The result of this lawsuit was basically a massive blowback for bad players in the software industry, which had been peddling the “you buy a license, not the software” for ages to maintain control. Of course you do not buy intellectual property rights by simply buying a copy, but in the digital world things became fuzzy; the industry’s abuse of license-based control backfired and ended up forcing them to let their customers resell the digital licenses they sold.
There is no law forcing digital storefronts to implement easy resale of licenses, but in theory you could take a company to court if you purchase someone else’s license and they claim it’s illegitimate, forcing them to maintain the active license. Of course, the party you’ve bought the license from is no longer allowed to use the software after selling said license.
Modern day software often comes in the form of always-online accounts, which can be banned an disabled for all kinds of reasons, making the situation a tad difficult. I don’t think there are any existing court cases about the sale of accounts as a means of selling licenses, but I imagine it wouldn’t be very profitable to sell modern subscription-based accounts in the first place.
Iirc there was an online ebook market in the Netherlands where you could resell your ebooks. This was deemed illegal because there is no way to guarantee the seller has deleted his own copy after it was sold.
Crazy.
It’s not too much of a stretch to apply that to selling a CD; the vendor would have to prove that they didn’t make a copy?
Guilty before proven innocent.
Tbh, i understand the argument (somewhat). The media is bound to a CD so normal use would be to just read from the CD. Digitizing it to a digital file is another step. An ebook is a digital file to begin with. You must actively break the law where you just need to forget the empty your trashbin with the digital ebook.
There is also this huge deal with for example Windows Licenses. You are not allowed to resell Windows Licenses you no longer need, except when they are printed on (for example) a Laptop to begin with, then you can sell the device with the Licence.
For the current law interpretation it is really important if the digital good is somewhat bound to a real object (CD or comes printed out) or if it just digital.
Reselling digital licenses is allowed in the EU (and any other countries that recognise the UsedSoft vs Oracle EUCJ case). You can find a summary of the judgement here: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf and the full text is available in a variety of languages here: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-128/11 (more languages are likely to be available if you follow the links to the eur-lex website).
The result of this lawsuit was basically a massive blowback for bad players in the software industry, which had been peddling the “you buy a license, not the software” for ages to maintain control. Of course you do not buy intellectual property rights by simply buying a copy, but in the digital world things became fuzzy; the industry’s abuse of license-based control backfired and ended up forcing them to let their customers resell the digital licenses they sold.
There is no law forcing digital storefronts to implement easy resale of licenses, but in theory you could take a company to court if you purchase someone else’s license and they claim it’s illegitimate, forcing them to maintain the active license. Of course, the party you’ve bought the license from is no longer allowed to use the software after selling said license.
Modern day software often comes in the form of always-online accounts, which can be banned an disabled for all kinds of reasons, making the situation a tad difficult. I don’t think there are any existing court cases about the sale of accounts as a means of selling licenses, but I imagine it wouldn’t be very profitable to sell modern subscription-based accounts in the first place.
Iirc there was an online ebook market in the Netherlands where you could resell your ebooks. This was deemed illegal because there is no way to guarantee the seller has deleted his own copy after it was sold.
Crazy.
It’s not too much of a stretch to apply that to selling a CD; the vendor would have to prove that they didn’t make a copy?
Guilty before proven innocent.
Tbh, i understand the argument (somewhat). The media is bound to a CD so normal use would be to just read from the CD. Digitizing it to a digital file is another step. An ebook is a digital file to begin with. You must actively break the law where you just need to forget the empty your trashbin with the digital ebook.
There is also this huge deal with for example Windows Licenses. You are not allowed to resell Windows Licenses you no longer need, except when they are printed on (for example) a Laptop to begin with, then you can sell the device with the Licence.
For the current law interpretation it is really important if the digital good is somewhat bound to a real object (CD or comes printed out) or if it just digital.