If you have some used video games you can sell them for Bitcoin on my site halfpricedigital.com It's an easy way to get BTC fast. You just need a free Coinbase account.
My .com domain actually redirects to a .co.uk for the very reason that you mention :) And I made sure to host the site on servers in the UK as well!
Adobe has moved to a subscription based model, which makes the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling irrelevant. Microsoft may actually let you resell your used software, many companies do. In fact Adobe actually used to let you resell your used software so long as you didn't keep a copy of it.
The main companies that don't let you resell your used software are Valve (Steam), Apple (App Store), Google (Google Play) and Autodesk. I think that all of these companies are violating the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling by not allowing EU users to resell their apps, games and software, which is why I started halfpricedigital.com
Hi deeths, my site leaves it up to the seller (or buyer) to comply with restrictions on the usage of software. This seems to be how ebay deals with this issue as well. For example, there is a lot of used software on ebay that has restrictions regarding where software can be used (only in N. America, etc.)
The difference between my site and ebay is that because my company is based exclusively in Europe, my site isn't bound by the Vernor v Autodesk ruling and instead relies on the UsedSoft v Oracle ruling, at least when it comes to EU citizens. This is what allows my site to let EU citizens resell their used iOS apps or even their used Steam games. Other than the UsedSoft v Oracle issue, my site operates pretty much like ebay regarding software usage restrictions.
Hey dobbsbob, thanks for your comment! Great info! I did try getting a Latvian bank account but even their banks seem to have clamped down on opening accounts for non-EU residents due to money laundering laws - at least in my experience.
As for payment gateways, I wanted to stick to well-known gateways like PayPal and Skrill that consumers would already have accounts with.
I'm sure that walking into a bank in Europe probably would have quickly resulted in the opening of an account, but getting to Europe posed a problem for me as I'm based in the US and didn't have the funds to make the trip. Thus, Bitcoin!
Payment gateways all take Skrill or Paypal. Just find one that doesn't charge a minimum fee per month (there's a few left that don't). You sign contracts directly with Paypal and the gateway accepts the payment, then drop it in your Okpay or Latvian account.
I also live around a few Chinese banks that opened in my country. Got an Alipay account through them in a couple of minutes by walking inside and depositing $1000 and showing corporate papers. Alipay is Chinese paypal equivalent but no chargebacks (well.. hard to do chargebacks).
There's also companies like The Currency Cloud. Although I'm not sure if this is against their rules but I used them to receive gateway payments as well.
Also I'm not an American, maybe that's why you had problems. Guess things have changed with the new very strict laws
I'm not sure that this would be a problem though because the scenario would be for an American citizen that is forming a company in the EU. So the US bitcoin laws should be bypassed and you'd just be dealing with EU laws regarding Bitcoin, since your company is based in the EU.
You have to keep in mind that a company is its own entity and since my startup was formed in the UK, it is a UK company that is governed by UK laws. The UK has no problem with non-resident company directors, but setting up a bank account for a company with a non-resident director is another story.
@HalfPriceDigi, don't forget to prepare and file Form 5471 for your UK company. Screw that up and it is an automatic $10,000 penalty.
(Disclosure: international tax lawyer; have fought this battle with the IRS before).
And yes. The banking problem is the hard problem to solve.
In both directions. U.S. banks can be giant poopy-heads. Bank of America just closed the account of a foreign client of mine who had banked with them for 33 (!) years. "We don't have to give you a reason, and we are sending you a check for your money." The second such client to experience this. Both are moving to Citibank, for what that's worth to you.
Thanks philiphodgen, I did not know about form 5471 and I've formed a few startup companies in the UK already - yikes! I should probably talk to a good, low-cost international tax lawyer...if you know of any... admin[at]halfpricedigital.co.uk
it's ridiculous that banks can just close your account without giving any explanation. i have had this happen a couple times and it's very irritating.
while i can appreciate that any business can choose to not do business with any 3rd party for whatever reason, the inability to bank can be crippling, especially if you get blacklisted by chexsystems et al.
Have you tried talking to US banks that have UK branch offices? Note that even those who don't have consumer branches may still offer accounts at those branches. E.g. Bank of America has a huge presence in Europe, mainly via MBNA and Merrill Lynch, but also some other services - I don't know if they offer accounts (the way to find out is likely to talk to their US international banking team).
I know that may be non-ideal for you from a risk POV, but you may also find the UK amusingly (or infuriatingly..) bureaucratic and byzantine in that having a UK bank account is the best way to prove to another UK bank that you are worthy of opening a bank account with them afterwards.
Yes, I wasnt talking about starting a foreign company. I was talking about doing the work on behalf of that company from the U.S..
If you still live in the U.S. I assume you are connecting remotely to your servers and then writing and executing code that the U.S. might consider illegal behavior.
I'm not putting you down- I am glad people are pushing the boundaries. I just wouldnt feel comfortable taking that risk personally.
Thanks! I'm not sure if the law would cover in-app purchases by themselves. However, you should be able to sell your used app which could probably include all the in-app purchases.
