Guess What, You Don’t Own That Software You Bought
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The Empire strikes back;
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/ -
An interesting comment:
@unknownuser said:
So if I buy an Apple Macintosh computer whose operating system software is “licensed”, not sold, to the user, this would mean that I could not sell that computer in working order as the OS could not be resold.
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/#ixzz0zD5pGao3
Same thing could apply to any other computer you buy.
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I've never thought that I actually owned any of the software I bought. I always considered that I had only paid for a license to use it and so it wasn't something I could sell. On the other hand, although I know I don't own any rights to the contents of books I buy, I wouldn't have had any reservations about selling a book I bought. Hmmm....
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@dave r said:
I've never thought that I actually owned any of the software I bought. I always considered that I had only paid for a license to use it and so it wasn't something I could sell. On the other hand, although I know I don't own any rights to the contents of books I buy, I wouldn't have had any reservations about selling a book I bought. Hmmm....
Books did at one time include a phrase similar to "this book shall not by way of trade or otherwise be resold." They no longer do, I suspect because the clause could not be legally enforced. I suspect the same is probably true for software licences.
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One would think that, in these times of rampant illegal downloading, software companies would actually try to increase their customer friendliness.
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Consumer law surpasses all EULAs. But of course, those laws usually concern only individuals, not company buyers.
I understand that Autodesk just lost an important lawsuit that was just about the licensing versus ownership issue.
Anssi
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@anssi said:
Consumer law surpasses all EULAs. But of course, those laws usually concern only individuals, not company buyers.
I understand that Autodesk just lost an important lawsuit that was just about the licensing versus ownership issue.
Anssi
You are right Anssi .i have rid this somewhere to ,about a year ago.
Bep
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@anssi said:
I understand that Autodesk just lost an important lawsuit that was just about the licensing versus ownership issue.
Anssi
They did lose , but then they appealed and won - which is what this article is about.
The case you refer to has therefore now been overturned. -
Interesting. My take...
The ruling is invalid because the Supreme Court definition of license and the 9th Circuit Court definition of license varies. The 9th circuit says that you cannot "own" a license, but only can create a contract for it.
The 9th Circuit cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision. The meaning of "license" in this case is actually the right to have a copy or copies of the software installed. In the case of the Supreme Court ruling, they did not consider that a boilerplate license could be essentially the same thing as a book copy, therefore not specifically prohibiting their ruling to apply to boilerplate licenses.
Theoretically, first sale doctrine should apply to both to books and to licenses of software, because they are both copies.
Let's take the alternative approach and consider that a book company provided a license to a library with a book-press in the basement to produce and sell 100 books, with the provision that the library cannot resell the books if it wants to. Would this be a legal provision? My sources (the Supreme Court) says "no".
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The problem is that the small consumer would not generally be in a position to challenge the lower court decision, and ignoring it would not be a good idea.
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