Court Rules ACAD Resale Lawful--what's that mean for SolidWorks? 2

[Theophilus]

Just saw this in Cadalyst magazine:

http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=526878

Interesting--wonder how/if this will affect the license agreement for SolidWorks. Thoughts?



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.

 

[DraftingMan]

I do not see this affecting SolidWorks much, as the item you purchase is not the software but the serial number. As long as you sell the original disc and not a copy, it is the same a selling a book to a used book store. Autodesk should have understood this long ago.





John H. Dunten, CD
Certified Drafter

 

[fcsuper]

Draftingman,

That actually isn't true at all. The criteria for what represents a first-sale was maintained and applies to any software that is not leased for a limited duration of time, regardless of how the licensing scheme is cooked up. I actually covered this case topic back in May on my blog: First-Sale Doctrine Upheld.



Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[Theophilus]

That's what I was thinking, Matt. I don't see the differences with this case between the two (ACAD or SW) since they both involve the selling of copies of software on real discs. The licenses may have differing terms, but the judge's remarks in this case pose interesting ramifications for almost any software company operating under typical license agreements of this type. This might be huge.

One tweak is regarding the SW policy of not supporting/updating copies of software obtained second-hand instead of via a VAR. Would this ruling force their hand in any way? Perhaps SW has gotten around the power of this ruling--sure, a user might get their particular copy of software to operate, but it might never see the ability to be upgraded.

By the way--excellent article on the topic!



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.

 

[DraftingMan]

fcsuper,

SolidWorks will work for an indefinite period of time after it is purchased. In no way is there a time limit on SolidWorks.

The subscription fee that is paid each year is for updates and new versions.

If you purchase SW 2008 SP 4.0 toady, it will work for 100 years if your computer is still working in 100 years.

Why and how could SolidWorks stop me if I sold somebody my SW 2007 SP 0.0 disc set?

John H. Dunten, CD
Certified Drafter

 

[J-C]

I'm not sure if they would come after you but it is against their license agreement. You are not allowed to resell it.

1.A. Grant of License. SolidWorks grants to you a nonexclusive nontransferable license to use the Software and the printed and/or electronic user documentation (the "Documentation") accompanying the Software in accordance with this Agreement.

Jason

SolidWorks 2007 SP5.0
SolidWorks 2008 SP0.1
WinXp sp2 (32 and 64 bit)

 

[pdybeck]

I'll throw another tidbit in. I have had a license transferred to my personal company from my father's company. Had to get permission and jump through hoops to do it, but SolidWorks did allow it. I have since been paying subscription of the license. So, they do allow license transfers - but it doesn't seem a sale to another individual could transfer the license in SolidWorks minds... This is the issue at hand I think, and from what is being shown in the case with AutoDesk - they can't enforce it how they want to. I would think it would have implications on SolidWorks and resale of its software. I always like to think about these things by extending it to other products in the marketplace, like a car for instance. Imagine if car manufacturers acted the same way when you tried to sell your car and then the next owner tried to purchase parts for a fix and the car manufacturers acted the same way the software companies do... By the way, there is a ton of software in automobiles.

 

[fcsuper]

DraftingMan,

Yes, we know. I'm was responding to your comment regarding "as the item you purchase is not the software but the serial number." This comment was not true. SW is under the same rules as any other software. This rule reasserts those rules inspite of any licensing agreement.

Licensing agreements cannot supercede law. They are subject to the law of the land where the application is in use. Where licensing agreements are in conflict with the law, those portions are invalid and could (in some cases) be grounds for penal action against the publisher (as some states make certain provisions specifically illegal).

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[Theophilus]

And, one of the things cited as objectionable with common license agreements is that software licenses "sold" without limited time terms for use of the software cannot then be so restricted for resale as these license agreements state. So this is the area of license agreements that seem to conflict with current law.

If it's as simple as that, I'd say SolidWorks is facing difficulty in keeping their license agreement as-is (without challenges, anyway).



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.

 

[pdybeck]

I think to combat all of this, software companies are interested in Software as a Service. Running SolidWorks in a cloud can get around many issues, such as licensing, piracy, version compatibility among files (all users use the same version), installation in mulitple locations/number of instances, questions ad nausiam on hardware that suck up SolidWorks time fixing problems not their own. Look at Arena PLM as a good example of this. I think it is inevitable that software is moving in this direction.

 

[smcadman]

We bought a company and they had a few seats of SW. It took several weeks for Texas Engineering Systems (our VAR) to have the licenses transferred to us.

I have seen AutoCAD being sold on Ebay, and they should allow it as long as the buyer doesn't expect tech support and upgrades. We have old CD's of SW and it would be nice if we could sell them because they are just sitting on a shelf gathering dust even though $thousands was spent on them.









Flores

 

[Theophilus]

Well, with this ruling, perhaps you can sell them. I always thought that was a strange policy, anyway.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.

 

[Standing]

Great find Theophilus.
A star for you.

Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2008 x64, SP4.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
Dell XPS Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 5 GB RAM, Virtual memory 10240 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 3400
"If it ain't broke, you just haven't looked hard enough." Fix it anyway.

 

[Theophilus]

Thanks! Read Matt's posted article above, too. Better than what I posted, since it's got some great details (third post, fcsuper).



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

A people who value security over freedom will soon find they have neither.

 

[Standing]

Matt,
Very well written article. A star for you.


Bradley
SolidWorks Pro 2008 x64, SP4.0
PDMWorks Workgroup, SolidWorks BOM,
Dell XPS Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 5 GB RAM, Virtual memory 10240 MB,
nVidia Quadro FX 3400
"If it ain't broke, you just haven't looked hard enough." Fix it anyway.