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Microsoft Software for Sale, Slightly Used
Alsee writes "The Register reports that recent UK business Discount-Licensing.com has been having booming growth reselling pre-owned Microsoft software licenses 20-50% below retail, after spotting the opportunity in Microsoft's licensing terms and Britain's insolvency laws for insolvent and downsizing businesses. Sorry, no discount personal OS resales, corporate bulk resales only."
This is legal in the US too. And protected under the "Doctrine of First Sale", much as the software companies would like it didn't exist.
"US copyright case law supports that consumers cannot make copies of computer programs contrary to a license, but may resell what they own."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
"Software publishers claim the first-sale doctrine does not apply because software is licensed, not sold, under the terms of an End User License Agreement (EULA)."
but if it's licensed then one should be allowed to make backups of the disc or receive a replacement disc if the disc gets lost or damaged. Software companies will argue either way where it suits them.
they can't have the cake and eat it. It's either or
Typically, when you think of used goods, you think of worn out hand-me-downs donated to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. But software licenses are not anything at all like that. In fact, they do not wear out, nor do they have any physical form except for the paper they are printed on. They are purely logical constructs.
But IP owners would have you think otherwise. They want you to think that licenses are akin to the actual CDs that the media came on. One CD, one installation. However, this is prima facie ludicrous. One CD suffices to create a farm of PC installations, the only thing needed is multiple licenses for each individual installation.
So don't be fooled into thinking that buying CDs is absolutely necessary. All you need are valid licenses and you have the rights to install as many times using the same CD as you have licenses.
Something tells me that Windows Vista and future versions of Office, etc. will probably restrict their licenses somehow to prevent this. Some company had "net saving in the region of £10,000." That means Microsoft probably lost a lot more than that.
Microsoft didn't "lose" any money on this sale, neither did they "make" any money. This is similar to me buying the Monopoly(tm) board game at a garage sale. Parker Brothers neither lost nor made any money on the deal.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
On one hand this is good because it reaffirms such doctrines as "fair dealing" and "exhaustion of rights", which are statutory rights that cannot legally be abridged by contract. On the other hand it is bad because it perpetuates the myth of dependency on Microsoft {though I suppose I shouldn't complain about that without actually trying to do something positive, like build and try to sell a sexy little all-in-one business server based on i-tal software}.
Disclic aren't doing anything illegal, nor are they doing anything wrong {an important distinction in the UK, where many things that are not wrong are technically illegal, and many things that are wrong are not illegal}. I'm sure Microsoft would like to have a pop at them; but I don't know of anything that they could actually make stick. And if they do try, it will almost certainly call into question the legal enforcibility of EULAs in the UK.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If those are the examples you're using to back up your point, then I'm afraid you're not going to convince anyone. And why should consumer rights be subject to the exact same moral conditions as every other facet of society? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Software makers (Microsoft) would have you think that you did indeed rob GM when you bought a used car.
Remember also, cars wear out and die; a used software license installs and works perfectly every time. The CD might wear out, of course, but that's not what you paid for (that's why backing up any piece of media should always be legal... you didn't pay $300.00 for a $0.03 piece of plastic, you bought the numbers recorded on it).
You could argue that software goes obsolete; but the company that saved all that money that I was referring to bought older licenses of Office XP, which isn't the newest Office. They would have bought new licenses to Office XP from MS, but instead bought used ones. No matter which way you cut it, MS lost a sale, a potentially high value sale. I don't know of anywhere else you can go to buy used licenses to MS software in bulk.
I don't believe software makers should have the right to this "forced non-resale" licensing; I'm just pointing out that it's costing MS a lot of money, and if they can stop it (which it sounds like they can't, even in the US) they would love to do so.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
What a crazy idea - the thought that you actually can do what you want with something you purchased.
Well, it would be, if Microsoft sold sofware.
Which they don't.
Whether you think i's a good idea for society or not, they sell licenses. A license by its very nature is more ambiguous than ownership, because it is, at its heart, an agreed upon, ungoing relationship between the licensee and licensor.
So, what is going on here is something a bit extraordinary. It's saying that licensees have in certain cirumstances the ability to transfer their relationship with the licensor to a third party, without the licensor's consent.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wow, I'm underwhelmed.
Wake me up when you can sell the crappy CD that comes with your non-naked PC the same way you could sell it's floppy drive, the manuals or any other worthless component. It's funny they want to extend all of the limitations of physical property into the binary world and then binary limits into the physical world.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.