California Court: EULAs are Inapplicable in Some Cases

(outer-limits) writes "In a significant ruling in a California court, a judge has ruled the standard EULA licensing agreement to be invalid. This must be the biggest upset in software licensing ever. No more are we powerless End Users of software, having to agree to every restriction a software company makes (Expect an appeal on this, though)." Note that this is about the resale of bundled software, so it's not like EULAs are dead, but this ruling could have broad effects. Update: 02/12 03:45 GMT by J : Yeah, this is a repeat - sorry.

Comments

Re:Just out of curiousity

[rgmoore]

I think that your understanding is fundamentally wrong here. The thing that prohibits me from making and selling copies of a work I buy from you is standard copyright. It doesn't have anything to do with the distinction between a license and a sale. That means that if I buy a print from you I have the right to resell the physical print as I damn well please. If I buy a book of prints from you, I have the right to tear the pages out of the binding, frame the individual pages, and to sell them for less than you charge for individual prints. That's the doctrine of first sale, which was established by the U.S. Supreme Court a long time ago.

What software writers want to claim is something different. They say that when I buy software I don't necessarily have my normal rights under first sale. I might not be allowed to transfer my right to the software to somebody else, for instance. To try to enact those rules, they claim to sell you only a license to use the software, and not actually a copy of the software itself.

What the judge has ruled in this case is that the nature of a transaction is governed by the nature of the transaction and not by what it's called by the seller. IOW, if I pay you a single, up front fee for a box of software that I'm allowed to use in perpetuity, that constitutes a sale whether you want to call it a sale or a license. That means that I have normal first sale rights- specifically the right to break up the pieces of a purchase and sell them separately as was done in this case- even if the "license agreement" that you try to impose specifically prohibits me from doing so.

Re:wait for the years of appeals on this one...

[stevenj]

Unlike typical EULAs, the GPL only grants rights, it does not take any away.

Copyright law makes certain restrictions on redistribution by default. The GPL lifts some of those restrictions, allowing redistribution/modification under certain conditions.

If you bothered to read the GPL, you would notice that it even says:

You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.