All the Eu ruling has done is mistakenly and perhaps unwittingly given thieves another weapon to add to their armoury of bent logic

 

I don't agree, the ruling specifically states: "Furthermore, the Court states that an original acquirer of a tangible or intangible copy of a computer program for which the copyright holder's right of distribution is exhausted must make the copy downloaded onto his own computer unusable at the time of resale. If he continued to use it he would infringe the copyright holder's exclusive right of reproduction."

 

Anyone who resells and then continues to use a piece of software is quite flagrantly in breach of this ruling. The ruling also doesn't mention anything about being required to provide tech support, only that the second buyer is allowed access to the same patches and updates as the first buyer.

I don't agree, the ruling specifically states: "Furthermore, the Court states that an original acquirer of a tangible or intangible copy of a computer program for which the copyright holder's right of distribution is exhausted must make the copy downloaded onto his own computer unusable at the time of resale. If he continued to use it he would infringe the copyright holder's exclusive right of reproduction."

 

 

Yes that's right. How ludicrously naive that EU ruling is though. Do they really think that the original user is going to take the slightest notice of that proviso? Possibly if the original user just didn't like or want the software, in which case the ruling is adhered to without needing to be stated. But the EU ruling naively side-steps the reality of its own judgement, which is that that the orirginal user can, and will, retain the software in addition to gaining from the sale of it. A child could see that this ruling is utterly unenforceable, so it is weasle words, and a platitude of the shallowest kind.

 

You might as well have a law saying a bank robber must make his movements known after he has robbed a bank so the police can find him easily.

Yes that's right. How ludicrously naive that EU ruling is though. Do they really think that the original user is going to take the slightest notice of that proviso? Possibly if the original user just didn't like or want the software, in which case the ruling is adhered to without needing to be stated. But the EU ruling naively side-steps the reality of its own judgement, which is that that the orirginal user can, and will, retain the software in addition to gaining from the sale of it. A child could see that this ruling is utterly unenforceable, so it is weasle words, and a platitude of the shallowest kind.

 

You might as well have a law saying a bank robber must make his movements known after he has robbed a bank so the police can find him easily.

 

On the other hand the court may just be re-enforcing the premise that one is innocent until proven guilty. You're assuming one's guilty of piracy before they even have committed the crime! The court is assuming up front that one is innocent and will obey the law and do what is required of them. I know that is an idealistic viewpoint in the real world, but innocent until proven guilty is suppose to be the whole premise of our justice system. (At least here in the US and I would think the UK and EU as well) Take your Bank Robber scenario above. You can't arrest a person for bank robbery because you suspect he may rob a bank, you have to wait until he actually has, or at least attempted too!!

On the other hand the court may just be re-enforcing the premise that one is innocent until proven guilty. You're assuming one's guilty of piracy before they even have committed the crime!

 

I certainly did not mean that at all, and I am a passionate supporter of habeus corpus, and the common man's protection from arrest and trial without due cause, or on a whim. My post was aimed at instances where there is clear evidence of piracy. My objection to the EU ruling is that it has been declared on the basis of ignorance about the nature of software and it also seeks to give protection to pirates when already (through lack of coherent legislation and policing) they are afforded protection in practice.

 

Clearly the ruling was designed to provide a challenge to large corporations like Apple who monopolise their operations in the distribution for example of music downloads by placing draconian restrictions on licencing and distribution. In this instance I support the legislation and any other that reduces the excessive power of such corporations. But the judge forgot about those smaller, non-monopollistic software producers who suffer huge losses through piracy.

If piracy is rampant, then that suggests to me the resale value would be close to zero. The issue here isn't piracy, it's whether first sale doctrine applies equally to software distrbuted via download (in this case from Oracle) or via hard media such as DVD. If the problem is prior licensed owner retaining an illegal copy after resale, ISTM that in most cases exists equally in either distribution method so I don't see a reason for different treatment of downloaded works.

 

scott s.

.

I certainly did not mean that at all, and I am a passionate supporter of habeus corpus, and the common man's protection from arrest and trial without due cause, or on a whim. My post was aimed at instances where there is clear evidence of piracy. My objection to the EU ruling is that it has been declared on the basis of ignorance about the nature of software and it also seeks to give protection to pirates when already (through lack of coherent legislation and policing) they are afforded protection in practice.

 

How does this ruling seek to give protection to pirates? It clearly states that the right of reproduction rests solely with the copyright holder and that resale is only permitted if the first buyer can no longer use the software after resale. If there is clear evidence of piracy the pirate can be prosecuted on that basis, this ruling doesn't change that in any way.

OK, "seek" was perhaps the wrong word. What I am trying to put across is that the ruling doesn't grasp something rather important: that in practice, it is almost impossible to police or detect piracy of the kind where a licence holder of software transfers the licence but retains the software. While it might not be the ruling's purpose to enter that debate, rather to clarify the position on corporate over-control of software, it gives the wrong signal to those who do (in vast numbers) retain use of sofware despite selling it on.

