US Court says buyers can unbundle EULA-covered software

[Robert Harley]

This sounds cool, and perhaps significant:

http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5628
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US Court says buyers can unbundle EULA-covered software.

If you find yourself paying for bundled proprietary software and don't
actually install it, you can legally resell it no matter what the
End-User License Agreement (EULA) says. That's what Judge Dean
D. Pregerson wrote in his "Order Re: Application For Preliminary
Injunction" in the case of Softman v. Adobe.

Here's the full decision. <link>

[...]

Softman didn't make any copies, they just bought bundles of Adobe
software and resold the individual programs separately. Adobe said
that's not allowed because their sale of software to Softman isn't
really a sale, but a license. But the judge says if the transaction
has the form of a sale, it's a sale.

"The Court understands fully why licensing has many advantages for
software publishers. However, this preference does not alter the
Court's analysis that the substance of the transaction at issue here
is a sale and not a license," Judge Pregerson writes. If you put your
money down and walked away with a CD, you bought that copy, EULA or no
EULA.

[...]
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Expect the usual industry heavy-weights to show up with expensive
lawyers and lobbyists until this is overturned.

R
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