Intentionally Purchasing Large Allotments of Licenses for Re-Selling them on another site is Illegal.

Starforce Proactive Licenses and DCS Modules are Not Labeled for Re-Sale, and must be purchased by authorized distributors.





I'm sorry, I dont quite understand your view of the situation.
Where is ED making anyone Buy a License Twice? Can you explain in more detail?



License Keys are not labeled for Re-Sale, There fore large allotments purchased w/ intent to re-sale is not a legal purchase.
So for a Site to be Re-Selling Keys they purchased from either ED or Steam on sale w/ a Mark up is not considered "Legally selling keys"



Or ED is tired of having users getting ripped off when they buy a key that was blacklisted by SF for being purchased w/ a fraud paypal account, or the websites selling the same license key to 10 different users, even though the key is bound already to one of the site's bot email accounts and there fore not transferable to a new user and not valid to use online, since the websites that re-sell the keys do not log into their bot accounts and transfer/bind the license to a new users.

The Problem is this:
Sites were Exploiting the Sales, and the License Key System, so it was locked down.
A New Gifting System is in Development for Purchasing and Transferring Licenses, more Information on it will be released when it's ready.

This is also likely another reason why the 60-70% Off Sales have ceased.
As the 3rd party Sites would buy up as many keys as they could, leaving little to no keys left for the actual consumer to purchase.

So the 3rd party sites not only caused key shortages during sales, they likely are a reason the sales have stopped completely.

This affects end-users now by not allowing transferring licenses that have been bound to an account through an activation.


Now, It's the 3rd Party's responsibility to Refund anyone who Purchased a License Key,
These Sites that knowingly exploit other Storefronts to obtain their keys, and has no qualms with selling the same key to multiple recipients, while knowingly continuing to sell blacklisted keys to users.

This isnt About ED, Other Companies (EA, Ubisoft, etc are fighting the same problems).
This is about sites illegally selling in mass, License Keys in which they illegally purchased for re-sale.

If Sites want to Sell in mass/bulk License Keys, they need to have an agreement w/ the Publisher and Starforce for purchasing allotment of keys directly from them.

Neither company has an agreement w/ these sites for obvious reasons.

These Sites Illegally obtain keys in multiple ways.
-Mass Purchases via Bots on Steam or using Multiple Shell Email Accounts
-Mass Purchases paid for using Fraudulent Payment Methods (bot sniffed CC info, Open/Close PayPal Accounts etc etc)
-Bots that Sniff Websites for Keydumps posted by "KeyGens"
-Bots that sniff websites for keys posted by everyday users (ie Free Steam keys from humble bundle etc)

So I Understand your frustration w/ ED over not being able to transfer your legally owned license to another user.

But Right now, You're so hellbent on being angry at ED, your kind of defending the websites that are the true enemy here, as they are the reason for:
-Transferring of Licenses Being Locked Down
-Key Shortages During Sales
-Heavy Discount Flash Sales Being Discontinued.


Another User mentioned, sales, ie, having DCS:F-5E already, but wanting to buy a bundle w/ F-5E + Campaign/Terrain and gift your F_5E License to another user.
Hopefully w/ the new system, you'll be able to gift the unbound F-5E key to another user.

as for EULA Changes, and Users not being able to re-sell their keys, it's a tough one, while it looks to the end user that ED is just being greedy, it's really a casualty of the massive exploitation of the license key transferring system.

Hopefully the new system is everything everyone wants, without the exploitation of re-sale sites.



lol,
Ticket Scalping is Illegal, if:
-The Intent is to Buy a Ticket and Charge Someone more than what they paid for said ticket.
-The ticket was purchased fraudulently





So.. In recap... does this cover everything you're asking? or did I miss anything?

Not Being able to transfer bound keys as a actual consumer is a downer,
As I have multiple keys myself for a few modules that I purchased from both steam and ED during sales, that I would have liked to transfer to a friend's or even a person just wanting to get into DCS but doesnt have the money right now.

However, at the current time, current measures are being taken to protect future users from being scammed further by the sites responsible.

Thanks for the Chaff and flare wiki on keys.

To use the football analogy, what ED are doing is preventing Legal users watching the game because illegal sellers are outside flogging dodgy tickets.

They've closed down the whole show because they can't seem to deal with it, or more likely for financial gain while the end user suffers.

That doesn't in any way go to explain where the customer has previously agreed to the new license terms - and then ED having changed the terms, agreed to the new EULA. Not only that, the changes were made without any warning whatsoever....a lot of people only found out when they tried to transfer an existing license and many others found out after the changes had been implemented. Who is in charge of this farce?

It's not a case of it being a 'tough one' or the customer becoming a 'casualty'....the wording of a EULA is supposedly (although some would argue they hold no weight depending on where you live) designed to cover the legal representation of the agreement that you sign up to. (It actually states it is a 'Legal Document' between the customer and TFC on the first line) Unless there is something in the small print that originally stated that the EULA could be changed at any point in time and customers automatically agree to it (impossible, because as Johnny has said ED could change the policy to state that they own your house) then the customer base that agreed to the original EULA are simply not governed by the new policy...which now states;


3. LICENCE CONDITIONS

3.1 Except as expressly set out in this Licence or in clauses 4.1 and 4.2 below, or as permitted by any local law, you undertake to use the Program for your own personal use, and you shall not:

(a) sell, trade, rent, lease, sub-license, merge, adapt, vary, modify the Program, or any copies of the Program, without the express prior written consent of TFC;

TFC End-User License Agreement

Now, unless this text was in the 'old' EULA then no-one is governed by the new EULA at all unless they have bought a new module and have agreed to it.