 

Perhaps you'd like to comment on the gist of my other post where I discuss the ease with which a significant minority of software users in this and other industries seem to justify their theft of other people's hard work.

Perhaps you'd like to comment on the gist of my other post where I discuss the ease with which a significant minority of software users in this and other industries seem to justify their theft of other people's hard work.

 

Sure: I agree completely with what you said. All those excuses are a false way of trying to justify to one's self what is essentially theft of someones hard work.

 

I just don't see how a ruling that clearly states that resale is only legal if you disable your own copy and that you do not have the right to reproduce the software is sending the wrong signal.

 

Also, is it really that much harder to detect piracy after resale than just normal piracy? In both cases there are two machines running the same license.

Also, is it really that much harder to detect piracy after resale than just normal piracy? In both cases there are two machines running the same license.

 

I'd argue it is more detectable. In the resale piracy case, the user has already registered their copy with their personal info. Then they register the fact that they're transferring ownership, and the new owner's personal info is registered. You have the opportunity to politely remind the original owner that they must destory any copies of the software they have and uninstall it, and your transfer process might even enforce this somehow.

 

Contrast that with a cracked piece of software. That software is never registered anywhere, and is likely patched so that it does not phone home, and people who run such software probably run software firewalls and such to block any attempts to phone home. If it does manage to phone home you get an IP and a date/time, which requires more effort to tie to an actual person.

 

I'll agree that it is still hard to enforce, but people who pay the developer and register/etc are probably the sort of people who would do the right thing anyway. I doubt that people will buy and resell the software just to avoid having to use a torrent site or whatever.

I'd argue it is more detectable. In the resale piracy case, the user has already registered their copy with their personal info. Then they register the fact that they're transferring ownership, and the new owner's personal info is registered. You have the opportunity to politely remind the original owner that they must destory any copies of the software they have and uninstall it, and your transfer process might even enforce this somehow.

 

I can't see a developer/distributer wanting to support license transfers, that's extra work for no return.

 

I think they'd have to use technology (server based) to prevent more than one computer or user from using the same license.

 

Then as long as the first user never tries to use that license again everything is fine.

 

If the first user does try and use software after its license is transferred, the system only validates the first one it finds and blocks out the 2nd one

 

The developer stays completely out of the process. It would then be up to the 2nd licensee to somehow try and get his money back from the first licensee when his software no longer works.

 

 

The latter might actually discourage people from taking the risk in purchasing 2nd hand licenses.

 

Regards.

Ernie.

If the first user does try and use software after its license is transferred, the system only validates the first one it finds and blocks out the 2nd one

 

The developer stays completely out of the process. It would then be up to the 2nd licensee to somehow try and get his money back from the first licensee when his software no longer works.

 

Good luck with that in court. What would happen would be that the 2nd licensee would need a crack. An enterprising company specializing in cracking transferred software would offer the 2nd user a crack, perhaps for a small fee, or maybe they could make it ad-supported (I imagine there would be plenty of demand). The user can download a certified virus-free crack from a soon-to-be-reputable company from a website that lists cracks in a nice organized fashion.

 

Perhaps that third party might ask for proof of license transfer, of an affidavit or something.

 

Viola, second user has no trouble at all.

 

Today when a site carries cracks like these the copyright holder to the original software typically sues them to get them taken down, and this is virtually certain to succeed, often with criminal charges brought as well. However, in this case the site will simply claim that they only carry cracks to downloadable software that the original vendor refuses to cooperate in facilitating the legal transfer. They point out that they ask for certification that the transfer is legit. Since transfers are private sales between individuals this will never require more than a hand-written receipt. Chances are the EU court will uphold this now-reputable company since they're facilitating legitimate commerce, and only cracking software where the vendor has copy protection contrary to the provisions of the law.

 

Of course, who is to stop people from providing false receipts or uploading copies of those cracks all over the place, now that people are paid to crack copyrighted software en masse from a cubicle somewhere?

 

It seems to me that the best solution for those distributing software is to cooperate with the EU and have a process for license transfer. Sure, you don't HAVE to make it easy, but the courts don't have to make it easy to shut down warez sites either. Again, see what happened in Canada when DirecTV refused to sell service there - the government allowed descrambler technology to be sold in normal retain stores, professionally created by engineers on salary. And of course these products leaked down into the US, their main market.

 

The bottom line is that if an industry doesn't want to find unfavorable regulations thrust upon it, they are best off regulating themselves.

...What would happen would be that the 2nd licensee would need a crack...

 

Viola, second user has no trouble at all.

 

Today when a site carries cracks like these the copyright holder to the original software

typically sues them to get them taken down.

 

All the system will care about is alllowing 'one' user per license.

