New EU laws effect EA, Origin and further SWTOR?

The judge ruling isn't a matter of selling disks, it's a matter of selling actual second hand licenses. So essentially, in terms of SWTOR, that would mean I could sell my login credentials and hence passing over my license.

It doesn't really matter whose 'property' the account is; when you pay your monthly fee, you are purchasing a service. Said service is detailed in the EULA. When it comes to banning accounts for being sold, the absolute worst that a law could ever do is force the company to refund a prorated amount of how much purchased time was left on the account. They can't force the company to allow someone to buy their service (excepting, in some countries, cases of discriminatory denial).

I think they could in the UK. The Court would grant an injunction lifting the ban.

I suspect most EU countries would be the same

Did you not read the article? It's clearly stating only your digital copies of games will be eligible for resale (which doesn't even apply to this game since the game's free to download), the terms of the license for access to an MMO server is a completely different kettle of fish.

You buy your copies of games, but you only rent access to your account, renting does not implicate ownership therefore you do not hold rights to resale.

Seriously this article is merely hitting on Xbox's new approach to games.

TOR is "free" to download? You are refering to the free trial? To play the whole game, you have to pay the purchase price. So it is not "free". Unless they just recently made it free to download and no purchase price required.

As has been mentioned, you'll be able to sell the game (big plus) but the account is still subject to the EULA and cannot be sold legally. A lot of MMOs don't have a method of identifying who bought it (serial key, etc) so there's really been no way to prevent sales anyway. Games like Mass Effect however... good news to the consumer in this case.

Always found those EULA´s you have to "sign" laughable, they would never hold up in court in the EU, oh so little Timmy "signed" something in a foreign languge on the internet, yea thats a legally binding contract allright

you are totally right. also everything that any foreign company writes in their EULA or general terms and conditions that violates the local law is automatically void. at least that's how it works in germany.

Personally I think it's ridiculous that this ever had to go to court in the first place. And it shows just how little regard software companies (not just EA) have for their customers and traditional rights.

For example: I buy a car. Later I decide to sell that car to someone else. The car company can't suddenly get involved and say "selling that used car deprives us of profits and violates your agreement with us!" No. I bought that car and it's mine to do with as I please.

Same with a book, or a music CD, and now with software. Once I buy it it's mine to do with as I please. And I don't care if Microsoft or GM or EA or the RIAA like it or not.

Although the reality is that it probably won't affect EA at all. They can just close their European offices and then continue to do what they want. After all, if the company isn't in Europe then European laws can't really be enforced against them.

This ruling makes sense to me, I don't know how the EU works, but inst this just a ruling not a law?

Someone is going to need to bring a claim against a software company eventually.

In the US this is a great example of how lobbyist control our law. There is no way that owning something is not yours to sell afterwards . It would be like buying a car and then not being legally able to sell it later. That said, I imagine anything that lives on the server is not yours to sell. Only digital data which is obtained to your hard drive. So owning SWTOR I could sell my key code(account information) but that doesnt mean I will be able to play if BW doesnt want to allow the new owner to have rights to their servers. That would be whole new lawsuit Im guessing.