A US Appeal Court has ruled that software companies can stop people from 're-selling' their software if the terms of the software licence prohibit such re-sales. The case involved Autodesk trying to stop a Mr Vernor from re-selling Autodesk's software on eBay without its consent. Autodesk claimed that this infringed its copyright. However, Mr Vernor argued that, under the US's first sale doctrine, he could not be stopped from re-sale as he was free to dispose of products as he saw fit once the goods had been sold for the first time. After that, so Mr Vernor claimed, the original product owner could not control what happened to them. In a surprising decision, the first court had agreed with Mr Vernor. However, now the Appeals Court has given a more expected result by overturning that original decision. It said that Autodesk retained title to the software and its transfer restrictions in the software licence could be enforced. Mr Vernor was a mere licensee – rather than owner – of the software and so had to abide by the software licence restrictions.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
We operate a free-to-view policy, asking only that you register in order to read all of our content. Please login or register to view the rest of this article.