Makes NO sense. The only games manufactured by CDP are The witcher and The witcher 2.

CDP only distributed some games in Poland, nothing more, nothing less. Especially for old games, CDP rights already expired, and rights to distribute them digitally is total separate thing.

EA does that only for games THEY manufactured by themselves, and not all of them, only more recent onces.

and CDP is giving you a backup copy for every single game they made, i.e. W1 and W2 ;p

Manufacturing and distribution aren't the issue, publishing is the key. But I do't know to which games CDP holds publishing rights, probably only TW series.

There have been many reasons why such an idea would not be feasible, but this is not one of them. EULAs are written for the best possible legal situation for the publisher and large swathes of it are not enforceable. Publishers like to claim that the game is "only licensed" but legal precedence has stated the contrary time and time again.

Err, no. You only own a license. You never own a game/movie/song. Unless you pay millions of course.

You probably are confusing it with "renting vs. sale". Digitally bought licenses are actually better than those tied to physical games, because you can never loose them. (Not that it helps you much).

I'll be honest, I actually own many of my GOG games physically as well. The service you provide is easily worth it (compat, it comes patched, etc.), now I often will wait for a sale if it's a game I own and it's not one of my favorites, but I'm still happy to re-buy them. Now I understand some folks are extremely tight on cash but this generally isn't even a service Steam offers for very many games. Actually the only DD site that does (to my knowledge) is Origin (Impulse used to with their first party games, but obviously since Stardock produced both... yeah...).

Origin/Battle.net/Steam, don't they all allow you to register/download the games from their own developers? Heck, even CDP with the Witcher now I imagine.

Steam allows some from other developers (not counting the Steamworks ones where they obviously do), not aware of examples on origin that aren't inhouse but they might.

Legally only the publisher can actually do this. (Steamworks is a different issue). EA has plenty of games the "only" publish registrable on Origin.

Just don't make us lick the boxes, you never know where they've been :P

I don't know about Battle.net, didn't think about them (it's only like 5 games and they're all first party, so they're not a big concern). Steamworks actually the default is not, yeah they allow their first party stuff and some indie bundle stuff, but registering a game you bought elsewhere is a no go under normal circumstances (obviously, Steamworks boxed copies usually must be registered for activation, I was thinking more DD games, like L.A. Noire, if you buy that from Amazon.com you will not get a Steam key).

How is what Origin does any different than the other sites? They register the games they published. Same as Steam and Battle net. They've just published more games.

For the purposes of law, courts apply the exhaustion doctrine to "shrinkwrap" licenses, so any packaged goods containing software are deemed to be an exhaustible good and therefore "owned".

There is the right of exhaustion on the one hand and the right of reproduction on the other - we are indeed forbidden from reproducing the right of use, but then applies to most goods. I could buy a Rolex watch and sell it on, but I'm forbidden from making a replica of it. The difference between a Rolex watch and a piece of software is the technical hurdles in replicating it and distributing it. The (lack of) right to do so is effectively the same.

I grant that digital ownership is another thing altogether, but the generally held position (including that of the ECJ) is that the exhaustion doctrine cannot be applied to downloaded software not because there is no physical product but because the enforcement of the exhaustion doctrine when so many reproduced copies are made is nigh-on impossible. If A sells a license plus software per download to B, then B acquires a copy of the software but A still retains that software on their server. Hence the problem of reproduction.

I'm aware that this basically argues against the OP's point - by granting a user a digital licence on the basis of a shrinkwrap licence, GOG would effectively be granting a second fee-bearing licence at no charge and would owe the copyright owner money for this.

You still don't own the game. You still own the license. Vastly different.

Edit: Maybe I should elaborate. You own the disc, the box in retail. And you own the license which is directly derived from the physical copy.

You never ever own a game. You never own the source of the software or music your license is derived from. GOG also doesn't own any games, they themselves only have a "sale license". If you ever want to buy a game you need to contract EA and bring a friggin big suitcase.

And it is generally very uncommon to trade licenses/rights freely. The "first sale doctrine" (Which we don't exactly have in Germany, but something similar enough to use that term) is an exception altogether made necessary by the fact that physical products were "the vessel" of the license in question. Always getting the actual rights holder/trader to agree would have been rather unpractical.

To apply this workaround now on the digital market makes, were the limitation of physical media doesn't exist, makes no sense.

If it's your box then you've got nothing to worry about.... or? :)