Protecting players in the digital age: first legislative avenues
If we want to protect players faced with dematerialisation, the most effective approach is not necessarily to invent an entirely new right, but to combine national and European regulations, by reinforcing what already exists. Here are a few avenues, to be explored further, each with its own obstacles and its own opponents.
1. Extend legal deposit to the dematerialised
In France, every publisher must deposit a copy of its game with the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), under legal deposit, a heritage preservation scheme. This obligation could clearly be extended to digital files, with the deposit of updates and the provision of the means to circumvent DRM for conservation purposes. See our article on legal deposit as a model.
2. Create a right to resell digital content
The French courts refused the resale of dematerialised games (Cour de cassation, 2024). Only a legislative change, ideally at European level, can restore it, on the model of the exhaustion of rights, with remuneration for the publisher on each resale. This is the subject of our draft bill.
3. Impose "end-of-life" guarantees
For online games, no one disputes that a server will eventually shut down. What is missing is a procedure: an offline mode at closure, opening up to community servers, or deposit of the work. Exactly what the Stop Destroying Videogames initiative was calling for.
4. Strengthen information before purchase
Make it mandatory to display clearly, before payment, the nature of what is being bought (licence, duration, resale, data). Consumer law already allows this in part; the point is to make it effective for video games.
None of these avenues is simple. All of them will run up against the interests of the industry. But all of them rest on principles already recognised by European law, what is needed is not a revolution, but a logical extension.
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Article indispensable. Je vais envoyer une lettre à mon député suite à cet article.
Je ne savais pas que UFC Que Choisir avait déjà gagné contre Steam. Pourquoi personne n'en parle dans les médias gaming traditionnels ?