You Don’t Own That Software You Bought

HOCP4ME said:
I thought you never owned a piece of software, just a license to use it. I thought every software EULA from the past ten years has contained a "not for resale" clause. I thought Microsoft and other companies have been deleting auctions of their software on Ebay for years.

Someone tell me again what this changes? Don't get me wrong - I would love to see this ruling overturned - but that would be unprecedented.
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EULAs are getting a little out of hand, though.

I remember sometime in the last year I considered buying a software package. It came with the option of a one-year license, or a lifetime license for less than twice the price. Since I planned to use it for more than two years, the lifetime license appeared to make more sense.

But then I read the license agreement.

Not only was the license not transferable to a new machine (for the most part I believe software licenses should limit usage, not where you can put it), but it basically was limited to a single install. If you had to blow away Windows and re-install your OS, you are going to need a buy another license.

I obviously didn't buy it. It was a great value, but a single-install license just carries too much risk. That goes well above and beyond and past trying to enforce the idea behind the first sale doctrine.

This had better not catch on. Could you imagine your entire Steam account being disabled solely due to your upgrading from Vista to 7? Is there not anyone that would see this as bullshit?
 
Hey guys, if you don't own it, then you don't have to pay for it. Har! har!

Did you see what I did there?
 
Technically EULAs have always said you can not resell software. This is just the first time it was enforced. Hopefully someone fights this ruling though. Enforcing it on a multi-thousand dollar per license piece of software I can see, but if this starts effecting games and other cheaper software its not going to be good.
 
Exavior said:
I don't know why this always surprises people when this comes up. YOU DO NOT BUY GAMES, MUSIC AND MOVIES, you only by a license to use them.

If i go buy a DVD what should make me think that the entire rights of that movie now belong to me. that I now own full rights to that movie and the person that made it now owns nothing and has to pay me from now on for all money that is collected.

Or that if i buy a game, that full ownership of it is now mine.

How does that work when you and 10 million other people buy it. Which of you becomes the owner of the software?

All you are paying for is a license to use the software (or movie or music). you do not at any point in time become the full owner of the software (or whatever) and take ownership away from the creator.

guess what the same happens when you buy a book also. you are buying a copy of it to read. you are not buying the actual rights to the book allowing you to make and distribute more copies of it yourself, taking said rights away from the author and orginal publisher.
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Exactly! And guess what, when everything is in the cloud this all becomes moot because then you don't even have a copy.
 
Remember these are all "Busch" era installed judges and the "big business" mentality is likely to linger for a long time to come in court judgements. The fact that decisions like this are contributing to the economic decay (because this money is going to fatten bottom lines not to hire more folks or reduce working people's costs) is something the judicial system seems quite ignorant of. But why would they worry, they all have jobs.
 
It's disheartening to see how so many corporations and government bodies are only interested in the stick these days.

Whatever happened to trying the carrot first?

For the small handful of outstanding games which are released these days, there seem to be hundreds, even thousands of others which are truly terrible and make you regret buying it. Either that, or you'll find a decent game that's so short, it's finished within a day or two.

Both scenarios are the major contributing factor to the sudden surge in the desire for people to sell their used games, even ones which were just released.

If companies want to bring software reselling back into acceptable levels again, then it's up to them to increase both the quality, and the replayability of their products.
 
The Red said:
Your statement is.. a joke. You obviously dislike dems and dislike such a pro-business court ruling, but your way to reconcile the fact that its a conservative-favored court decision is to lump water and oil together, so you don't have to consider that the conservative pro-business-at-all-costs approach that supports this ruling could *possibly* be flawed.

Hypocrisy at its finest.
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Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
 
Tolyngee said:
EULAs are getting a little out of hand, though.

I remember sometime in the last year I considered buying a software package. It came with the option of a one-year license, or a lifetime license for less than twice the price. Since I planned to use it for more than two years, the lifetime license appeared to make more sense.

But then I read the license agreement.

Not only was the license not transferable to a new machine (for the most part I believe software licenses should limit usage, not where you can put it), but it basically was limited to a single install. If you had to blow away Windows and re-install your OS, you are going to need a buy another license.

I obviously didn't buy it. It was a great value, but a single-install license just carries too much risk. That goes well above and beyond and past trying to enforce the idea behind the first sale doctrine.

This had better not catch on. Could you imagine your entire Steam account being disabled solely due to your upgrading from Vista to 7? Is there not anyone that would see this as bullshit?
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It is bullshit and I much prefer per-user licenses to per-machine licenses with hardware keys. But many people hate hardware keys and think those are bullshit, too. As if companies are just supposed to trust you to install the software on as many computers as you like but only use one at a time.
 
nutzo said:
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
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ahahahahahhahahahhahhahahahhhahahahahhahahahahhahahah..../deep breath...ahahahahahahahahahhaahhahahahahahahahhahahah
 
heatlesssun said:
No EULA I've ever read said I owned anything.
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The big difference I would see between Renting/Leasing and a EULA is that you know very well ahead of time what you are getting into before signing into a Renting/Leasing contract. All the terms are layed out before any money is exchanged.

