Certainly. Be sure to give Ford a cut of your resale of their car also when you get a new one. [... W]hat makes the game industry so special they get the right to a cut of your used media sales and no other industry. Does Panasonic get a cut if I sell my TV? How about Iron Maiden if I was dumb enough to resell a CD. No fuck that shit.
I understand your sentiment, but I think some things should be clarified. A car or a TV are objects that wear down when used. There is a huge market for used car, but for all intents and purposes, a used car is not the same product as a new car. With cultural products, especially of the digital kind, this is not the case. Unless you have a box fetish (or unusual tear and wear), a used game/DVD/CD is identical to a new game/DVD/CD. It's a little less true with a book that is a physical object that gets carried around and manipulated.
Furthermore, what is so special with the game industry is that not only is the 2nd hand market extremely prevalent, but retail outlets that specialize in video games are also the ones that sell the second hand games. Worse: specialized outlets focus on 2nd hand, because it's where their money is.
This exceptional retail situation (in some countries - Japan comes to mind - books also have a big 2nd hand culture, but to my knowledge new and 2nd hand are sold by different retailers) is caused by a number of factors (games considered too expensive, games being short enough that they can enter the 2nd hand market when demand is still high for the title, hit oriented industry, too small a margin for retailers on new titles, etc) all tied in a pretty tight Gordian knot (cheaper games -> shorter games, bigger margin -> costlier games, etc). This exceptional situation legitimizes the claim of the devs and publishers on a cut of the proceeds of professional 2nd hand sellers. Ideally though, everybody would like an unexceptional, healthy, retail situation, but untying a Gordian knot is no small feat.
A total dematerialization of the software side of the industry (Steam) is a potent solution, but, like Alexander's sword, it cuts through the knot, it does not untie it. We get cheaper prices and devs/publishers get a cut on every single sales, but at the cost of thousands of retail jobs - creating jobs elsewhere in the economy though - no second hand market, no lending/borrowing and a dubious longevity for the products (I can play today games I bought in the '80s, will it be the same in 30 years for games I buy today on Steam?). Not to mention how unhealthy it is to basically have a middle man with an almost monopoly on retail (or one by platform would Sony and Microsoft have used this solution).
Microsoft's latest bandaid (not a true solution as it does not fix retail, it merely tries to make it less skewed through additional complexity) pleases them and the publishers/devs because $$, while still keeping the physical products which pleases retailers (they live another day!) and consumers (who, legitimately, like to own things they can hold in their hands). That being said, if because of this system physical copies cannot be lent/borrowed nor sold directly and if games require a full install AND an online handshake, giving them dubious longevity, the benefits of physical products for consumers are basically nonexistent.
That's why I said: 1) Publishers and devs claim is legitimate. 2) We need to know more.
