Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 3rd Jul 2012 19:15 UTC, submitted by tupp
In the Used Soft GmbH v. Oracle International Corp. case, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled today that it is okay to resell software, regardless of clauses in the software license. This is a pretty big deal, and further affirms that a software license is not necessarily binding. Great news for European consumers.
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Member since:2010-10-05
Otherwise, I could just go buy the latest version of Photoshop, make myself a copy, sell the original on Ebay, and keep using the copy I made.
Why would you bother with buying and reselling if you can just download the copy from torents for free and much faster? That wouldn't be any less legal.
If the software has any kind of copy protection the same protection can be used to make sure you're not using your copy after you've sold the license.
Member since:2005-11-13
Why would you bother with buying and reselling if you can just download the copy from torents for free and much faster? That wouldn't be any less legal.
Two reasons:
If selling used software licenses was legal, I wouldn't have to worry about the copyright police busting me on torrent sites, nor would I have to worry about if the copy is clean
Plus, I could sell copies to multiple people and possibly make some money, while still getting to use the software.
If the software has any kind of copy protection the same protection can be used to make sure you're not using your copy after you've sold the license.
Right, which is exactly my point. Right now, if I try and sell used software on Ebay (in the US), the auction would probably get removed quickly. But if it were legal, the only way to ensure that this sort of thing wouldn't happen is to put DRM/copy-protection into everything. Hell, even $10 shareware apps would have product activation.
Member since:2006-02-15
Member since:2010-04-06
Member since:2005-08-18
Except that there's really no way to force you to stop using it, aside from some invasive DRM.
There's no way to stop me from ripping my CD's to flac and then selling my collection yet it's not illegal for me to sell my old CD's. There's no way to stop me from photocopying my books and then selling them yet it's not illegal for me to sell the books I own.
Honestly, I wouldn't blame developers for being against this.
That's besides the point. I'm sure book publishers would love it if it was illegal to sell old books so that everyone had to buy new books all the time but that doesn't mean we should implement such a law.
Heck, if I bought a digital copy, I could sell it to hundreds of people for $20 a piece and make myself a nice bit of cash
You can do that regardless if it's legal to sell your old software or not. Making it legal to sell your own copy does not make copyright infringement legal.
Only thing stopping me is whatever DRM they have built into the product.
That's what they have to do then but it should not be illegal for me to sell my old software.
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Member since:
2005-11-13
Except that there's really no way to force you to stop using it, aside from some invasive DRM. Honestly, I wouldn't blame developers for being against this. Otherwise, I could just go buy the latest version of Photoshop, make myself a copy, sell the original on Ebay, and keep using the copy I made. Heck, if I bought a digital copy, I could sell it to hundreds of people for $20 a piece and make myself a nice bit of cash
Only thing stopping me is whatever DRM they have built into the product.
Edited 2012-07-04 00:27 UTC