However when it comes to movies/music/software you do not have that luxory, you must exchange money BEFORE being able to read the "contract". And EULA's are (at least I have never seeen) never displayed on the outside of the package for the consumer to see.

With movies and music there is NO EULA. At no point are you ever provided or required to look at any form of contract in order to use the goods. This is why it is implied that you *own* it.

Now comes the next part in the comparison. With most renting or leasing contracts there is usually a cooling off period (like say 3 days) where you can return the item for full or partial repayment to you. You cannot return movie/music/software, except for an exact replacement.

If the entertainment industry wants to start having every indivdual start signing binding contracts in order to "lease" their intellectual property for every purchase, then by all means go for it, but until they do they can not expect to compare their products to other products and be surprised by the resistance they recieve.
 
westrock2000 said:
With movies and music there is NO EULA. At no point are you ever provided or required to look at any form of contract in order to use the goods. This is why it is implied that you *own* it.
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Not really sure about this one, again there are other forms of distribution where there's nothing physical to even own and the people who claim that if you buy a physical copy of content have to reconcile purely digital copies. So I buy a disc and I "own" the movie. Would that be the same for a digital download or on demand stream. Would one "own" those as well?
 
Is there anyone (other than Autodesk and other content producers) who doesn't think this decision is crap?

Two serious questions: one, since software on physical media (as someone else pointed out) is analogous to printed books or to vinyl records, why aren't those models taking precedence in court rulings?

Two, if reselling software is now illegal, what makes it legal to rent a game at Blockbuster?
 
heatlesssun said:
Not really sure about this one, again there are other forms of distribution where there's nothing physical to even own and the people who claim that if you buy a physical copy of content have to reconcile purely digital copies. So I buy a disc and I "own" the movie. Would that be the same for a digital download or on demand stream. Would one "own" those as well?
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When using Steam or iTunes or whatever you most likely accepted a EULA when installing the front end program.

Two, if reselling software is now illegal, what makes it legal to rent a game at Blockbuster?
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Blockbuster entered an agreement with the content provider to distrubute the content. Its just like the radio. You can't download a copy of Queen's Greatest Hits from Pirate Bay, but you can listen to Fat Bottom Girls on the radio because the radio station is paying royalties to the content provider, Pirate Bay was not.

To me, I think that Autodesk and Adobe would be last 2 companies to complain about piracy. The only reason that their programs are SOOO well known and used by people is because they got experience by downloading cracked versions so that by the time they made it to the professional level they already had tons of hand on experience.

There is no way that their could be so much informal experience about using programs that cost $1000. People don't drop that kind of money on 3DSMax or Photoshop just to post on deviantart.
 
This is hysterical. If Congress gets involved, people will complain that "evil government is over-regulating poor, overburdened businesses" but if the courts do it (i.e. not this court but the judge below), it's "judicial activism."

No matter how you "fix" this issue, consumers get screwed because someone feels their loss wasn't "fair" so they'll whine until it gets reversed or modified.
 
nutzo said:
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
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The problem is that too many people are either Democrat or Republican. That makes it easy for lobbyists to buy them, and easier to corrupt. Can you imagine only having two choices when it comes to buying things? Only two brands of cars. Only two brands of cereal. So why only two parties to vote for?

We need to learn to vote for a 3rd party. Oh yea, and more people need to fucking vote.

This is a pro business move. It's in the corporations interest to prevent people from reselling their products. It is not a pro people move, and doesn't create more jobs or help the economy. In fact, it can ruin jobs and hurt the economy.

This could move to things like Video Games or even the software on your devices. I predict that open source is going to get a lot more popular in the future, due to this move. Who needs to deal with this shit when open source is immune to it?
 
Falkentyne said:
...The only thing you can't do is distribute it to others while possessing a copy yourself, which is self explanatory; if you own a house or a car, another person can't own it at a different location, while the car is also in your physical use at the exact same time. But, you CAN allow other people to come to your house to use your computer and use the software there. Now, you can share the car or house if both people are in it together...(just like two people sharing a computer...)

This is going to get viciously overruled. What's next? Other people won't be able to use your own software anymore installed on your own computer, if they're visiting you?
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You'd be surprised. Many EULA's for non-transferable licenses could be interpreted as sole-individual and not useable by others. Fortunately, most EULA's go in the grey area when saying they allow the software to be installed on one machine; which any court should expect the users of that machine share ownership of the computer. However, this could also be interpreted as voiding the EULA, as if multiple people split the cost of one license expecting each user to be granted a full license.

This sounds very similar to the RIAA/MPAA pushing for unintentional hearing or seeing content as violating the DMCA. Such as people blasting car radios. MPAA once said that renting a movie to show in a class room violates copywrite laws because they consider it to be a public display, not sure what the current verdict on that is, but I doubt it's changed.

It'd be nice if the law said that one license can be in use at any time, no matter where or what, and it's the owner's responsibility to protect his own license from theft; but that'd be just way too unreasonable wouldn't it..
 
nutzo said:
Yep, the Liberals/Progressives/WhatEverTheyWantToBeCalledNow, siding with the corporations again.
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Cartmanchalk.jpg
 
Ohhhhhh a pirates life for me!

