This has huge implications for the software industry.
“Court smacks Autodesk, affirms right to sell used software”
Finally they lost such a case in the USA too, not only in Europe where they already lost several times.
maybe Unity will look at there policy also after this…
Not really.
Unity sells their software from europe (visible by the EU VAT), not the USA, as such it falls under EU legislation or actually the danish one as I don’t think their are EU laws in relation to this that are enforcable.
In european countries its commonly the way that physical goods are resellable, independent of what the manufacturer dreams of (AutoDesk lost a few court cases with resellers of OEMs and old versions). Digital licenses though are fully bound to the license under which they are sold, there is no entitlement to resell said licenses.
I guess for the USA the same holds, as the comparision to books or the “never opened the boxes” etc clearly indicates “physical goods” not digital licenses.
The difference being that Unity has no “used copy”, as there is no physical CDs being distributed, or available to exchange. Unity has a policy on not allowing licenses to be transferred. This court case didn’t deal with the licenses, but that the resale of a physical product was not deemed copyright infringement.
What I read from that article was that Autodesk referred to the business transaction as a “sale” instead of a “license”, so the judge had every reason to group it with any other type of thing that is “sold”. I’m guessing that we as software developers can help to protect ourselves (assuming you don’t want your software resold without your consent) by always referring to any transaction involving use of our software in exchange for money as a “licensing agreement”.
I really don’t see the problem in allowing users to transfer their software licenses to others. Adobe used to have a really elegant solution for this by having the previous license holder sign a “transfer of ownership” form alongside the new license holder and mail it in. The previous owner was simply required to destroy any and all copies of the software in their possession.
I actually used that system on a couple occasions.
What gets me are the companies that flat out refuse to allow transfer of ownership entirely. Why would you intentionally damage the value of your product by making resale impossible?
Take console games, for instance… I have around 250 titles in my collection. At one time, each of those games were $60 each. I would never spend that kind of cash on something I knew I couldn’t sell later on if I ever needed to.
Now apply that to software that can cost in excess of $1,000 per seat. That’s a lot of risk for an individual to be taking when you know there is zero chance of recovering even part of that loss later on, should the need arise. That in itself can make a product far less appealing to someone who’d probably otherwise pony up the cash for it.
About the only thing that makes sense in refusing license transfers is that in forcing the customer to eat the loss on a product they don’t like or want, it might just be financially crippling enough to keep them from switching to a competing product.
The punch-line being, someone who actually would want the software and would willing pay for the upgrades probably won’t get it because the initial cost of entry is too high.
Instead, the current user is probably letting the current license stagnate on a system 5 years behind the rest of the world.
My perspective is that it would be a nightmare to have to support a product after it has been sold by my original customer to a third party, but I don’t develop “games” per se, but rather sims and visualizations for businesses (not individuals). Add to that, I could end up having to compete with someone who is selling a “used” copy of my software for a lower price, which has the potential of forcing my prices down. And how would I be able to verify that all the copies that person sold were valid “used” copies and not warez ware?
But as I said in my previous post, I think Autodesk “cooked their own goose” so to speak, and so long as you clearly indicate to your customers that what they are buying is a “license to use” and not a “purchase of real property”, then there shouldn’t be much room for argument.
Actually one of the main points in the case was that even if developers call something a “license” doesn’t mean it isn’t sold. According to this case, a publisher developer can refer to the transaction as a “licensing agreement”, but it is still considered “sold” goods.
That’s why it’s a monumental case.