Digital Home Thoughts: Autodesk Tried to Stop Second-Hand Software Sales

"A Seattle judge ruled in favor of a man arguing that he has the right to sell secondhand software, in a case that had some people worried about an end to used book and CD stores. The suit was initially filed by Timothy Vernor after eBay, responding to requests by Autodesk, removed the Autocad software that Vernor was trying to sell on the auction site. eBay later banned Vernor from the site, based on Autodesk's complaints"

I'm glad that the judge ruled in favour of the guy who was trying to sell the software - I too have tried to sell software on eBay and had eBay pull the listing because the company in question had a "no resale allowed" policy. If you own something, don't you have the right to sell it? Autodesk claimed that they merely "licensed" the software to the user, and that there was no ownership. The judge saw through this ridiculous statement:

"Similarly, the court cannot characterise Autodesk's decision to let its licencees retain possession of the software forever as something other than a transfer of ownership, despite numerous restrictions on that ownership."

Score one for the good guys!