Messed up the address the first time around. Consider including legal@ and discussion@ if you have anything non-sensitive to say about this.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild repentinus@fsfe.org Date: 4 July 2012 07:01 Subject: Slashdot reports: First-sale doctrine upheld for software by the EU Court of Justice To: discussion@fsfeurope.org, legal@fsfeurope.org, policy@fsfeurope.org
Greetings,
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/07/03/1245200/used-software-can-be-sold-say...
Discuss.
Also, does someone have time to examine the decision? We might want a press release acclaiming the decision, as such a decision seems to have strengthened the people's right to share software.
Cheers, -- Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild FSFE Fellow (en) / FSFE ühinglane (et) repentinus@fsfe.org https://wiki.fsfe.org/Fellows/repentinus http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/
P.S. I hope all the recipients feel concerned about the decision, and are the right people to consider the implications.
On Wed, Jul 04, 2012 at 07:05:41AM +0000, Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild wrote:
Also, does someone have time to examine the decision? We might want a press release acclaiming the decision, as such a decision seems to have strengthened the people's right to share software.
it's an important decision - for proprietary software.
The case deals with the question of whether it's ok to resell the right to use a program. If we were talking about apples or cars, no sane person would have claimed that it's not ok for the owner of the apple or the car to sell it to someone else.
With proprietary software, apparently an ECJ decision was necessary to confirm the obvious.
With Free Software, the question doesn't even come up. If you're not allowed to redistribute the program (gratis or for a fee), it's not Free Software, period.
I see two interesting aspects to the decision, though.
One, it shows that Free Software licenses provide much more clarity, and puts the user in a stronger position, than proprietary End User License Agreements (EULAs) do.
Second, I wonder what the ruling changes for music, books, movies and other stuff sold with DRM functions that tie these to a single user. Shouldn't we be allowed to resell those as well?
The ruling also highlights that even the more central bits of such EULAs won't necessarily stand up in court, let alone all those frivolous bits that say "by using this program, you grant us unlimited and perpetual rights to slurp all your data, empty your fridge and sleep in your bed".
Best regards, Karsten