In article <8bcuvgFimdU1@mid.individual.net>, Homer <usenet@slated.org>
wrote:
> Verily I say unto thee, that Justin spake thusly:
> > I bought another Dell D430 without an Operating system off eBay. I
> > upgraded the RAM to 2GB. But of course I needed to install Windows.
> > So I bought a memory panel with an XP professional COA on it for a
> > whole $5, put that panel on the laptop and sold it! It works
> > perfectly. So, how horrible a person am I for stealing from
> > Microsoft? Should I be purged? Should I turn myself into the
> > Microsoft piracy gulag?
> > I feel so guilty. But I think I can live with it.
>
> Read the Windows EULA.
>
> "This software is licensed not sold"
>
> You are not the licensor for Windows, therefore you don't have the right
> to sell a Windows license.
>
> However, IIRC there was a legal case which upheld a seller's rights to
> sell used software under First Sale doctrine, seemingly undermining the
> enforceability of Microsoft's (or indeed any) EULA.
SoftMan v. Adobe. SoftMan was buying boxed "collections" of bundled apps
from Adobe, and then reselling them individually. Judge ruled this was
fine, on the basis that software is sold, not licensed (despite vendor
claims to the contrary), so first-sale doctrine applies.
But this decision was only at the district court level, and didn't
consider EULA enforceability, because the EULA bound on _use_ and
SoftMan never installed or used the software. In general, US court
decisions on this subject are all over the map.
> Personally I'm less concerned with the fact that you possibly "violated"
> some highly questionable "IP" claim, and more concerned with the fact
> that you destroyed a perfectly good PC by infecting it with Windows.
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
)