Alan, all I can tell you is this: The studios would like you to think that reselling of codes or breaking of bundles is illegal. It is not and they never claim that it is. It is a policy issue that they have no standing legally to push. Again, I encourage you to read up on First Sale Doctrine. They legally cannot stop the breaking of bundles which has been shown to be a consumer's _right_. That they have magically tied a license to a code does not change how the FSD works.
They continue to sell bundles because consumers like them and are willing to pay for the privilege for the most part. And some of those consumers have no intention of ever using codes and do not redeem them, and it is their legal right to resell them regardless of the studios druthers. Those consumers have not even signed up for a digital viewing account, so they CANNOT possibly be in violation of a TOS because they have not agreed to one. HTF supports those customers and our members who want to buy, sell and trade low volumes of these codes.
There are also those who set up arbitrage marketplaces to buy and sell these codes in bulk. Like from rental houses who rent out 20 copies of a bluray and sell off those codes for extra profit. HTF categorically does NOT support this. You can see the reasons why in the links in my signature block. We -could- support those too and make very convincing arguments for doing so, but this is where the HTF owners have drawn the line. I monitor the threads myself to make sure that we are not supporting those vendors. It's a fine line, some people have very good networks of friends and contacts for getting codes to trade and have a large library to trade/sell, but none of these people are doing so as a professional storefront as far as we can tell from their posts.
Again, the studios have the power to shut this tap off. They can do so by not bundling the codes. They can do so by setting a legal precedent that somehow there could be a legal issue here. That they have not is telling.
They continue to sell bundles because consumers like them and are willing to pay for the privilege for the most part. And some of those consumers have no intention of ever using codes and do not redeem them, and it is their legal right to resell them regardless of the studios druthers. Those consumers have not even signed up for a digital viewing account, so they CANNOT possibly be in violation of a TOS because they have not agreed to one. HTF supports those customers and our members who want to buy, sell and trade low volumes of these codes.
There are also those who set up arbitrage marketplaces to buy and sell these codes in bulk. Like from rental houses who rent out 20 copies of a bluray and sell off those codes for extra profit. HTF categorically does NOT support this. You can see the reasons why in the links in my signature block. We -could- support those too and make very convincing arguments for doing so, but this is where the HTF owners have drawn the line. I monitor the threads myself to make sure that we are not supporting those vendors. It's a fine line, some people have very good networks of friends and contacts for getting codes to trade and have a large library to trade/sell, but none of these people are doing so as a professional storefront as far as we can tell from their posts.
Again, the studios have the power to shut this tap off. They can do so by not bundling the codes. They can do so by setting a legal precedent that somehow there could be a legal issue here. That they have not is telling.