EU Rules on Reselling Your Downloaded Software

The European Court of Justice has ruled that you can resell your download software despite whatever reselling restrictions are placed on the software by the copyright holder. In an article published yesterday, Eurogamer.net reported; "The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that publishers cannot stop you from reselling your downloaded games. More specifically: "An author of software cannot oppose the resale of his 'used' licences allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet." The Court said the exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by the license is "exhausted on its first sale". You can read the entire Eurogamer's article here.

This could have serious consequences for a great number of publishers of add ons to flight simulator products, including Microsoft with their use of DLC's for FLIGHT. Though this is focused on the resell clause, continued use of a download after it has been resold, is a violation of the copyright holder's distribution rights. How this will impact users globally, and what actions publishers will take to further mitigate or prevent resell is yet to be determined.

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