 

Getting a crack for the software itself doesn't get around the one user per license restriction

when its being enforced by a server.

 

As soon as the server detects more than user per license, its going to block the other user(s).

 

If the first user after the license transfer continues using that software, then he causes

a problem for the 2nd user.

 

"It seems to me that the best solution for those distributing software is to cooperate with the

EU and have a process for license transfer"

 

The more likely result will be Addon devs moving faster to cloud based servers for software

distribution where you download most of it for free, but some crucial component(s) that it

cannot work without sits on a server that you'll need to pay subscription fee for access.

 

Regards.

Ernie.

The more likely result will be Addon devs moving faster to cloud based servers for software

distribution where you download most of it for free, but some crucial component(s) that it

cannot work without sits on a server that you'll need to pay subscription fee for access.

 

Well, a subscription-based approach eliminates the resale issue anyway - the software is rented.

 

If there is no charge but the server is just validating the original purchase, then the success of the scheme would depend on:

 

1. The component on the server being complex enough that it cannot simply be replaced locally.

2. The code never actually leaving the server - input goes in, output goes out, code stays put (if the code actually gets sent to the client then the crackers will simply copy it - the fundamental DRM problem).

3. The software actually having a decent experience under these circumstances. Any communications with a server will involve latency, so it isn't like you can just feed a stream of all the simulator data in and stream control settings and rendering out in realtime.

 

Chances are that if the software was that strong a candidate to run with a major component on the cloud the whole thing would be cloud-based anyway, like some web-based flight planning tool.

 

All of this also ignores the possibility of legal sanctions, though the EU's jurisdiction would come into play here. A US-based developer couldn't be forced to actually comply with an injunction without US cooperation (which seems unlikely unless a similar ruling is made in the US). Of course, the developer would have to refrain from visiting the EU or countries that would allow extradition to there, which isn't exactly a great way to live. The developer would also have to take care to never have assets in the EU to seize and so on.

 

I doubt it would really come to anything like this on a broad scale. Most likely we'll see how this plays out with EU software vendors selling to EU customers, and then the customs that arise will start applying to work produced elsewhere, starting with whatever sales the EU can control.

Just three points.

 

Legal

 

1. You, as a developer OR a reseller, cannot 'rent' or 'lease' the software so long as you are subject to US jurisdiction. You will be in direct violation of 17 U.S.C. § 109 [2]. Be careful on how you choose to run and word a 'subscription' service.

 

2. Just because the 9th Circuit upheld a ruling DOES NOT mean it is law throughout the U.S. It is ONLY law in Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Northern Marianas Islands, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Other courts around the country are free to consider and even implement this ruling but they ARE NOT bound by it in any way. This issue was contested page ago and needed to be cleared up.

 

Business

 

3. The real money awaits whomever is able to produce a commercially successful software exchange specific to flightsim. Find a manner that is least harmful to developers but most beneficial to users. Charging a small service fee, the exchange would facilitate two parties transacting money for software. Like it or not, this is the likely future of contract law. Might as well make it more streamlined for the consumer whilst making your own commercial success.

Might as well throw my opinion in the mix. . . . . .

 

 

 

 

I've got somewhere around $1500-$1800 in addon's for FS9 and FSX combined; it adds up over time! I can only think of two, eh maybe three add-on's I wouldn't mind re-selling. They just weren't as purty as the screenshots made them out to be.

 

I don't really participate in flightsim forums, but I read them everyday. I see very little buyer's remorse except for the occasional new simmer that falls for an abacus title. I guess what I'm getting at, is how many people would really re-sell their add-on's? We have so many awesome things to choose from. I remember when the only option was to go down to the video game store and pay $40 for a CD with 4-5 planes on it that completely sucked by today's standards, but at least you had something new to play with. And this wasn't that long ago people!

 

However, I do like the idea of not being tied down to anything I've purchase; I play several xbox games, and I won't buy any DLC because I know that I'm 100% stuck with it. I honestly didn't know it was illegal, and if it came down to me needing to eat or play a video game, I'd sell the software in a heartbeat. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet.

 

From what I've seen in this topic, I think there may be some overreaction from what appear to be dev's; sure there are some that will unload a few titles, but we're a pretty loyal bunch, don't you think? You treat us right, we'll treat you right.

 

As for support, how much time/money are you really spending per title? Just curious really.

 

Out of all the add-on's I've bought, i've only asked one developer for tech support. And to be honest, the support was quite pitiful. I won't call it by name, but its a certain weather related title. The add-on is awesome though when you don't have problems. I've read through their forum countless times looking for answers I could never get directly, and the attitude of the director of the company towards some of his customers is disturbing. So I pretty much stick to reading forums like avsim if I'm trying to figure something out, just like everybody else.

 

So in the end, what's wrong with you working within the system that almost every other manufacturing company does?