On several occasions I've noticed people trying to sell their GOG accounts and I started to wonder how does GOG look at this. I quickly read through the terms of use, but found nothing about this particular issue.
Since games distributed by GOG are DRM free, there is a high probability [if not a certainty] that the person selling his / her account would keep the installs for themselves and continue to use them, while allowing someone else to access their account.
I know Valve doesn't approve of this when it comes to Steam accounts, even though in Steam's case, only one person can actually use the account.
So is selling a GOG account to someone, giving them access to purchased games, legal? Can there be a transfer of ownership or is this against GOG rules?

Whether it is legal or not, it probably depends on under what jurisdiction you live. I think that it is legal in countries in UE (some time ago I read somewhere that there is a law in UE taking care about such issues). If it goes about other countries I do not know. Of course, once you sell your account you cannot use games from that account legally anymore.

This would be the way it should be.
The transfer of ownership it is and the person whom sold it no longer legally has a right to the installers or previously installed games from said account.

Eventually, I would like for there to be a huge site, with a huge database, with 'onership rights' and licenses, that way it would be easy for someone to transfer their ownership to another person.

I'll be utterly honest here and probably will be crucified to death by moral lessons from forum posters... but whatever. Just make sure to read AND understand what I write before crucify me.

First off, looking at the standard EULA/TOS, selling accounts mostly is prohibited. The account is tied to yourself. But let's be clear, nobody will hunt your head when you DO sell your accounts e.g to real life friend.

Law? Who gives a damn about law. GOG's law/TOS? Gaben's? Meh... just raise a middle finger and say GTFO in your heart.

Anyway, my personal stance is to keep every single accounts I have for myself. But hey, it's your call if you want to sell, do it if you want - even when I say no I can't stop you right?

And personally, I wouldn't sell my GOG account although I have but pathetic amount of games here. I like what GOG is doing - being DRM free yadda yadda - and despite, yet, I dislike several of their business moves, I still think they're the best digital, customer friendly, digital retailers out there. Well you know, compare GOG to that powahful all-mighty platform that (I do use that platform, because my friends are all there not here) that performs digital restrictions, region pricing that's unfair, no friggin' refunds.... All that said, selling GOG account would be... shameful act for me. I don't know, do good to people who do you good? That'd be appropriate.

I won't crucify you. And I think I understand : you say you like GoG yet you incite/indulge people acting against it, you just don't understand the business of selling/hosting/supporting virtual merchandise.

Edit : don't bother I'm already out'a'here

Thanks a lot, I've send an e-mail to customer support. I hope you can track down this swindler! :)

I'm assuming you're talking about the EU. It's a very grey area in the EU, and in all likelihood isn't legal. The legal case which set everyone going about this wasn't about video-games, but rather a somewhat boring piece of software. While a video game could be argued to be the same as a piece of software, in a separate case, Nintendo v. PC Box, the Advocate General stated that actually, games are different as they're essentially a bundle of associated rights (art, music, storyline, code, etc) rather than just being code.

Other complicating factors are whether European countries have implemented that part of EU law, whether they are just ignoring it, or whether there is local legislation that takes precedence.

Of course, under the TOS, any accounts traded in a secondary market can just be terminated anyway!

I think your example is more about selling the licenses of your games. What that means in practice, I don't know. Ie. does "selling a license to someone else" simply mean you send them the game installer and they send you the money, and that's that? And the assumption is that you will not keep any copies of that installer to yourself, nor try to download it again from GOG? (And then what pds41 says above, maybe there are some extra quirks there inherent to games specifically.)

Your GOG account, on the other hand, is part of a service that you receive when you register to GOG, and buy games from them. Selling your account (service) is a completely different thing compared to selling a software license, as far as I know. So I presume GOG would be allowed to at least terminate such a second-hand account, if they somehow found out.

Pardon me for butting in 15 hours after the fact, but is there another way to be crucified? Were there a lot of people in Ancient Rome being pulled off the crosses and let go once the State felt they had learned their lesson?

I don't see that GOG will do anything against those selling their account or the free games.
I mean, seriously it has taken me <1 minute to find 4 seller on ebay (one with 10 accounts to sell).
Hell, i even sent support a link to a site were you could dl the whole catalog and their respond was
that they know about many such sites but couldn't (wouldn't?) do anything against them.

Seems rather tedious way to earn dime.

And most probably illegal too.

What if someone had a spare account with a game like the Fallout Trilogy, a game no one can purchase anymore, and they wanted to trade it for another game to be put on their primary account? Isn't that like trading gift codes on the Classifieds?

edit: Guess I should of prefaced I don't actually have a spare account to trade. It was just a hypothetical question.

Starfleet wouldn't approve.

Neither would my mam!