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eBay Seller Sues Autodesk for $10 Million

Miasik.Net writes "A lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court (US District Court for the Western Washington District C07-1189 JLR) that alleges Autodesk, Inc maker of the industry standard AutoCAD software and their attorney Andrew S. Mackay have devised an illegal scheme to have used copies of their software removed from the eBay site using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Finally someone decided that non-transferable licenses must be stopped." While proving $10 million in damages might prove difficult, the reasoning behind the case is pretty sound.

13 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. New business model by davetd02 · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) Buy software from eBay
    2) Copy onto hard drive
    3) Re-sell on eBay
    4) Profit!

    Easy enough for me!

    1. Re:New business model by deniable · · Score: 2, Funny

      They stopped using dongles during R14 which was about 1998. R14 needed a dongle as well as a code from AutoDesk. They went to pure software licensing on R15 (Acad 2000.)

      A lot of places liked the dongles because license management was easy. They got passed around when needed.

      Funny side story, one of our offices got burgled. They unplugged all of the connectors from the back of the machine including an AutoCAD dongle. They took the box and a 40 kg monitor but left the most expensive item on the desk.

  2. I don't think... by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...lawyers bother taking on lawsuits under $10 million these days - they can't make enough money on the small claims.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  3. Re:Fixed! by Orthuberra · · Score: 5, Funny
    Fixed that for you!

    1) Buy software from eBay 2) ??? 3) Re-sell on eBay 4) Profit!
  4. Shrinkwrap License by Nymz · · Score: 5, Funny

    By reading this post you are agreeing that any posts you make are property of CowboyNeal, along with any devices used in manufacture and transfer of said posts. This includes your keyboard, computer, and that whole series of tubes called the internet.

    I apologize that this EULA isn't 50 pages long, and can be understood by a human being, but I'm not a real lawyer.

  5. where to find used software? by fliptout · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've been wondering where to find used recent versions of software. Anyone know of an auction site that caters to this niche? Maybe such a site needs to be created... Biz opportunity!

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
    1. Re:where to find used software? by daeg · · Score: 4, Funny

      It already exists and is called The Pirate Bay.

  6. Ebay was so awesome before.. by brxndxn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Before everyone and their mother found out about the Internet, Ebay was soo awesome.. You could buy pot, a gun, and a kidney.. And you could give feedback to whoever you wanted whether or not they even made a sale with you.. You had maybe a 50% chance of actually getting what you paid for.. but then again, you had about 50% chance of actually attempting to pay them.

    The Internet used to be a frontier, man.. Now I gotta grow my pot.

    --
    --- We need more Ron Paul!
  7. Re:The Enemy Within: Barak Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    {{unreferenced}}

    Oh sorry, wrong site.

  8. Re:But what is Microsoft EULA? by Gogogoch · · Score: 2, Funny

    What do you mean "belong to the PC"? Just wondering - PCs are not 'legal entities', and so cannot own anything. Legal entities are things like people, corporations.

  9. Re:The legal experts on Slashdot... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 5, Funny
    I love how everyone at the law office is a computer expert. People make the most sweeping judgments about complex software issues based on a pejorative three sentence description.

    For example, from a recent incident at a law office:

    They wrote it as a 10-user application, but adding another 500 seems workable

    Hmm, yes. And the technical basis as to why expecting 50-fold scalability is 'workable' is...?

    I'm not saying this is a baseless assumption. But it's funny how everyone around the law office (99% lawyers of some flavour or other) is able to deduce why it's 'plainly' technically correct or incorrect to throw whatever combination of the cheapest hardware and software available into the office and assume everything is going to do exactly what they want.

    IAASE. Newsflash: systems development work is hard. Software Engineers get paid a lot partly because technical issues are often very complex and challenging. You cannot determine whether something is 'workable' or not based on 4 minutes of absent-minded evaluation.

    Lawyers tend to be very difficult to work with. They tell everyone to be sure to hire a "professional" for every little legal matter under the sun, feel it's perfectly OK to charge exorbitant fees for every little thing, but think *never* need any help with their computer systems. When they do finally decide to seek advice, they hmmm and haw and ask stupid question after stupid question and then complain when they're told it's going to cost more than 50 bucks to fix everything.

    --
    "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
    --- Jerry Garcia
  10. Re:The legal experts on Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    This is unique to lawyers how? =P

  11. Re:So, their attorney is an idiot or... by mjm1231 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Assuming you're both right... Isn't it great when a system just works?

    --
    Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.