Sure DRM free gets abused. In this very moment someone somewhere downloads a GOG game and plays it without buying. Its traceable but only with a lot of monitoring since it could be done via private sharing networks or just a quick curtesy of a friend who bought a GOG game - virtually untraceable. And in many geographical locations nobody will persecute it anyway. I find it difficult to judge how much more abuse there would be and if this would be significant. Maybe... maybe not.

It doesn't have to be a federal agency although for example things of value like cars, houses ... are all registered somewhere on a federal level - and it's good because otherwise people could just occupy your house and say it's theirs.

The question is how you prove that you own something (physical or digital). With GOG even now it is not really clear. Copying or forging these emails you get is a bit too simple. So if GOG accidentally forgets that you bought 400 games with them for $3000, you face a huge financial loss and will have a difficult next to impossible time to be awarded your rights. If it would be easy, probably everybody would say that GOG owes him some games. But GOG games you can backup. What if Steam accidently forgets a customer? Or if you buy a license for access to a valuable database and they don't let you in for some reason.

What if your bank forgets you had money in an account? After all this is the most essential and convertible form of digital good. It's just a number somewhere and can so easily be adjusted. Actually I feel never really comfortable.

That's why you keep receipts, credit card statements and other proofs of purchase. Never delete those emails, and you are fine. If you use things like PayPal you will also have nice lists of transactions. Bank statements show you your transactions. The onus is on you to make sure it is OK, and if you find something wrong, you contact the bank/seller. If they do not fix things, then you take it further. They are regulated, but it is still up to you to make sure things are going correct with your money.

The bank lock your money during a transaction, not any outside agency, they need an court order (or what it is called) to be able to do so. Banks also transfer money between themselves, as do not work in your previous example. Money is not a good, and not really transferable example. It is a concept. it is like trading in the concept of a game, which then can be redeemed at store point (Duke Nuke'em is worth 5 game, Postal 2 is worth 1/100 game, and so on), and the DD's do not transfer the licenses, but "Game" between themselves - but this is not how things work... does it make sense?

mm - the problem is that this will have different impact than piracy, and publisher and sellers will most likely be more scared of it. It is hard to tell, but as you might have guessed - I am pessimistic. Best case scenario as I see it? we will see increase in game prices... worst case? more subscription based gaming and heavier DRM. Basically, I do not see a single positive outcome in the long run for resale of games. Short term, yes, I get some money for some games I do not want any more right now - but is it really worth it for the long term consequences? I think not.

("Or if you buy a license for access to a valuable database and they don't let you in for some reason." - this is surely DRM?)

(P.S.. "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr.)

But that's not due to a lack of proposed positive outcomes (less financial risk of buying a bad game, additional competition restrict monopolies or excessive pricing, functioning market for abandoned games, passing games on to your beloved) in the thread. You probably disagree with them, but it's not because nobody find any.

Regarding ownership there was an interesting case some years ago: A heir found a bank account savings book from 50 years ago with 100,000€ on it. The bank had changed ownership twice in this period and had no files about this anymore. In the end an expert wrote an expertise about the authenticity of the book and based on this after several years of trial the court decided that the claim is valid. It can be that difficult but it is also interesting because there are real life cases where such things become important. I doubt that my GOG confirmation mails are officially enough to count much in court. An independent third entity being notified by GOG - that would be much better.

Actually I recently changed my mind. I still don't think that used sales are dangerous to anyone, almost independently of how they are implemented, but I now think that it is much, much less important to have.

I just said goodbye to the idea, that you can realistically own them in the sense of having all the freedoms you usually have with the usual things before the century is over. The industry doesn't want it, most customers don't care and even me, looking at my games yesterday decided, that most of them I never want to play again.

There are some notable exceptions, some games that are important to me and I want more than just renting them, even if it is livelong. I would be willing to pay more to get a version including more rights.

But for most others GOG is already like the best possible model. Still it also greatly changed the price I am willing to pay. In the old days I paid full price, played them and sold some of them later, now I just expect to rent them and after some months they could even be deleted from my account, I wouldn't care. But I will probably never pay more than 10$ for any game again.

So, it's already perfect as it is, except for the gems, and they are too few to be important.

The only practocal way for gog to allow license sales is a small, unintrusive, optional DRM. ZIe, when you buy a game, you ate asked if you wish to preserve your resale right, and that doing so will require a DRM to be installed.

What really pisses me off is that I recently discovered that my bought copy of Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 from 2008 installed a DRM Windows service (protexis) that slows down the computer at startup, runs all the time and does not become uninstalled when you uninstall the software. Also nowhere on the box it said anything about it. Compared to that Steam is open and transparent about what they are doing and probably less resource wasting too. :/