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

Autodesk? Suit?

[pimpimpim]

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.

Re:Autodesk? Suit?

[pimpimpim]

Yes, I just checked the autocad shop and nowhere it mentions that you will buy a license. Instead you spend about 4000 dollars on something for which it mentions "Reasons to Buy" (so not Reasons to license). Nowhere on the page it gives us any buying conditions. (or did I miss them?)

Additionally they have a subscription service with a different pricing scheme. Autocad there is about 400 dollar I guess, it doesn't mention on what timespan, a year probably.

All this data on their own website points in one direction: for 4000 dollars you buy the software package after which you own that copy of the software package, to do what you want with it. For a subscription price you can buy a subscription where you don't own the software but it makes sure that during your subscription they 'lend' you the most recent software.

Great choice of ads, slashdot!

[vrmlguy]

Check the ad appearing next to this article: http://samwyse.googlepages.com/slashdot-autodesk.jpg

The precious anti-VERO fight

[freepath]

Anyone seriously interested in this issue should read about the crusades of Ebay seller Tabberone, who singlehandedly defeated many corporate DMCA abusers trying to maliciously end their auctions:

http://www.tabberone.com/Trademarks/OurFight.shtml

It's a wealth of information for the self litigator. ...

~ f

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.