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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."
What a crazy idea - the thought that you actually can do what you want with something you purchased. I wonder how long it is before the BSA finds some way of shutting these people down.
Microsoft will start putting a non-transferability clause in license agreements. Simple as that. US Bankruptcy law may or may not create an out for such a clause, so that a trustee can sell a debtor's licences. If the law allows it and if it causes a drain on sales revenue, you can bet that there will be another anti-consumer amendment to the bankruptcy code.
"I wonder how long it is before the BSA finds some way of shutting these people down."
And if they don't, you'll never hear about it on this forum.
From TFA: "The secondhand resale of a license agreement is not the intended purpose of these provisions."
Apparently, a Microsoft rep said that to the article writer.
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.
Too bad they won't sell to individuals; I might actually purchase a Microsoft product if I could just download it from P2P and go buy a cheap license from these guys. Even better, someone should go start collecting unused Windows licenses and giving them away to those who need them, like college students (okay, just kidding).
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.
If it is, these guys are clearly aiming for international business, because any British person could tell you that businesses operating inside the uk always go for .co.uk domains.
That being said, there are a few mentions of being in the UK on the first page.
The best part so far has been seeing how they've dealt with the challenge of materialising something as abstract as software licences into a picture for a logo. What the hell is that thing?
So does this apply to volume license editions of Windows? :P
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
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!
This is the wrong way to inform of this. Dupes are tagged as such instead.
"Modern societies go out of their way to restrict one's freedom"
Actually, modern has nothing to do with it. And just living with another person will restrict your freedom. Ask any married man. But some of those rules are societal such as you mention:
"you cannot buy alcohol and give it to minors"
or
"[you cannot] drive a car around without a license"
Let's be clear about these things. They are *laws* debated and agreed to by *represented officials* and can be changed at any time if society at large decides these rules need to be changed.
Also, it's worth noting these laws don't restrict the sale or ownership of an item, they restrict the use of an item.
Let's compare that with a EULA from MS not to resell that item.
1) It's not against the law to buy or sell software
2) Copyright law has no jurisdiction in this case, because it deals with reproduction, not sale
3) First sale doctrine encourages me to resell what I own
4) Microsoft would rather I didn't and they put it in a EULA.
5) Nobody voted on this restriction. In fact, they didn't even get a say. I bought a PC a few years ago, it came with XP Pro, I assumed I could sell it, but no, it's licensed to the box and I can't resell it. Why? Well... just because. I don't think it would hold up in court, but it's not worth it to try.
So please stop comparing a EULA to underage drinking and societal conventions because they are not at all related. EULAs are a trick that may or not be legal and they are enforced by big money, not society.
...Now, is there any chance I can legally buy a used driver's license?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Sure, I have a few old expired ones hanging around; I'm not sure how far you'll get, seeing as they have my name and picture on them, and a corner is cut off...but they were given back to me by and employee at the DMV because I asked nicely, so I assume I can do whatever non-fradulent thing I want to do with them now.
In some states you can also buy old license plates. That doesn't mean it's legal to put them on your car, but you can get them. In fact, I know of at least one state where the DMV sells "novelty" plates direct: they're not legal to actually use as a license plate, but if you wanted to get a historical one for your Model T, they'll sell it to you.
You can buy and sell all sorts of stuff that would be illegal if used in a certain way.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Remember also, cars wear out and die; a used software license installs and works perfectly every time.
True, but the software itself bit-rots as crackers discover new vulnerabilities in an end-of-lifed operating system.
I don't believe software makers should have the right to this "forced non-resale" licensing
If it's banned, publishers of proprietary programs will just phrase their EULAs as 95 year rental agreements.
So licenses are an expense, not an asset. I don't understand that if you plan to use a std image on every pc in an organization you must 1st have a volume license for the org, then each pc has to have it's own individual license for the OS, yet you cannot resell the individual license once removed from your organization. Wouldn't the license number be available to the buyer of your used equipment, as it is still afixed to the pc? Why can't you sell them seperate of each other?
This is neat and all, but who is going to want to buy a license for something like Microsoft Word when someone has already used up some of the words you can type? I mean, is there an easy way to figure out how many of a particular word is left?
That's not a dupe.
First story, November 2005: "Disclic, through discount-licensing.com, this week began offering secondhand software licenses..."
Today's story, April 2006: "Sales of second-hand Microsoft software licences have doubled month-on-month since the market was opened in November 2005..."
A dupe is when we post the same story twice with no new news between the two stories. This is a followup -- thanks for bringing it to our attention, and I've added the November story to our Related Links section.
My bad. The combination of Anonymous Coward and a question which would have been answered by following links within the article, led me to infer incorrectly that you were trolling. For this I apologise.
To avoid potential misunderstandings which may arise from others misinterpreting your intentions in future, may I respectfully suggest that you consider logging in before posting bona fide questions?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Imagine A company like Red Hat PURCHASING Microsoft stock at discount prices! :D
Retail software licenses are treated the same way by the court. Commercial agreements can be almost anything, though, that's why there is so much non-transferable fund raising software. Just try selling your unwanted copy of Sage50 published by Best Software.
They said Microsoft SOFTWARE, not Microsoft STOCK. Oh darn...
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.
You'll no doubt be explaining later how the burden of proof is reversed in libel cases. That's number 2.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Lou: Another case of Monopoly related violence, chief.
Wiggum: How do those Parker Brothers sleep at night?
This can't be stated enough.
Microsoft only "lost" a potential sale, and even then, they lost a potential sale at a much lower price then they probably would have been willing to accept. I don't know what the pricing on used licenses is, but if we assume (just for the sake of argument here) that a used license is £50 and a new one is £200 and 10 licenses were purchased, they should only be able to claim that they 'didn't receive' £500. Because to claim £2000 is to say that the company would have bought the full-price licenses if the used ones hadn't been available. And that's a pretty fat assumption to make. It's the sort of thing I'd assume out of a Microsoft sales droid or spokesweasel, but let's not repeat it as if it's fact.
Just to use office suites as an example, there are quite a few out there besides Microsoft's. Yes, MS Works is dominant, but that doesn't mean it's the only option. At (to continue my numbers) at £50, you might decide to go with Works. But if the only way you can get it is to pay £200, then suddenly some of the other suites look more attractive -- even though they're not Microsoft Works.
Free products like OpenOffice, even older or less-frequently updated commercial products like Lotus Works, cost much less than Microsoft's offerings and do most of the same things; OpenOffice and StarOffice even interoperate with MS's gear pretty well.
Really, in this example, the people who have the biggest claim to the "lost business" argument are the manufacturers and distributers of other low-cost suites.
Microsoft may be dominant, and they may have a monopoly, but that doesn't entitle them to claim or for us to believe that everyone would pay whatever Microsoft demanded if there wasn't a way to buy it used (or pirate it, another popular option). Some people would just refuse or not be able to pay MS's full price, and seek alternatives.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
[insert gag where we barter on price, and then you realize that I'm talking about how much you'll have to pay me to haul it away]
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
"you cannot buy alcohol and give it to minors"
I'll bet you I could. Albertsons sells 70% isopropyl, and I bet that I could buy a bottle of that and give it to a pre-teen. In front of a policeman, even.
"[you cannot] drive a car around without a license"
Wanna bet? Just let me grab a random (unlicensed) teenager off the street, and I'll bet they could drive a car. Maybe not legally, but they would still be able to do it.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
This is the wrong way to inform of this. Dupes are tagged as such instead.
Would you please donate a subscription to krakass so that krakass can inform the Slashdot public of alleged dupes in the "proper" way?
Though yours is snappier and fits better into a primary-school civics textbook...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?