hedwards: Unless you've got some sort of citation or actual evidence, you really ought to stifle it. You assume that there's no way that they could do it, but I don't see any actual evidence that they can't do so legally.
All I see in your post is slander.
stonebro: Eh? This is economic common sense, and a bit of deduction. If you care to follow:
I hypotesize that it is impossible to sell DNF to US customers, or EU customers for that matter, for a price below $30, at a profit. I doubt he's selling the game for purely altruistic motives with a loss, so it follows that something is fishy with this deal.
If you want to look up import laws, then fine. To my best knowledge you can't buy goods abroad for reselling without suffering import tolls that severely impact your profit margins. It's a basic economic safeguard that holds true for most countries in the developed world.
You can import goods privately, to an extent. The extent is usually way below the volume you'd need to set up a business and profit from it.
Another issue is the asked price. If he'd been selling the keys for around $40 then it might be believable that by some way it's possible to make that profitable within legal boundaries. But for below $30? That's about half of what the retail asking price will be, and probably less than what retailers are paying the publisher, domestically, to purchase the product.
Add to that the fact that I know of people who do this kind of thing in Norway too. They'll drive to Poland, buy up loads of CDs and DVDs at an extremely favourable exchange rate, pack the car full, and drive home via some semi deserted forest road where the customs department are unlikely to be at 3 am. Then they underprice the market at home, primarily in online auctions. You see lots of this on ebay too I'm sure.
Thing is, since you're buying solely with the purpose of reselling, this is illegal according to our import laws. There was also a much reported case in Germany about a guy buying thousands of copies of MW2 in Poland and reselling in Germany. He got busted and started something of an online forum crusade to justify his actions. Which doesn't matter - it is illegal - and there are good reasons why, economically.
There is no importing going on here. You enter the key and the local Steam server fills the request. I'd have to see some actual case law to back up the notion that a CD Key can be imported or exported. Since these are region free keys, there is no way of knowing which region they ought to belong to. There is no prima facie basis for assuming that it should be treated as a tangible item.
The initial hypothesis is bad and I can't grant it to you. I'm less familiar with the EU than the US, but there is no requirement that an individual sell a product for a given price in the US. The only rules involve collusion and dumping. Neither of which would apply to the owner of the shop.
Further more, attempts by the publisher to prevent the keys from being imported could be seen as anti-competitive and as such subject to court interference. Once you've bought the keys the publisher doesn't have any legal right to control how you use them provided you only use the key once.
stonebro: So don't come accusing me of random slander. This is probably about the most sensible and worked-through conclusion you're likely to find in this thread.
Given the amount of BS in the rest of your post, the only reason you wouldn't be guilty of slander here is the motive requirement. But in the UK where the owner of the shop is located, there is no such requirement as far as I can tell.
orcishgamer: I believe most cases in the US where blog discussions were an issue focused on libel laws. There certainly may be some slander laws that apply is some cases. I was just trying to make a funny:)
I know, it's just a point that I needed to make for those that might be reading.