I don't know if the law requires a mechanism for transfer as much as it requires the software maker not to prevent transfers. So the process could be manual (via email), as long as a process exists. But a mechanism in the software or marketplace would make everyone's lives easier.
Hey atmosx, the site is an MVP, but yes I agree the design needs work. The site itself and its revenue is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Any US citizen (or non-EU citizen) who wants to form a company in Europe is going to run into the same banking problems I ran into. Bitcoin can provide some relief for this issue.
That's like selling used poems, or used voicemail greetings.
Hey guys! This particular hard copy of Ezekiel 25:17
from the bible is almost new! It's only been seen by human
eyes three times! Verified as authentic via flatbed
scanner and then CRC32 checksumming it's OCR results!
Hardly any wear and tear! $150 and it's yours!
I know, how about we start selling used radio waves, and used alternating current polarity cycles. (your choice of sine or triangle waves)
Used software (in the form of original floppy disks or optical media) used to be a common sight at independent computer stores. Even now, used games (usually optical media for consoles) are widely available for a fraction of the original price.
The part that's odd is that, as with any digital media, it's trivial to make copies. Traditionally, things have only been property if it's possible to possess them and keep them from others. In an industrial society with a powerful government, that's true of things like the right to print books containing a given text, but it isn't true of publicly-distributed digital media.
Do you find the selling of used cars to be a moral grey zone? If you weren't able to sell your used car ever, would you be more or less likely to buy another car? Do you think that people who resell their used games buy more or less new games?
When you buy something you buy a license to use that item for as long as you own it. If you sell it you no longer have the right or ability to continue to use that item anymore. I think that the argument that you are making is that a game is an experience and that once you have played a game once you have reaped the full benefit of ownership from that game. However, I believe that you are mistaken. The full benefit of owning something is that you can reuse it as often as you like. You can read the same book as many times as you want for as long as you own that book. The same is true for a game. The benefit of owning a game or any software is that you can use it as much as you want for as long as you own it. When you sell it you are giving up your right to continue to experience that game until you buy it again.
Of course there's a moral grey zone when selling a used car. We're talking about the people who craft something being snubbed for the profit of a private individual. When someone buys a used car that means a new car isn't sold. The car industry and any industry that has used sales, has to then push up the price of new products to counter the loss of sales from the used market, punishing customers. This is BAD, no matter what way you look at it.
Money is meant to be a mechanism that enables the trading of labour. I put in X effort, I am recompensed with Y money. I can then use Y money myself to by things that I want. To then resell something I've worked for and legitimately purchased is me making money out of nothing, or rather from the labour a game developer has put in. That right there is the moral greyzone. You have a gut feeling that you should have the right to resell any of your possessions, and perhaps you're right, but you have to accept the damage you do to an industry, and to the other purchasers of products and services like yourself, that is done when you perpetuate a second-hand market.
To say you have a right to resell, and the added inference that 'more money for myself is good' that comes along with that is a very narrow-minded and one-sided argument. If you think about the larger picture and the consequences of your actions then this all becomes a very different proposition. But as the owner of a used games marketplace I don't expect you to see the selfless side.
It seems that your argument then is that no one should ever be able to resell or give away anything that they buy ever. So when you buy something, anything at all, you would have to own it yourself until you throw it away. Obviously that would have a huge negative impact on the environment with items like cars, computers, clothes, etc. Also, the lack of a second-hand market would have a negative impact on low-income people who need to buy used goods for the lower prices. So it seems to me that your argument against the existence of any second-hand market would have disastrous effects and cannot exist in the real world.
You have avoided the issue of whether or not second-hand markets positively impact the primary market. For example, if people weren't able to sell their used cars, would they be more or less likely to buy new cars. I think that the answer is pretty obvious. If people couldn't resell their used cars ever, they would buy new cars less often. Mainly because people often partially pay for new cars by trading in or selling their old cars.
I agree with namlem's comment "Why does incurring the costs associated with resale on the industry in any way morally gray? It's the manufacture's right to price items accordingly. They can just raise it to compensate." The manufacture should simply price the existence of a resale market into their product. That's what ever merchant other than Steam already does.
Steam is breaking the law in the EU and their illegal business model (not allowing resales) is what allows them to undercut the prices of their competitors. Don't you find that to be a moral grey zone?
The problem with making the argument, as I suspect you are, that because games are intellectual property that they shouldn't be able to be resold when you are done with them, is that almost everything is intellectual property. Think of how many parts of your car are patented. Those patents are intellectual property. If you let Steam say that you don't own the games that you buy then you opening the floodgates to a world where you don't own anything that you buy - you are just "licensing" it. As I've stated above a world like that isn't practical and I don't believe it is morally correct either. It restricts the rights of consumers for no reason other than to further enrich the producers of goods, who many doing just fine as is. Valve is worth 2.5 Billion dollars. Aren't they doing well enough without having to step all over consumer's rights?
Why does incurring the costs associated with resale on the industry in any way morally gray? It's the manufacture's right to price items accordingly. They can just raise it to compensate.
