German court rules used software licenses illegal
Found on Infoworld on Friday, 04 August 2006
A higher German court has ruled to uphold a decision by a lower court to ban the sale of used software licenses, in a case involving a subsidiary of Oracle.
The Appellate Court of Munich ruled on Thursday that the sale of used software licenses is illegal, upholding a decision reached by the District Court of Munich on Jan. 19, which ruled that the sale of software licenses by Soft infringed upon copyrights held by Oracle International.
At the time, the court ruled that the first sale of a license for software on tangible media, such as a CD-ROM, limits the manufacturer's right to restrict the resale of the media under certain conditions.
So this means places like eBay Germany can drop their software section? In the end, I guess that ruling might be a shot in the foot. Those who resell software usually only need it a few times. Now they are left with the decision between two options: paying up and letting it collect dust on the shelf later, or getting a pirated version for free. Well, or using an open source solution.