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Court Rules For Software Ownership Over Licensing
valderost writes "Out-law.com reports on a finding of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, in favor of an individual reselling Autodesk's AutoCAD software in 'his claim that he owned the software and had the right to sell it on.' The decision hinges on some technicalities in the Autodesk license and conflicting precedents involving a Vanessa Redgrave film, but it's good news for the idea that a software purchase is just that. 'The Court said that it had to follow [the film] case's precedent because it was older than another conflicting ruling, and that it could not choose a precedent based on the most desirable policy. "The court's decision today is not based on any policy judgment. Congress is both constitutionally and institutionally suited to render judgments on policy; courts generally are not," the Court ruled. "Precedent binds the court regardless of whether it would be good policy to ignore it."'"
"You can't own software, man."
Define ownership. You can own the physical (ever disappearing) media that the software comes from. You can own the rights to the software and its code. You can own a license to use the software. This is the problem and one that will be challenged in the future when software moves to pure digital distribution. Do you actually own what is on your hard drive? I say yes, but what happens when you have to reinstall and your only installer is some steam-like gateway that approves and disapproves of your access to said software? This is going to be a MAJOR shift your rights to copy software and make backups. The tide is already turning away from the consumer (some would say its long since been gone), but when you have no way to just reinstall software it might create some serious problems.
Like here is an easy example. You needed to reinstall windows (again!), but you ran out of installs on your oem key. Whoops. Gotta call microsoft and beg them to let you use the software you own. Next you go to install Photoshop with adobe's new digital distribution service (the only way to get CS5), but their server is down and you need to work on a project today. If you had a disk you could just install, but no, you as a paying customer get to be treated like a potential criminal. I know this is kind of extreme, but you see where I'm going and we are really almost at that point.
Sorry for the generalizations. I'm pretty much toast right now. Time for bed. Goodnight slashdotters!
zosxavius photography
Exactly: the ruling said that selling software second-hand is entirely legal. Of course, the software is still covered by copyright and it's license, so you're really selling the license.
By effectively upholding the first sale doctrine, this judge did the right thing.
Extreme? No. I've been locked out of software I bought, probably because of trying to make it work under WINE with quite a few installs. Took them three days to answer mail (was on a weekend), I had said "fuck it" and downloaded DVD+crack long ago. I probably don't need to tell you what happened to my Stream games when the %#% cable company took a month and a half to fix my Internet. I do want to pay for the good stuff, what little there is of it, but that sort of thing makes me mad. Particularly because me buying something, despite having the full thing downloaded already, only "proves" that DRM works *rolls eyes*. No, it doesn't. DRM is and always will be pathetically useless. It might mean I actually like it and want more games/movies/music/series/whatever like that though. At least the music industry seems to have finally gotten the message even though they were dragged kicking and screaming into the DRM-free world.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And you just hit the nail right on the head with that simple statement, bravo. All this bullshit does is make the pirated version in EVERY WAY better than the "legitimate" version. Take my case for example, I have to fricking crack every. damned. single. game. I own. Why? Because XP X64 (my OS of choice) plays all the games, even the older ones beautifully while giving me access to my 8Gb of RAM but the ^&%$&^&$^&%$ DRM don't work, that's why!!! You get that stupid "insert disc in drive E:" bullshit. It IS in drive E:, you stupid piece of crap!
And God help you if you don't notice the sometimes invisible warning and get "starforced" as guess what? Their damned uninstaller don't work on x64 buddy! That's right, enjoy a day spent dual boot and hacking the reg to get rid of that festering turd, but as you pointed out TPB version works just fine on XP X64. But I think this guy (warning-language which you can't blame him for if you watch the video) says it better than I ever could.
Just give me one more Starfoce infection game makers, just one more, and yes it IS an infection, as a PC repairman I can tell you that a Starforce+Safedisc+SecuROM infection is nastier than most malware out today, and you can kiss my money goodbye. If my choices are paying for the "privilege" of getting kicked in the nuts or NOT paying and not getting kicked in the crotch or spending more time "enjoying the fun" of removing your broken DRM than playing your latest crappy $59 "extravaganza"? Well it'll be TPB for the win, and you'll have NO ONE to blame but yourself. Because I don't know about everyone else, but I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
...more like "we can't fix this loophole in court, lobby congress instead!"