Top EU court upholds right to resell downloaded software | Ars Technica - 2 views
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The European Court of Justice has ruled that customers have a right to resell software they purchase regardless of whether the software was originally distributed on a physical medium or downloaded over the Internet.
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But the court did place some important limits on customers' rights to resell used software licenses. First, if a customer purchases a multiseat license, it is not allowed to split the license up into parts and sell them separately.
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The court also held that after reselling the software, the previous owner must render his own copy of the software inoperable.
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Now, this took place in the European Union, not the United States (where software is still "licensed" instead of actually sold), but what it means is that people who pay a fee to have software distributed to them now have right of first sale to that license-- that is, they can redistribute it to another person, just as I can give a book I purchased to someone else. -
This is great - thanks for posting.