this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
245 points (99.6% liked)
Steam Hardware
22048 readers
632 users here now
A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Deck] - Steam Deck related.
[Controller] - Steam Controller related.
[Machine] - Steam Machine related.
[Frame] - Steam Frame related.
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
If your post is only relevant to one hardware device (Deck/Machine/Frame/etc) please specify which one as part of the title or by using a device flair.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to Steam Hardware or Steam OS in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah I agree but that maybe more to the publishers not allowing that that to me would be achieved through regulation just like with the refunds. First sale was not something publishers wanted just a feature of having physical media. Also there is a myth that all steam games are DRMed. There are may games that run without steam being open but that is up to the publisher. Stuff like family sharing they added is them bring value to customers while walking a fine line with the publishers.
It's not up to publishers. Publishers tried to put a disclaimer on books preventing cheap resale. The Supreme Court struck it down and it was written into law over 100 years ago.
The problem is first sale doctrine applies to the physical media which carries the license of its own content.
The physical media is whatever is playing the content. The law doesn't specify the media.
1909, one year after the Supreme Court ruling: "Your honor, I know that the Supreme Court ruled that publishers can't add a shrink wrap license that prohibits cheap resale of copyrighted work but you see, I delivered the content on llamas where it was printed onto scrolls at the customer's home so the law doesn't apply. You wrote the laws thinking about trains and ships transporting books and I use neither."
No, the problem is that people believe "[concept] on a computer" is somehow magically different from "[concept] IRL" when it's not.
When you buy a game from Steam, you buy a game, not a license, and the First Sale Doctrine applies just as much as it does if you buy a board game from Walmart. Any claims to the contrary are simply lies, and any government support for such lies is simply tyranny.