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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."'"
Sweet! Now maybe we can affirm that we actually own things we purchase, and companies like Nintendo will stop stuffing up things like homebrew.
No, the court is saying that it isn't expressing any opinion about what the law should be and is making that point very clear, probably so that no one will mistakenly point to this as a precedent of a court deciding that the law should be this way for software.
when you start getting down to the actual rights that are transferred with a purchase of goods, if you leave it to the states, you will cause massive damage to interstate commerce. Those boobs can't even come up with consistent sentencing for crimes, there's no way they'll voluntarily adopt a single consistent set of rules over this unless it's done at the federal level.
If any readers still can't imagine what the problem is with that, think about it for a bit. Here's a few hints, imagine if a company in Maine sold software to people in all the states. In Texas they might be forced to provide updates for free for a period of 3 years, while in Ohio updates have a cost $1.00 but they only have to be available for 6 months. Now in Colorado you can resell your software, but in Florida you don't own it - it's all leased for a period of no more than 4 years. Getting messy already, and we've only covered 4 states. (Maine didn't count because I never said anything about their local laws on ownership/sales.)
By the way, if you are buying land in a state other than your own, check what the state laws are where you are buying it. Some states you get the works. Others, you don't get mineral rights. Some, you get water rights, and you might get mineral rights, but not oil rights, that's a seperate thing altogether. (Can you guess which states I'm talking about?)
In California you can buy beachfront property, and you get the beach. In Oregon (same coast, just farther north) you can still buy beachfront property, but the beach always has, and always will, belong to 'the people'. (Lots of Californian developers have gotten massively pissed over that when they tried to put up walls or fences...) The coast belonging to the people of Oregon is essential native traditions that were adopted into laws for Oregon. This is just a small example the differences that already occur, and you don't ship real estate across state lines, imagine how screwed up that would be.
My understanding is that in this particular case Autodesk was essentially marketing the software exactly like a product instead of something that is licensed, thereby they couldn't claim that the product was in effect being licensed. Does this have any effect on shrink-wrap licenses and/or regular software?
This is already European Law (which must be implemented in local laws in al member states). Once sold whithin the EU, you're free to resell your license.
The problem is in the details: if you buy software (i.e. a license to use it), you normally also get a bunch of other rights, like access to updates, maybe even the right to call someone. The law doesn't say that these rights are also transferrable (or transferred). So in most licenses, there's still plenty of "you cannot do this and that (resell, for example), or you will loose the right to such and so".
But the resale of the license to plainly use the software cannot be forbidden by contract in the EU.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
Whoops. Gotta call microsoft and beg them to let you use the software you own.
I don't believe you've ever called Microsoft to get software activated. Unless by begging you mean answering "no" or "one" to the "is this installed on any other computers" or "how many computers is this installed on" questions. In that case your and my definition of the word are completely different.
I agree with you in that you shouldn't have to in either case but the phone activation is far from difficult and have never been denied an activation key despite actually calling them in various capacities activating hundreds of softwares over the phone for anything from XP to TS.
Ha! So that's the "older' precedent? How about this? I walk into a grocery store, anonymously give cash to the cashier and walk out with a loaf of bread without having made any agreement at all, other than "I want the bread, here's some money." Retail software sales use the exact same transaction -- identical in every single way -- to what people have been doing for thousands of years. Thousands. And in all that time, Congress never bothered to pass a law that pulls a switcharoo on us and creates a difference between those transactions.
(Congress has passed some laws that creates some differences between what a person is allowed to do with a loaf of bread, versus a movie or software. But the sale itself, or giving rights to the original seller to demand it back? Nope. Some judges have created some new laws that treat the transactions differently, but Congress has kept out of that, so far.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
>>>Just because I own a disk doesn't mean I own the copyright to the software on the disk
That's one hundred percent true. Except when I sell my DVD of Word 2003 in my annual garage cleanup sale, I am NOT making a copy, therefore the copyprivilege has no relevance to this discussion.
>>>this is why Autodesk has resorted to licensing to do so.
Then they are guilty of FALSE ADVERTISING. They called it a "purchase" when in fact it was just a rental. Perhaps it's time for us customers to file a counter-lawsuit, as happened with Comcast in Florida. False advertising is illegal and it's time we held these companies accountable.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
"So the court, by mentioning the dictates of precedent in the first place, ..."
_Precedent_??? Damn! There are a few thousand years of custom and culture in the retail marketplace. You buy it, you take it home, you own it. Everyone gets it, from rocket-scientist to those that have a hard time with independent living. You would have to take an expedition to the ends of the Earth to find some culture that does not understand that. Why is the court seriously pondering that a loophole will trump centuries of precedent?