Brand new Steam Game and code already registered to another account

My cousin gave me "The Orange Box" (which he had bought some years before and never got around to playing it). I opened the box, entered the CD Key into Steam to be denied installation. As you might also know, Steam doesn't allow to install the game from the DVD media on which it comes and indeed frequently it seems the game isn't even on the DVD, just some parts of the game (if your lucky) and a copy of the Steam client.

What does all this mean? Well it means I now own a heap of useless plastic!

What recourse do I have with Valve?

https://support.steampowered.com/troubleshooter.php?do=view&id=1

So venturing to that link, you find three options:

1. Go back to the original vendor for resolution (since this game was bought years back not possible)
2. Are you sure you didn't just install it already and forget >.<
3. Hey maybe this is a second hand copy? (we won't help)

The problem is that we live in a unique commercial relationship with online vendors. They, legally, can provide us with NOTHING and then make us pay them again.

I grew up in the 1980's and 1990's when vendors provided actual games on actual disks. Once you owned the disk you had the right to install and use the game on one PC. You could finish the game yourself, uninstall the game, sell it to a friend, they could then play the game themselves and this was all within your right as a consumer. Since you bought a copy of the game which you owned.

Now the law having been made into a joke, we own precisely nothing (oh, a peice of plastic with a copy of the steam client).

So, if you buy a game in the shop, better install it in the week of launch or you will lose the game and Steam will care ZERO.

I looked about online and I can see there are advertised "Steam Wallet Code Generators" which presumably randomly generate potential keys for people to type into steam and see what game they get for "free" at the expense of the future buyer of the DVD disk.