From the Tremor Games owner:
"Humble Bundle refunded some bundles from some accounts we bought buying Humble Bundles from recently saying they do not support "exchanging of Steam keys or the trading of games or resell". Reselling games is perfectly legal and Humble Bundle even tries to stop exchanging games!
We will check and refund the keys. You can always email the developers about Humble Bundle's illegal and anti-consumer terms of service."
http://www.tremorgames.com/?action=viewtopic&topicid=105771&page=3
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...Humble Bundle's illegal and anti-consumer terms of service.
There is no such thing as an illegal terms of service unless it violates anti-discrimination, anti-racketeering, or other kinds of self-evident commerce laws. None of that applies to the ability of publishers and Humble to restrict resale of keys. This is long established as legit and Tremor is full of it. The publishers and the developers are the very ones who place the demand on Humble to not allow that kind of resale, not the other way around. And we're not talking about personal trading and splitting amongst random individuals, but something organized in this manner is considered commercial activity and they are in the wrong. People may have been lucky that Humble didn't notice before, but now they did and have brought down the hammer.
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I think Tremorgames use a single email address to receive the Humble Bundle gift links from their members, so I bet Humble admins marked all those links sent to the same email address as illegal reselling/trading and revoked all at the same time.
Or they probably tracked the IP where all those gift links were redeemed.
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Will HB do the same to the random individual trading ?
I will blame tremor if somehow they decide to do that >.< half kidding
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Agree with SickTeddy :) It does make sense, like the "fair use law". The devs and HB are selling for low price for personal use not so someone else can then mass capitalize on the difference and make money on it. It's their call. Individual and small amount of trading are fair game most likely.
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Very, very unlikely.
Tremor stock like 100 copies of every HB bundle, which probably can't even compare to the largest volume individual traders. The return on blocking individual trading simply isn't worth it.
Also, it's arguable that individual trading falls within "private, non-commercial, personal use", which means it's fine to trade the games.
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While arguable does mean 'able to be argued' in a phrase like 'Well, that's an arguable point.', for the usage you applied it to, I believe it always applies the meaning which is synonymous with 'doubtful'- ie, able to be argued against. Maybe it's a dialectal preference, but either way, it definitely confused me about your intent for a good moment [if for no other reason than that I use arguable quite a bit myself, in the manner I just indicated]. :'P
Well, I suppose quantity could be a factor to an operation like that. I suppose if they just filtered out any (eg, < 10 copies) accounts from their tests, they'd have had a strong buffer by which to remove anyone that couldn't reasonably argue personal use, without risking offending more normal users utilizing the trade-in option that TG appears to have.
On the other hand, I thought Humble limited purchase per account to 3 copies, which is what has me confused. I wouldn't have thought TG would have been able to acquire so many bundles off of, say, 2 accounts. Humble's own purchase protections should have hindered their efforts to determine such matters.
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Nope, trading is technically same as selling, but they don't limit the trading. They limit the monetized systems like Tremorgames, where you pay the money (either by Paypal, by watching ads or other means) for buying the games. So Tremorgames is viewed same as G2A and Kinguin: reselling developers' given keys.
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Like the others, I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier.
It clearly states that selling HB games commercially is against the Terms of Service and it's within Humble's rights to terminate the keys without prior notice. I don't think anyone can deny that Tremor is making money off their site.
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Reselling games is perfectly legal and Humble Bundle even tries to stop exchanging games!
But they have every right to revoke the keys and not even refund the money if they find out about this. Says in their Terms of Service that every buyer has to agree before buying anything. So Tremor Games wrong.
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and not even refund the money if they find out about this
That'd make it a matter for legal deliberation, as ToS doesn't trump actual law, and that puts Humble in the position of committing fraud. (Ie, that could open them to suit, which even if not won, is still a drain on their resources.) It's far safer and less stressful for them to just offer the refunds, as they've done.
Keep in mind the 'possession is 9/10ths of the law' mentality. It's not inherent in law- else theft would be encouragable- but it's still pretty prominent in it. What Humble is doing (by offering the refunds) is changing it from 'illegally repossessing owned property' to 'reversing a sales error'. That puts the ball far further in their own court. Technically they shouldn't revoke under any circumstances (other than payment fraud) as ownership is something for the courts to argue- for physical products, they'd more normally file suit for contractual damages or legal repossession. (Further on that Perspective >>). In that sense, the TremorGames admin's claims are actually valid.
The issue is that in the states, software law acts far differently than physical product law, and allows them to be treated as services rather than products. That's what's allowing Humble to refund and revoke so freely, as it falls under merchant-end cancellation of service. On the other hand, if they were to revoke without refund, then they presumably can get slapped with failure to deliver service as promised.
So yeah, this is the only feasible approach for Humble to take on things. :)
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But are you sure they are selling online products? I mean they are a charity corporation, so you are paying the money for charity and the games you received could be considered as a bonus for your money. That will change the whole thing. Products that are received for free don't apply to that category.
On europa.eu consumer shopping rights sections it says:
Prior information forms part of the contract unless you and the trader jointly agree on changes to the terms given on, for example, the trader's website.
So you agree that they can revoke the keys without returning the money. But you're right about the court, many would sue or at least complain to consumer disputes board about losing their money for nothing.
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First off, I don't believe Humble legally qualifies as a charity in any way. What legal benefits they get from their charitable donations, if any, I don't know, but the end effect shouldn't change their legal standing for these matters. Second, you actually can't legally consider anything a charitable donation if you obtain meaningful recompense for the donation, so there is no effect from the perspective of consumer purchase.
