@tycobb:Sure, we don't own the software, but we do own the disc itself and the case. If we want to smash the disc into a million pieces or set it on fire, we can do that all we want. You are right, however, on not owning the contents to the disc itself, that we have a license for the software.
However, with this said, what does that have to do with the issue at hand? I'm not sure what side of the fence you're on here. Speaking in defense of my side, whether you disagree or not, we as the owner of the license are allowed to transfer this license to someone else (selling our used games) to someone else, and we should expect not to have to pay Microsoft or someone else for this transaction.
The license itself can easily be transferred on Microsoft's end easily, being that all games will be authenticated with your Xbox Live account, on installation of a game the Xbox will require you to be connected to the Internet likely to install the content, at that point the servers will detect that there was a previous owner of the software.
Microsoft has stated that this would require repurchasing the game in the past, and that you would need to pay full price for the game again... Whether or not this has changed, I'm not sure. What should happen, is a re-authentication process that transfers license ownership over to the account that will install the game itself. This will ensure that no two or more people can play the game at the same time without having to pay for a license.
NOW, here's the biggest problem. If Microsoft plans on charging an extra "activation fee" or anything for the transfer of ownership of this license, this would infringe on the "First-sale doctrine", outlined in this article. The "First-sale doctrine" does cover selling your used media in this way. I do expect, however, that Microsoft will change EULAs to allow them to screw you over by nullifying this by saying you only rent the content for an unspecified amount of time and can be revoked at any point in time, basically giving you no actual ownership of the product in any way, and basically allowing Microsoft to make as much money off of one game sale as they want.
If you make money off of a game, it ends there. You shouldn't be able to make more than the cost of the product over for it simply transferring ownership. You already MADE the cost of the product when the initial sale was made, what makes them think that making additional money on top of that justifiable?
I was shown an appropriate analogy for this scenario in relation to a car dealership. It went something along these lines:
Imagine purchasing a vehicle from GM, and completely paying off the car in full. Now, let's say some years down the line you decide to sell your car to someone else, as you feel there is still value left in the car. Normally, in this situation, you would sell the car to another person for example, and get the money from them for the agreed amount, and that would be it.
Let's imagine instead you purchase a vehicle, but from Microsoft instead. Everything leads up to the same conclusion, except in this case, Microsoft would try to charge additional money from selling the used car to the person buying it from you.
How does anyone justify this? I don't care if it's digital or not. You're already not selling a physical product, outside of the disc it comes on, and there's already enough problems surrounding that, and now they plan on trying to profit off of exchanging ownership of the software?
Imagine buying a game for $60 let's say, and now you sell it to your friend for $0.01, and he sells it back to you for $0.01, and you repeat this process 1,000 times. What happens in this scenario? Does Microsoft make thousands of dollars off these transfers between two people?
I understand that this is an extreme example, but I'm simply extrapolating from what we're given in terms of what will happen with these used-games transfers.
I personally don't care about Microsoft, I have had a strong dislike for them, their products, and their business decisions, but this is certainly an all time low. I think a lot of people can at least agree with me on the last part, as there are a lot of people who are disappointed, and quite frankly, disgusted with what they've seen with the new Xbox One.
Log in to comment