At times (at work) when I can't access various project webpages due to overeager web filtering, and I find a sourceforge mirror of a project, that comes in awful handy. If they follow through with their "opt-in" advertising only, so much the better. Of course, i'm generally downloading source to build, so the advertising doesn't come up.

Also IANAL, so this is purely conjecture, but I don't think it would be deemed illegal in the US. We already have DRM on ebooks / music which prevent us from effectively reselling those products and that hasn't been deemed illegal yet. In fact, the DMCA instead makes it illegal to remove that copy protection for personal use, let also for reselling purposes.

That said, the patent wouldn't disallow reselling the disc. It would just make the resold disc ineffective.

Except that the family of three that would have bought it at 60, won't buy 3 copies at $20, because by then, new games without new headaches will be out, they'll just skip the game entirely. And the reseller won't buy it for 40, because he only wants the latest and greatest, which is why he consistently resells his games long before the initial price has dropped.

Don't forget that leveling in FFXI requires massive amounts of exp which can essentially only be obtained through partying since quests give negligible amounts of exp (if any). 4-5+ hours of grinding per level from 50-75 (not counting time spent organizing a party) is hardly casual player friendly. The level down patch has renewed my interest somewhat since I can now at least play with friends, but the impact on the already few good camp areas has yet to be seen / felt.