Gabe Newell slips through the German legal net once again.
Last year, the German consumer watchdog group Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZVB), a Federation of German consumer organisations, launched an attempted lawsuit against Valve over the inability to re-sell games on Steam. They were prompted by a 2012 July ruling in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which had ruled in favour of UsedSoft against Oracle, concluding that “used” software sales are legal and cannot be blocked by the author.
However, it seems the Regional Court of Berlin has taken a different view, as the lawsuit has been dismissed. The reasons for this decision have “not yet been published” and VZVB may have a route to appeal. For now, though, Steam users will definitely still be prohibited from re-selling games or whole accounts on Valve’s platform.
This is the second attempt by VZVB to bring this issue to court. Back in 2010 they made it as far as the German Federal Court of Justice, who ruled that Valve was not violating German law.
