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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.
I agree completely. This is all about selling "property" that is "owned". How does mankind originally describe "Ownership", that's right, we are talking about LAND. I work in the Land Business as Professional Landman In Oklahoma, USA (laws vary state-to-state), notably in the Oil and Gas Mineral Ownership portion of the Landman business. In my line of work, we have tried and true legal documents called "Deeds". Typically these deeds convey what we affectionately refer to "ARTI" or "All Rights Title and Interest" to whatever is being Deeded, Transferred, Sold, Conveyed, Forever, To all future Heirs, forever and ever and ever and ever, etc... between 2 or more Parties. Surface Ownership, AKA "REAL Estate" and Mineral Ownership AKA "Land Mineral Rights" are vastly different things. Surface ownership is described in real world Physical dimensions that a person, as the owner, could take a real string and tie it all around their land plot corner survey markers and have a real geometric shape around their actual land. Mineral Ownership is described as "undivided" interest that started out as a physical surface land description but has since become split into fractions among many owners bearing the same physical legal land description of the initial whole. For example, Joe Sr. owns 160 acres of Surface Land and 160 acres of undivided of mineral interest. These would bear the same exact legal description Such as the NW/4 of SectionXX-TownshipXX-RangeXX, where "XX" represents numbers in the Jefferson Land System effectively describing a "Square Mile" or a 640 Acre Square. Joe Sr. owns 160 acres described as the Northwest Quarter of SectionXX-TownshipXX-RangeXX (640/4=160). If, He "Deeds" his Son, Joe Jr., 1/2 of his total undivided mineral interest. Now things are described in NET MINERAL ACRES for the Mineral interest with the same Surface Legal description. So, Joe Jr. AND Joe Sr. Now both own 80 Acres each of Undivided NET Mineral Interest for a 160 Acre plot described legally as NW/4 of SectionXX-TownshipXX-RangeXX for which Joe Sr. owns 160 Acres of surface ownership. My point? For well over a hundred years we here in the USA have had a well-established system for describing actual real property (land surface) and virtual property (mineral interest). "Ownership" of this virtual and real property is kept track of through legal documents we call "Deeds". Why cannot Software be "Deeded" to another person for an exchange of Capital or other good considerations just like land or mineral interest? IT CAN, BUT: The fact is, SOFTWARE CAN ONLY BE SOLD, IF AND ONLY IF, IT HAS A LEGAL OWNER WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO SELL IT. We are taking about someone selling a single licensed copy of software. The Word License gives the whole thing away. You never hear about Someone selling a "Licensed copy of their House" DuH! You want the DEED to the house. Here's WHY: Software is no longer being SOLD to the users... it is being LEASED. Hence, in my so-succinct analogy, 100% of the Surface and Mineral ownership (Software Physical Media its software Content) is retained by Party A (Software Vendor/Author). And Anyone using it default agrees to the terms of their LEASE to be using it. And there are NO SALES Rights granted under the terms of the Lease. I fully agree with "Neanderthal Ninny (1153369)", however, those rights to sell convey or otherwise were waived as part of the initial EULA. This is the same as if you Lease/buy a plot of land surface and want to drill an oil well on it... You do not own the rights to do that. You must first purchase those mineral rights OR enter into an Oil and Gas Lease with the mineral rights Owner/s thus granting you those rights with plain terms. Finding out who owns "stuff" keeps food on my table. The crux of this argument, is that most of us do not "own" ANY of our software, we are LEASING it under the terms of the EULAs. The same is true for Linux, free use under a license, NOT AN OWNERSHIP DEED of the said software. This entire argument would be moot if there were not EULAs or Licenses for software because it woul
Probably because the average computer/tech geek is more intelligent than the average lawyer. What seems difficult and complex to you is all too easy to someone who writes codes and designs computer microarchitecture.
Though the knowledge required is different, the logic isn't.
bah! Humbug!!. Most lawyers can't program even in VCR+ And we can code using C++ Ergo we are way smarter than the lawyers. If lawyers are so smart why aren't they posting in slashdot? Explain that smarty pants.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact