Something that I've said in the past:
You buy a book, resell it. You have done nothing wrong.
You buy a game, resell it. Your a thieve.
That's exactly how publishers see it. It is truly amazing what the game/software industry gets away with, simply because they can. If they tried some of their anti-consumer and anti-customer practices in any other industry, they'd get lynched.
Some good news is that US courts don't always play along. Awhile back Autodesk sued an ebay seller for reselling authentic, boxed copies of their software, arguing that the EULA specifically prohibited a license transfer. The judge slapped Autodesk with the First Sale doctrine and gave the ebay seller a giant green light to resell as much as he wanted.
Looks like there's no need to speculate anymore, EA's CEO is
openly lusting after subscription models:
“There are different ways to do DRM; the most successful is what WoW does. They just charge you by the month,â€