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From: "Frank Brand" <fbrand at uq.net.au>
To: <general at lists.humbug.org.au>
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] The Gates Retirement Fund
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 17:58:47 +1000
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>actually that's more like what i do. i'm not the official owner of the
>software in that i haven't been the one to shell out the cash, but i have
>the permission of the person who did pay for it to use their cdkey, and i
>only use what they're no longer using. (my father is quite fussy about
>which version of windows he'll have installed on his machine)


IANAL but I think MS claims that the licences are not transferable - it is
certainly the case if you bought a package like Dell or Gateway where the
licence was part of the deal. I know that is the case in the US. They also
claim this in other jurisdictions but it is not yet tested. The issue has
been taken to the courts in Germany and MS lost. However, in the US EBay can
not have second hand MS software on sale. Actually, in law they can but MS
makes it so tough to do in practice that you really need to be keen.
Obviously tthe greatest threat to new MS software is the exsistence of old
MS software. Who is going to shell out for XP when they have a copy of Win
98 say.

>i'm not entirely sure how the law works in this case tho. i didn' t pay for
>the software, and i'm not in possession of the original cd or certificate
>of authentication.


mmmm no certificate, no original disk, no evidence at all of
purchase...Federal police visit...sorry Miss but $25,000 fine and
confiscation of your equipment (well I think it is $25,000 fine
anyway...these software things are quite draconian). Thats why not many big
companies like to take MS on...if the software police come to check 5,000
machines they are bound to find a number of unlicenced boxes.

I saw a guy pay $300 for a cardboard box at an auction one day...I asked him
why he did that...he said it had 60 Win 95 licence certificates in it and he
was just covering his butt.

On EBAY MS insists that everything that was in the box at purchase is
included with the next sale Iincluding the packaging, pamphlets and cards
etc. Who keeps them?


Frank Brand


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