ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_031003

Licenses, schmizenses

Today's DigiToday reports (in Finnish, sorry, I'll try to make a recap here) that the Finnish High Court has decreed that the right of first sale applies to mass-market computer software, even though the software license claims otherwise. So yeah, once you buy that copy of Windows, you may legally sell it onwards.

Just as it should be. You buy it from the shop, you don't license it.

KKO katsoi, että laajaan levitykseen tarkoitettujen tietokoneohjelmien kaupassa oli tosiasiallisesti kyse ohjelman lopullisesta luovutuksesta.

Yrittäjä oli hankkinut ohjelmat kertakorvausta vastaan, eikä niiden käyttöoikeutta ollut ajallisesti rajoitettu. Ohjelmistoyhtiöt eivät voineet yksipuolisesti rajoittaa ohjelmien kauppaa ja säilyttää itsellään määräysvaltaa yksittäiseen tietokoneohjelman kappaleeseen ja sen edelleen levittämiseen.

Roughly translated: The High Court decreed that sale of mass market software constitutes a final transfer. The entrepreneur had purchased the software for a set amount of money, and the licenses were not time-limited. Software companies cannot unilaterally limit further sales and maintain control over a single instance of a computer program and its further distribution.

Of course, this means that from now on, the yearly licensing model might just arrive in the consumer market as well... :-/

(The rest of the story? A crook got nailed for selling illegal copies of some unspecified software and was slammed with our equivalent of DMCA, copyright and trademark laws, and was also charged with license breach. The guy was only convicted of copyright violation for falsifying the license documents, fraud, forgery, and a violation of marketing laws and free trade laws. The license breach didn't stick, which spells good news for the rest of us.)