Watchdog To Represent eBay Seller In Autodesk Suit

New10k writes "Following up on a recent Slashdot discussion, nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen has agreed to provide an attorney to eBay seller Timothy S. Vernor, who is suing Autodesk in federal court over misuse of the DMCA to stifle competition. The advocacy group has identified elements of the Vernor case as some of its key litigation priorities for 2007. The article includes an interview with Vernor's new lawyer, Greg Beck, who was a software engineer for Microsoft before going to law school."

Comments

Sorry for OT

[Opportunist]

But ...

"The article includes an interview with Vernor's new lawyer, Greg Beck, who was a software engineer for Microsoft before going to law school."

I don't know what to think of that. Does working for MS tell you that there's more money and better job security in the IT field in the legal department than in development?

Re:Sorry for OT

[Aladrin]

Why would you make that assumption from a single person's decision? He obviously felt he would like being a lawyer better for whatever reason. You don't know the reason, and don't have any clue what it could be.

People change jobs and careers all the time and to paint everyone with the same brush because of 1 person's decision is lunacy.

Re:eBay's the guilty party here

[julesh]

Autodesk was probably just sending DMCA's for any eBay ad that sounded like warez being offered.

Even in that case, Autodesk is in the wrong. The DMCA requires them to declare that they "a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials [...] is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." To have such a belief, I'd say they need to do more research than just bulk sending takedown notices without checking if there's anything to imply the belief. "Good faith" requires them to make reasonable efforts here.

Laws at Issue

[Evets]

AutoDesk used the DMCA to try to prevent a sale of their software. The DMCA is not in place to enforce breech of contract disputes - it is for copyright protection. Using the DMCA in this way constitutes fraud. They are trying to enforce part of their licensing terms that say you cannot transfer a software license. Certainly whether or not that provision is legal or enforceable if it is legal will come up at trial.

California has a law that if a company guilty of fraud and they are sued, they can be forced to transfer all profits from that fraudulent activity to the plaintiff. I believe last year that some of the teeth surrounding this law were removed partially because people were using the law to extort money from small business owners all around the state - but given the fact that AutoDesk has done the same thing to the same guy 7 times I would bet they are in a bit of trouble.

Re:Autodesk? Suit?

[Tim C]

If you "owned" a piece of software, you could resell it. Not just once, you could start your own CD printing factory and sell million of copies.

That's what ownership means.

No, that's what being the copyright holder means. Owning a box, manual and CD/DVD means that I can sell that on to anyone I choose and no-one can stop me.

Or would you equally argue that the shops that carry software don't own it? Somehow I don't think you would get very far using that as a defence if you tried walking out with it without paying.

Re:Autodesk? Suit?

[mrchaotica]

Hint: There is no such thing as 'legal' second-hand Autodesk software. They have the most draconian license agreement in existence.

Hint #2: There is such a thing as legal second-hand Autodesk software, because their draconian license agreement is bunk, as this lawsuit aims to prove.