After three years of waiting, the Paris Court of Appeal has finally delivered its verdict on the long legal battle between UFC Que Choisir and Valve. Reselling dematerialized games purchased on Steam will therefore remain impossible.
But let’s come back to this long procedure between the consumer association UFC Que Choisir and the distribution company Valve. In 2015, the association decided to sue Valve, in order to modify the general conditions of its Steam game sales platform. Indeed, UFC Que Choisir believed that a video game, even in dematerialized format, should be able to be resold, in the same way as a physical version.
A first verdict from the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris in September 2019 vindicates the association. A decision by the TGI which then makes 14 clauses of the platform’s subscription agreement illegal, including the prohibition on reselling a game purchased on Steam. And that could have opened the door to a whole new used video game market. But that’s not counting Valve’s predictable decision to appeal.
Video games, works of the mind
And after three years of proceedings, the Court of Appeal rendered a judgment dated October 21, 2022, which this time gives reason to Valve. It confirms the impossibility of reselling dematerialized games, as well as the non-recognition of the Steam wallet as electronic money. The court here bases its decision on the rule of exhaustion of rights. A rule that limits industrial property rights from the moment a marketing has already taken place. But also on the fact that the video game cannot be perceived as a simple computer software and that it is rather a work of the mind. Which therefore also depends on copyright.
“It cannot be considered that the supply of a video game on a material medium and the supply of a dematerialized video game are equivalent from an economic and functional point of view, the market for second-hand immaterial copies of video games likely to affect the interests of copyright owners far more strongly than the second-hand market for computer programs.”
Paris Court of Appeal
If UFC Que Choisir does not win this battle, the association could decide to seize the Court of Cassation to oppose the decision of the Court of Appeal. But she leaves time for a few weeks before making her arrangements. A time necessary to fully read the decision of the Court of Appeal and estimate whether there are serious grounds to be able to appeal.