The alternative being, if that snippet of text was in the old license agreement then ED was breaching it themselves for many years. The fact that when anyone even questions this on the forums they have their posting rights revoked as can be seen by some of the remnants on the board that haven't been deleted thus far.



It's almost amusing that ED may feel they are being 'ripped off'. Maybe now, they can see their customers point of view where they pay good money for an early access module, and then 5 years later it's still on the ignore list whilst other content goes through the same process of early access/find bugs/ignore bugs/leave module unfinished whilst they move onto the next item on their imaginary road-map.

Now I am getting confused.
I bought a m2000 for one of my flight buddies and linked it to his name - will he lose this now?
Better ask him to check ASAP I guess.

Depends where you bought it from and whether you linked it to your account first, if not he should be able to register it into his account but others have had problems with this scenario. If as you say it's already binded to his account and/or was done before the 'gifting' stopped then you should be OK.

Worst case, raise a support ticket......if ED immediately close it as they have with many similar cases where people have bought others a module then re-raise or PM 'BIGNEWY' as he seems to have the most logical approach and understanding as to the complete cluster-f*** that this has caused.

So to sum up

Not using stolen cc paypal etc
ED who control sales of keys, allowed people to buy a excrement load of keys thru their online store
Steam also allowed this

Now anyone who second hand bought one of these keys has lost out
ED /Steam have refunded the original person who bought a excrement load of keys

The issue of grey market key trading is confusingly complicated ATM (hence the term "grey"), so I am astonished how Skate could make such a bold statement.

The European Court of Justice ruled in 2012 (Oracle v. UsedSoft) that it is legal to resell legitimately purchased software keys within the EU, including in bulk, once the proprietor sold the licensed key.

It is not legal to sell fraudulent keys (acquired illegally, for example with stolen credit cards). It is also illegal to sell regional keys to software whose content would be illegal in another region, for example violating laws regarding the protection of minors; in that case, using a VPN to circumvent such a regional lock would also be iffy, possibly illegal.

Of course ED does not like to potentially lose money (ignoring for a moment the fact that not everyone would be willing to buy a module at full price). Even non-bulk trading (someone want to simply sell off his modules because he is no longer interested) could be perceived as a potentially lost sale.

If ED does not want 3rd party vendors to buy in bulk and resell, they should simply limit the number of keys per product they sell to a single customer.

Simply changing the EULA might not be sufficient, for example within the EU, either. EULAs are still subject to applicable law, which trumps anything that is in the EULA.

So far, to the best of my knowledge (I'm not a lawyer), there is no crystal clear ruling regarding the special nature of reselling "immaterial products" such as digitally distributed software licenses. For books or CDs/DVDs it's pretty straightforward: as soon as I acquire a physical copy, I can then resell it as I wish, as long as I don't make a copy, sell a copy, or sell a copy and destroy the original (for whatever weird reason).

Like I said, they use bots to purchase multiple keys using different accounts.

Users that bought from the 3rd party sites should email the site for a refund, since thats the point of sale.

I can almost garauntee they give a refund to avoid any unwanted attention to themselves

Mr Zilla is in a permanent state of grey...it suits his cause.

At least that makes sense... I guess....

AS I Said, these Sites buy using bots, especially from steam, where the bots will buy from a regionally priced storefront using regional IP, then they turn around and sell that license for significantly more.

You can limit to 1-2 or 5 Licenses, and the bot will buy 5, terminate his account after retrieving keys, make a new one, and repeat.

when all is said and done, the payment method used is a intermediate tender, so there's anywhere between 48 hour to 30 business days before payments are fully processed, by that time, the medium used is no longer active.

So Steam, ED, Whoever is stiffed for 20-40 Licenses, and they keys are re-sold on questionable sites.

the Sites are well known to the online buyers, a simple google will tell a great tale.

Even if they use one Account and Buy One License Key and Shutdown the payment method before it's processed.

They buy a single license key from a lower market (ie Brazil), and they turn around and sell that key to 50 different users.

They do the same with larger Software Suites, then in about 30 days, your key is blocked by the DRM servers,

In DCS's Case, Starforce Proactive.

More than you do.

awww.. I love you too..., Happy Holidays..

Well the answer is obviously to increase russian prices from 1299rubles to $50usd equivalent = 3600 rubles, then no bad people can engage in the thoroughly legal practice of grey market trading.

I find it kinda odd that there is a few days or even 30 before the money is processed

And how can the same key be activated 20 times ?

Doesn't it have to be checked in the master key server ?

@Jetronic , great idea to level the playing field and stop with artifical price hiking

Paypal isnt instant,

Paypal for me takes 36 hours to post to my bank account.

Credit Cards take 24 to 48 hours to post over state lines, and up to 30 days for banks to communicate if they are out of country.

Ok , so payment takes time

But a lot of activations on the same key from lots of different geo-locations ?
Oh my think starforce, it was nice of doctor who to buy that software and activate it from loads
of different locations all over the planet lots of times

SF will stop you as the customer yes. You'll find out you bought a key that cannot be activated. Selling vs activating here.

This is the License Agreement from A-10C 1.1.1.1,

Since then, The License Transfer/Re-Sell Etc Clause has Moved from line D to Line A.

So ED were in breach of their own EULA for many years then?

And there is a EULA for the core program and one for each module?