Keep in mind also that EU laws don't function the same way as State laws, which are what I'm referring to. Given that EU laws far more heavily favor consumers than US laws, it seems unlikely that it wouldn't have been even more difficult for Humble to have affected any response outside of courts.
Likewise note that Humble is based in San Francisco. As a US business, United States laws would be the only ones that would apply when purchasing from it, unless Humble has an established legal presence within the EU.
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Answer from an actual lawyer from California:
It depends on the agreement in the Terms of Service re: this particular issue. If reselling is a violation of the TOS and the remedy is agreed as you note, then there may not be a problem, but it seems some evidence of the violation is required here. More details are necessary to provide a professional analysis of your issue. The best first step is an Initial Consultation with an Attorney. You can read more about me, my credentials, awards, honors, testimonials, and media appearances/ publications on my law practice website. I practice law in CA, NY, MA, and DC in the following areas of law: Business & Contracts, Criminal Defense, Divorce & Child Custody, and Education Law. This answer does not constitute legal advice; make any predictions, guarantees, or warranties; or create any Attorney-Client relationship.
And their evidence may just be that they found your key from G2A or Kinguin. Good luck getting your money back. 😘
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Can I get an invoice or tax receipt for my purchases?
Our Terms of Service state that our service is only for the sales of products and product rights to customers for their personal, non-commercial use. As a result, we do not have any setup for providing business invoices or receipts for business purchases.
Humble Bundle is a commercial business and is not considered a 501(c) Organization aka a Non-profit organization. Purchases of bundles do not qualify for tax deductions under current tax laws for most countries. For more information, please click here.
I don't know why so many people always assume Humble is an NPO when they clearly show their 💵cut in every bundle slider thingy. Think of it like a $ charity can at the supermarket checkout register. You're still buying products and the supermart is still making money, they just take your $1 and use it to get a tax write-off by donating it to whatever charity it is. Since it counts as them making the donation and not you. Hopefully that makes sense.
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I don't know why so many people always assume Humble is an NPO when they clearly show their 💵cut in every bundle slider thingy.
People buy from Humble just because some of the money goes to charity, but never question which charities and if they even agree with their goals. While HB does give you the option to decide where the money goes, I doubt many take advantage or even know about the sliders. I would not be surprised if most went by the given defaults provided by every bundle, rather than going through the long list of charities offered by humble and picking one there. This is something that always annoyed me because I never understood why people treat all charities equally.
To take this to the most extreme: both Planned Parenthood and Americans United for Life are available choices on Humble. These charities have conflicting goals, and it is safe to assume that if any of these were to be made one of the defaults on a bundle, a group of peeps would take issue. Yet, people buy these bundles, either not checking the sliders or doing so and setting charity at max, yet don't bother to read up on what these NGOs actually do.
Giving to charity is a good thing, but that does not give someone the right to do so absentmindedly. Everyone here has a limited amount of funds and we should be aware of how our money is spent. Peeps should be treating charities like any other service they buy, but most never do.
This is why I'm not surprised that peeps think Humble itself is a NGO. People see the word charity, give money and pat themselves in the back without checking to see where the money went. /shrug
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That's why I mostly donate to Wikimedia since I live in Europe and have no affect from US based charities. 😝
PS. I don't buy from Humble because of the charities. I piss on the charities. I buy for the games they offer. Clearly the quality is better than any other bundle website. Never seen Bundlestars or Indiegala make bundles out of AAA- games. When that happens I might get a new favorite bundle website. 😁
I just assumed they were a charity organization since they don't require any VAT or Paypal share like most of the others. But thanks for letting me know. 😌
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Looks like the person who I bought The Witness off, bought it off someone else, who in turn bought it off Tremor who got it from Humble Bundle (or off someone who bought it from Humble Bundle), and the initial buyer from tremor said "It's not my problem" and blocked the previous person... so yep, definitely out the $5 and card set. Fun times!
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Can anyone who has had their game revoked do me a favor?
Click this link and tell me if it says revoked anywhere.
I'm curious whether or not it will display on that page.
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Revoked games disappear from the list of licenses. That page only shows active licenses. If you want to check your revoked games you must search them in support: https://help.steampowered.com
Then click on "games, software, etc." and search for the revoked game.
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Okay thank you. I don't have anything from Tremor Games (Never heard of them before today).
I was hoping it would say revoked in that list as it would help others out.
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This is Tremor specific because Tremor has blatantly violated Humble's terms of service.
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You can check your active licenses, but don't know how to check for revoqued as Steam does not seem to show that information. If you have a list of games you can check against the actived licences, click on your user names and select account details, then click on licenses and product activations
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Post here http://www.tremorgames.com/?action=viewforum&id=24 refund request, i've been refund, you just have to put your order ID on the post you create, it can take 72 h cause it's just 1 modo (ruby) who check and refund coins manually.
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yep lost 2-4 games not 100% sure
If they had been blocked only because Humble had something against the sharing of keys in the form of resell / Exchange as they(tremor) had said
Then it was probably not so smart just keep going with new accounts.... or they just lied and there is another problem
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Looks like someone decided to "cash out". So far no revokes for me but strangely enough in last 5 hours I got 12 mail alerts from Steam stating "Steam account - Query account by CD key", so looks like someone is going through all their keys just in case checking if maybe there are some unactivated ones. Or maybe just dumped all the keys somewhere.
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I got it from TremorGames
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