Quote:
Originally Posted by generik
Perhaps the legal monkies in NCSoft may want to read about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
Hell, I've seen even Microsoft's so called EULA being crushed in court by law college student who was merely reselling his Academic version of software, legally.
I really glee at the idea of seeing someone take Anet to court for this clause in the EULA too. Do not for a moment think an EULA is gospel truth, it is at very best a contract, and even then you still retain rights as a consumer.
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I really glee at this idea too- I love to see overbearing people make complete a$$es of themselves.
Sure, you bought a copy of Guildwars. However, by the very nature of GW, you cannot play the game without accessing their servers. Regardless of the laws regarding whether or not you can sell the software and how legally binding the EULA is, the fact of the matter is that even if you can legally sell your copy of GW, you can't legally sell the implied contract you have with ANet in regards to accessing their servers. That's a different matter, and the law is firmly on ANet's side there. It's very similar to renting an apartment- you get a lease from your landlord, which is a contract between you and the landlord which gives you rights and obligations. However, you can't go and sell your lease to a third party.
With the setup of GW, buying the game is obtaining the game client and purchasing an account on the GuildWars servers via which you can play the game. Copyright law only deals with the product you purchased- it doesn't deal with services. In cases where copyright allows, you can resell or transfer the GW game client. Of course, the client is available for free to anybody who wants it, so that won't get you much. What you're really trying to do is sell the account on the servers that allows you to access the game and stores the information about your characters- which is something far different than selling the software that you bought at the store.