brainwagon

Sigh. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision on Friday that says that software makers can use use licenses (in particular, shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses) to keep you from legally reselling the software that you bought.

In other words, they just gutted the first-sale doctrine.

Guess What, You Don’t Own That Software You Bought

The somewhat poorly thought-out aspect of this ruling is that there is absolutely nothing keeping people from preventing any copyrighted work from resale on the used market. If you merely ship your book in a wrapper which includes a license agreement, you could be charged with copyright infringement for selling that book.

The EFF had this write up on the principle.