因地域鎖涉違反歐盟反壟斷法，Valve抗議 - Steam

: → linzero: 有些經濟訴訟會花很久的，搞不好這案子是2015年前的 09/01 11:20
: 推 schula: 這種的還是看原文比較不會有翻譯上的誤差（汗 09/01 11:52

這案子始於2013年

歐盟主張：

In a true Digital Single Market, European consumers should have the right to buy
and play video games of their choice regardless of where they live in the EU. C
onsumers should not be prevented from shopping around between Member States to f
ind the best available deal. Valve and the five PC video game publishers now hav
e the chance to respond to our concerns.

有趣的是歐盟說自己的法律：

The Regulation prohibits geo-blocking and other geographically-based restriction
s which undermine online shopping and cross-border sales by limiting the possibi
lity for consumers and businesses to benefit from the advantages of online comme
rce. Currently, the Regulation applies to PC video games distributed on CDs, DVD
s but not to downloads.

The Commission will carry out a first evaluation of the Regulation by 23 March 2
020. In particular, the Commission will assess the scope of the Regulation, incl
uding its possible application to certain electronically supplied services which
offer copyright-protected content such as music, e-books, software and online g
ames, as well as of services in sectors such as transport and audio-visual.

Valve覺得：

However, the EC's charges do not relate to the sale of PC games on Steam - Valve
's PC gaming service. Instead the EC alleges that Valve enabled geo-blocking by
providing Steam activation keys and - upon the publishers' request - locking tho
se keys to particular territories ("region locks") within the EEA. Such keys all
ow a customer to activate and play a game on Steam when the user has purchased i
t from a third-party reseller. Valve provides Steam activation keys free of char
ge and does not receive any share of the purchase price when a game is sold by t
hird-party resellers (such as a retailer or other online store).

The region locks only applied to a small number of game titles. Approximately ju
st 3% of all games using Steam (and none of Valve's own games) at the time were
subject to the contested region locks in the EEA. Valve believes that the EC's e
xtension of liability to a platform provider in these circumstances is not suppo
rted by applicable law.

而且他們已經：

Nonetheless, because of the EC's concerns, Valve actually turned off region lock
s within the EEA starting in 2015, unless those region locks were necessary for
local legal requirements (such as German content laws) or geographic limits on w
here the Steam partner is licensed to distribute a game.

但他們認為這樣會：

The elimination of region locks will also mean that publishers will likely raise
prices in less affluent regions to avoid price arbitrage. There are no costs in
volved in sending activation keys from one country to another and the activation
key is all a user needs to activate and play a PC game.

https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-19-2010_en.htm

https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-geo-locking-europe/

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