical media, you do own the actual, physical object that holds the media and can resell it. When you do, the contents of the object go with it. This is allowed both because it would be pretty difficult to stop (especially with the tech of yesteryear) and because (in theory) you lose access to the media once the physical object holding it is no longer in your possession. There’s also the fact that the precedent predates modern technology by hundreds of years thanks to used book stores.
With digital media, there is nothing involved that you actually own and can sell. Therefore, it’s not legal to do so. This is what big media has wanted for decades.
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