Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Let's say you want to "upgrade" your car. In that case, you go to your dealer, you surrender a physical object, and the dealer gives you a discount on a new car. Vernor is saying this is what happened with CTA, and Autodesk was lax in its collection of the physical objects (the installation media); as such, when CTA sold him the media, he thus acquired the legal right to resell the software.
|
Generally speaking, the contract for a software upgrade stipulates that you have rights to the original. To me, the crux of this case seems to be that CTA could not resell the original software while still using the upgrade. That is, essentially, copyright infringement. It's basically the same thing as selling something while keeping a copy of it for yourself.
It doesn't seem to be so much about whether it qualifies as a sale/license, but rather that your rights to the upgrade and the original are tied together. You can't sell one and keep the other, regardless of how the first sale doctrine applies to software.
If CTA had sold both the original and the upgrade rights to Vernor, then we would start getting into the area that most people are talking about. IE, whether or not it was a sale vs license, and how that impacts first sale rights.