European ruling could have major impact on e-books

[terencek]

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.

[Jessica Lares]

I disagree. I think it applies mainly to software and games that comes with licenses, or physical software. Things like the Kindle Store, Apple's App Stores, Steam, and Google Play are excluded.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

I disagree. I think it applies mainly to software and games that comes with licenses, or physical software. Things like the Kindle Store, Apple's App Stores, Steam, and Google Play are excluded.

Why do you think that?

[pdurrant]

The full judgement can be read in English here. See here for other languages.

It does seem that it may only apply to computer programs, in that it relies on a bit of law that is specific to computer programs, and not to general literary works.

It is a very hopeful sign that the courts consider that resale of licences to use is legal.

But even if it did apply to ebooks, DRM would prevent resale happening at the moment.

Even if just for computer software that is a huge step in the correct direction for consumers. Consumers buy but cannot control what they bought. Now they can trade and sell THEIR property regardless of what a software company desires. I hope the USA follows suit, but I doubt they will. Here in the USA big business tends to get what it wants and consumers tend to get bent over a barrel.

[JoeD]

I wonder who is going to be the first to try to fight their case with a software company that has locked their license to their PC (MS/Windows) or to their account (Steam etc)

It seems like a ruling that may have little impact. I hope it does though, I miss not been able to buy old versions of software cheaply from people who have upgraded to the latest thing There's several software packages I'm doing without atm that I'd pay a few hundred for if people could legally sell/transfer their old unused licenses.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JoeD

I miss not been able to buy old versions of software cheaply from people who have upgraded to the latest thing

If someone has upgraded to a new version, they don't have an old licence to sell. They still need the old licence as a base for the upgrade licence, in most cases.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If someone has upgraded to a new version, they don't have an old licence to sell. They still need the old licence as a base for the upgrade licence, in most cases.

That's a battle I've fought occasionally with purchasers of my own software. Some joker buys an upgrade (which costs a small fraction of the initial purchase price) and then tried to sell their original CD. Some people just don't "get it".

Years ago you could sell older software versions after buying a newer version. Even if the older version was used to get a discount on a newer version, it was still doable. For example, if I had ACME Software 2.x and I used its license to purchase ACME Software 3.x, I could sell my old ACME Software 2.x but it could no longer be used as a discounted upgrade path because I had already used it as such. I had to make it clear to the buyer that my old ACME Software 2.x was a "dead end" license, that is it could not be used for upgrades. To some people that is perfectly acceptable. It will be much less expensive to buy a dead end ACME Software 2.x license than to buy a new ACME Software 3.x license. And even with upgrade paths it might still be less expensive a couple years down the road to then buy a dead end ACME Software 3.x license after ACME Software 4.x has been released. And it will almost always be less if you wait and buy every other just out dated release. Let's face it, not all software newest releases are worth updating to and some folks would be perfectly happy to be one release behind.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If someone has upgraded to a new version, they don't have an old licence to sell. They still need the old licence as a base for the upgrade licence, in most cases.

That's if they buy an upgrade license.

Some software only provide upgrade licenses if you upgrade with each version. Skip one and you've to buy again. Those old licenses would then it seems to me, be fair game to sell on. I guess I mudded the water by saying "upgrade" when it's really a re-purchase of a newer version. They're upgrading in terms of getting a newer version but not via an upgrade path/discount.

Whether you could sell an old version after using it as basis for an upgrade, I don't know. My gut says no, but with the new ruling, who knows how it would be interpreted if it also went to court. Maybe companies will instead adopt a "trade-in" policy for upgrades. You hand back the old license and they give you a new one. That would mesh with the non-digital world where upgrading a product wouldn't prevent you reselling the older version if you still had it, but trading-in the old in order to upgrade, would.

[geoffwood]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Here in the USA big business tends to get what it wants and consumers tend to get bent over a barrel.

Sorry, but I get tired of hearing this stuff. We get to buy goods at lower prices in large part because we don't have legislation that is consumer biased, as they do in the UK and the EU.

It's great that folks in the EU get better consumer protection, but they pay for it every time they buy something and seem to forget the cause when they are whining about how "unfair" it is that they have to pay more. Somebody has to pay the cost, and you know it isn't the manufacturer

[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Why do you think that?

For things like DRM like someone else mentioned.

But on another note... You can still get away with selling Windows licenses, you just have to make sure another computer isn't using it.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Why do you think that?

In much of Europe, the phrase "moral rights of the author," translated into various languages, is taken seriously. Unfortunately for Harry, I doubt the phrase "moral rights of the programmer" has the same resonance.

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

For things like DRM like someone else mentioned.

But on another note... You can still get away with selling Windows licenses, you just have to make sure another computer isn't using it.

Yeah. I had to do this when I put together a machine for a friend. We thought he still had his existing license sticker - but it was in a booklet that was destroyed in a wonder water-damage-fest when a pipe froze and turned his house into a mold-pit.

So, we bought a "used" XP license and it worked just fine.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Why do you think that?

I think she means that the Kindle reading app and others aren't physical media. They're just data that you download and each copy downloaded is in effect a new copy of that software. If I have a old copy of Win 98 and sell it to you I am reselling the physical media and the data that was burned to the disc by Microsoft way back in the 90's but every copy of the Kindle App is in effect a new copy, created when you download it.