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Watchdog To Represent eBay Seller In Autodesk Suit

Posted by kdawson on from the lawyers-guns-and-software dept.

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."

2 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Autodesk? Suit? by pimpimpim · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've never heard of this case before, running through the article I guess the problem is Autodesk doesn't want him to sell used software packages of their software AutoCAD.

    The bastards, I would say! It's like trying to prevent selling used music CDs or used books. How long will we have to cope with companies 'selling' us stuff when they mean 'lending'. Either they let us SIGN a contract BEFORE we buy explaining how they want to deliver their product (lend it, lease it), or if they don't do that, we can consider it BOUGHT and our property. You can not in retrospect claim someone didn't buy (gain ownership) to the product if you didn't make that completely clear beforehand. They ask enough money for the product to make it sure look like you have the right to own it and do what you want with it.

    --
    molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
    1. Re:Autodesk? Suit? by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Quite true, and everyone involved in the transaction except Autodesk is pretty certain it's a sale. I bet even Autodesk do at some point.

      Customer to shop: "I'd like to buy a copy of AutoCAD" Shop to Customer: "Sure. There's your copy. That will be $799" Shop to Autodesk: "We'd like to buy another 20 copies of AutoCAD" Bet you Autodesk don't say "Well we can only sell you a license" at this point. It certainly doesn't clearly say "License to use AutoCAD" on the box.