skeletonbow: I'd like to know the name of the law being broken if one does so. Handcuffs and jail time for selling a video game account?
Sound pretty far fetched to me in any first world country at least. :) Would love to see evidence of these laws (in any country) and some news article or public record showing someone being convicted and sent to prison for selling a video game account they legally owned (whether it violates the TOS agreement of the vendor or not).
It's certainly possible somewhere, just highly unlikely. I welcome URLs to learn more about this though. :)
Dachenko11: GOG.com ("Service") is operated by GOG Limited ("GOG") and accessed by you ("User") that permits you to purchase and download digital content such as but not limited to video games for personal, non commercial use under the following terms and conditions.
In the context of these terms, even letting a friend play on your computer is a technical violation of the rules. To sell it commercially is a grey area, it would definitely lead to the account getting removed, but fines or legal actions I am not sure of. I say illegal within the context of the terms of service, again, I do not know about legal actions. To pass it along may lead to the account getting removed, however, legal actions are more than unlikely.
Violating terms of service agreements do not constitute illegal activity. I think people are using the terms "legal" and "illegal" in a slang manner to mean the possibility of violating a service agreement rather than breaking the law as criminal action. When people use words incorrectly like this it just causes confusion and miscommunication however. People really should say what they mean to avoid ambiguity. Words matter. :)
It's important to note that each video game comes with a EULA which grants the purchaser with individual rights the copyright owner is providing for the purchase. GOG does not decide that, the owner of the intellectual property does. GOG's service agreement terms are with regards to the account and usage of their website and services, not the individual games which the publisher/developer decide the rights that are granted to the customer.
As for whether allowing a friend to play a game you've purchased is ok or not - that is up to the EULA that comes with the game and not GOG (unless GOG owns the rights to that game). At any rate getting into that level of detail about things is not what the topic is about which is whether it is legal to sell an entire account to someone on GOG and whether or not you let a friend play a game on your computer is kind of irrelevant to that.
What's funny about all of this is that if someone really truly wanted to sell a GOG account to someone else and was serious about it, all they need to do is contact GOG support directly and straight out ask them how do they go about transferring their entire account to another person. If GOG does not permit that for any reason they will simply tell the person this outright and nobody needs to guess or hire a lawyer. If it is dependent on the laws in some region such as say... some country having laws that prevent a company from stopping someone from selling their account, then GOG would be aware of this and have to let you do it. Either way, talking directly to the GOG support department is the best and only way to know and avoid legal debate amongst 50 non-lawyers. :)
I'd ask them personally but it doesn't really matter to me because I'm not planning on selling my account, but if I was I would as it'd take less than 48 hours to get a definitive answer. The real question IMHO isn't whether it is legal to sell an account as I doubt there is any law that could stop someone. The real question is whether GOG has any legal rights to prevent someone from selling an account and whether they would even want to either way. Sometimes it is easier and faster to just ask than to make assumptions or play guesswork though.
But always fun to speculate right? :)