What's a pirates favorite letter? Give up?

You'd think it's the R but it's really the C
 
nutzo said:
BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
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And if those companies were to have failed, it would have stared an extremely long chain reaction which would have eventually led to America's entire population becoming permanently homeless, and eventually dying off with nobody left to replace - and then, the nation would have become a totally abandoned wasteland... This would have meant the permanent end of life in America as we know it...

But anyway, back to the topic:

A lot of us do overreact to this 9th Court of Appeals decision. Actually, they ruled that the software companies can use shrink-wrap licenses to prevent the transfer of ownership of a particular copy of software to anybody other than the original purchaser of such software. It does not mean that all companies must prevent resales by original purchasers to other people. In other words, a company can do this - but they don't have to.
 
E4g1e said:
A lot of us do overreact to this 9th Court of Appeals decision. Actually, they ruled that the software companies can use shrink-wrap licenses to prevent the transfer of ownership of a particular copy of software to anybody other than the original purchaser of such software. It does not mean that all companies must prevent resales by original purchasers to other people. In other words, a company can do this - but they don't have to.
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And what company wouldn't do this?
 
Majikka said:
stop buying software and get it for free, problem fixed.
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amen
Samson4EiT said:
It seems like they really want us to start doing that.
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always seemed like this
CVNet1 said:
The 9th Circus strikes again...
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nutzo said:
Yep, the Liberals/Progressives/WhatEverTheyWantToBeCalledNow, siding with the corporations again.
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i think the 9th circus fancies itself as a corporation lol
Ashbringer said:
Hey guys, if you don't own it, then you don't have to pay for it. Har! har!

Did you see what I did there?
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yes and so did the 9th circus ;) :p
 
OK, if I don't own it, then why do I pay sales tax on it? I've never heard of a license tax.
 
I betcha this triggers a daemon event...

what is so god damned difficult about IP...
 
fattypants said:
Great, great point.

The 9th Circuit seems to think their job is to try to set the record for most overturned decisions anyway.
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Then, of course, is the issue of the retailers. If it's a license, then are the retailers "agents"? If so, then that dumps a crapload of laws on them regarding agents and their responsibilities. If they are an agent, then who do they represent? It is the licensor or the licensee? How do you make a profit off of a license if you are not an agent and do not hold the right to license? Agents, be they talent agents or stock brokers, require some sort of license or limited power of attorney. You see, a license that is brokered by a go-between requires an agent or attorney if not dealing directly with the licensee.

Thus puts the retailers and the licensors in even greater leagal trouble if this stands. I wonder if the defense attorney's considered this in their presentations. You see, if it's deemed anyone can be an agent, then they just eliminated the requirements for passing the BAR to be an attorney.

This is a "can of worms" situation if I ever saw one.

The 9th "circus" court has an average of their cases being overturned 80% of the time. In other words, they are useless wastes of liberal human skin. To label them "competent" judges is to stretch the limits of reality.
 
nutzo said:
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
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Hahaha this is beautiful
 
So can we sue because the EULA is not readable before buying, and opening package? In this case, thats like being coerced to sign a blank contract.
 
mustang_steve said:
So can we sue because the EULA is not readable before buying, and opening package? In this case, thats like being coerced to sign a blank contract.
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They'll just put a URL on the box and tell you to go read it before buying it.
 
I have used Automess' (Autodesk) products for many years and this "license" issue has come up several times before. This is not new. ...and Automess defends thier "license" vigorously, of note, notice that they have people that do NOTHING but sift through websites and articles looking for sales and such of their software.

And also, trust me, that they will see this thread as well........ ooooooooooooooo... (the first spooky Halloween posting of the year.)

If you don't like this - don't buy Automess, Adobe, "licensed" products.
 
“The terms of the software license in the case are not very different from the terms of most software licensing. So I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t own their software,” said Greg Beck, the defense attorney in the case who represented an eBay seller sued by Autodesk. “The other ramification, there is no reason a similar license could not be put into the cover of a book. It wouldn’t be difficult for everybody to implement this.”
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I can see it now: books shrink wrapped with a EULA inside. You don't own the words so you can't sell your book!
 
Exavior said:
guess what the same happens when you buy a book also. you are buying a copy of it to read. you are not buying the actual rights to the book allowing you to make and distribute more copies of it yourself, taking said rights away from the author and original publisher.
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So this ruling will effectively destroy libraries and used book stores. Nice.

They are really trying to screw the consumers lately... Fine, I'm not selling my software. I'm selling the plastic media. It's up to you what you do with it. I'm just charging someone else to dispose of it for me.
 
I'm wondering though... fine I can't resell the software, but I can resell the box, the cds, the jewel cases (assuming), the manuals and all that other stuff for coincidentally almost as much as the product itself costs! *note: You are not buying the software you're buying the physical stuff associated with it, even if it just so happens to have the software with it*
 
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