MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - European ruling could have major impact on e-books

terencek · 07-05-2012, 04:20 AM

Europe's highest court has ruled that reselling software licences is legal. Among other things this could have a major impact on the redistribution of computer games and e-books.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) case involved Oracle, which lost its case on July 4 to the ruling that software vendors have no rights to block resale.

According to a TechCentral report, the ruling means software authors cannot oppose any resale of their product, as the exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence is exhausted on its first sale, This applies to downloaded software or that which is bought on CD or DVD. The ECJ's ruling sets a precedent for trading used software licences throughout the European Union.

07-05-2012, 04:20 AM	#1
terencek Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 1010944 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The African bush Device: Kindle 3	European ruling could have major impact on e-books Europe's highest court has ruled that reselling software licences is legal. Among other things this could have a major impact on the redistribution of computer games and e-books. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) case involved Oracle, which lost its case on July 4 to the ruling that software vendors have no rights to block resale. According to a TechCentral report, the ruling means software authors cannot oppose any resale of their product, as the exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by such a licence is exhausted on its first sale, This applies to downloaded software or that which is bought on CD or DVD. The ECJ's ruling sets a precedent for trading used software licences throughout the European Union. Last edited by terencek; 07-05-2012 at 06:07 AM. Reason: paraphrasing