Internet steals 30 000 steam keys from WadjetEyes

[Tabata]

But these were free keys. How can you steal something that is free?

... by selling these to those people that should have gotten them.

[selmiak]

So selling something is stealing?
I don't know the legal term for it, but it's probabyl something along fraud or so. The whole thing is kind of like in a supermarket where they have this huge sweetsbox with free sweets at the checkout. You walk there, ask: Are these sweets for free? The cashier says yes and you take them all. He will complain because it is expected behaviour to just take one or maybe 2, but legally he can't do anything about it and you could theoretically stand in front of the supermarket and start selling these legally obtained free sweets. The supermarket boss couldn't stop you from doing so (except that you might need a license for selling things on the street in front of his supermarket but I think there are places on the internet where you can bulksell steamcodes and noone ask unpleasant questions), he couldn't even invalidate your stash of free sweets BUT he can ban you from ever setting foot in his supermarket again. And this is what steam should also do, ban these assholes!

[EliasFrost]

Damn this is sad. But on the plus side, the big gaming sites published articles about this. At least that's some publicity.

[kconan]

So it's okay to steal 30,000 keys from say, EA?

Huh?  Did someone say that it is ok to steal 30,000 keys from EA?

No, its not ok.  I just don't care.  I do care if someone messes with a small mom and pop software house.

[Tabata]

So selling something is stealing?
...

To sell something that doesn't belong to you and take the money for yourself is stealing, yes

If you get offered one as a gift and take more, then you stole (and that is for steam-keys and candies or whatever).
As long as you sell just the one you were allowed to take it is okay by law, but selling the stolen goods is a crime.

[qptain Nemo]

But these were free keys. How can you steal something that is free?

Granting rights to downloading free of charge and/or verbatim distribution is absolutely not the same thing as granting rights to commercial use. Examples: Noncommercial Creative Commons licenses, pretty much all freeware games and software. Just because something is free for you to enjoy it, it in no way implies you can go on selling it unless explicitly allowed by the author. So you can call it theft, you can call it ripping off, you can call it whatever you want, but it's still absolutely illegal.

edit: Although, since games are products that you should be allowed to resell if you own them (at least in EU?), it probably complicates things. I'm not sure how it applies here and how it even works in combination with the above. In fact I'd be pretty grateful to anyone who'd be able to explain how this customer right works together with freeware licenses denying any rights to sell. Anyone?
But in this particular case I'm pretty sure copies obtained against the will of the copyright holder don't count anyway.

The mean thing with digital goods is that you can't even complain about them taking away and not leaving anything for the honest people.

I imagine most of the people who would've purchased the keys from the reseller would do so instead of buying from Dave, and for him, as any other full-time indie, that directly translates to losses of actual life sustenance. Surely you see the issue in that?

Huh?  Did someone say that it is ok to steal 30,000 keys from EA?

Well, now I did.

[EliasFrost]

I like selmiak being the devil's advocate because he do have a point. If they release a game for free as a promo, it's not stealing, no matter if you get more than one copy. Selling the keys is illegal yes but the other people who only took more than their share didn't steal anything because the keys were indeed free. It sucks, but that's the reality, whether it's moraly good is another question and I think those people are all dicks. Selling free stuff is not stealing though, it infringe on copyright but it's not stealing.

Like Nemo says, it's a complicated matter, it's strongly dependent on where you are located. It's much more than just 'theft' or 'not theft'.

[Stupot]

Whether or not it's illegal is not really the point because those who did it are very unlikely to be found (or even looked for), but yes they are complete bastards and are going to hell.

[David Ostman]

So selling something is stealing?
...

To sell something that doesn't belong to you and take the money for yourself is stealing, yes

It's not stealing. It's more likely to be a case of conversion, but my fascination with the finer points of this was a long time ago

On it's face it's a pretty crappy situation and it caused a lot of headache for Dave, but I can see this being a positive thing in the end. He got publicity in places he probably wouldn't have otherwise and in the end it will probably turn out to be a good thing.

[Snarky]

Unless Dave explicitly put in any kind of license or contract conditions that limited offers to one per person (I didn't see anything like that when I downloaded a copy, but I didn't have to use the code either, possibly because I've already bought the game before), this is more a matter of exploiting a loophole than it is theft, fraud or any other crime:

-Unless otherwise specified, when you give away something for free to the public, people are allowed to take as many as they like
-By the first sale doctrine, once you've given it to them it's theirs to do with as they like, including reselling (though this depends somewhat on the conditions in the "sales" contract and on the legal regime)

However, once BMT put in restrictions on the IP addresses, evading those restrictions is potentially a case of illegal "hacking" (under one of the dumber Internet-related laws).

Of course, those people were still assholes for taking advantage of a small indie company just to make a quick buck, but since most of the excess codes have been canceled and Wadjet Eye has got some publicity out of it, it all seems to have worked out for the best.

[qptain Nemo]

-By the first sale doctrine, once you've given it to them it's theirs to do with as they like, including reselling (though this depends somewhat on the conditions in the "sales" contract and on the legal regime)

So where this doctrine is in effect, noncommercial licenses aren't enforceable?

[Snarky]

No, I believe that's different because it's not about the rights to a single copy, but the right to make new copies and sell them. Though I'm sure you could find edge cases.

[David Ostman]

Longer blog post about this can now be read over at Dave's Blog.

[Dave Gilbert]

Hi everyone! Wow what a crazy couple of days. It all seems to have died down now, and everything has been sorted. So all to the good.

The blog link that David Ostman just posted pretty much sums up what I think about the subject. Whether the mass-nabbing of the keys was stealing or not, it doesn't matter. I still had to take steps to fix it. Thanks everyone for all the comments and support. It means a lot!

[kaput]

Blackwell Unbought

Dave, you are a funny genius .