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Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs.
Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs.
Thanks.
You should look for the German law that translated the said directive in national law to check the applicable rules in your case as no internal law are exactly the same even if translating the same directive.
I might, but I dont think I need to. This is mainly about copyright. We are talking about the transfer of a license. Let me quote said directive (Art 6.)
Quote
The authorisation of the rightholder shall not be required where reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the meaning of points (a) and (b) of Article 4(1) are indispensable to obtain the information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, provided that the following conditions are met:
(a) those acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a person authorised to do so;
(a) those acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a person authorised to do so;
This right can be transmitted and this is what is done here. Selling used software has been ruled to be legal by the EuGH[1][2][3] even on a commercial level. The Dreamspark keys are unlimited use, MSDN licenses are to be used for testing. These keys are typcially marketed as MSDN keys, thus anyone that actually cares knows what they are buying. I am not saying its fine to do this. I merely arguing that these sales are not illegal, they might not even violate any law or the ToS as long as the MSDN account has been acquired legally.
I'm not too concerned about e.g. CS:GO skins but I'll never put a reselled MS key on my PCs, I'll definitely go to OpenOffice or other open-source software IF I want to save some bucks.
Thats personal preference and hardly relevant here. I have access to Dreamspark keys and I am not even giving them away to friends. There are enough OEM licenses on old laptops or on laptops someone installed linux on. Just ask the next person you see with a sticker[4][5] on their laptop the following two questions and Im certain you will have plenty of perfectly legit microsoft OS keys.
#1 Is this running on linux?
#2 If the answer to #1 is yes: May I buy the Microsoft license that came with the machine for ?
I cannot afford to spend money on lawyers' fees.
I have reason to believe that even if MSDN keys are misused (e.g. private use) and Microsoft had a way to detect this, they have no interest in pursuing legal action.
AFAIK fight on copyrighted software here is still going on;
This is not software piracy. The software is used with a valid license, that was legally optained and transfered. Everything else is pretty much speculation. Yes, the trust system is often used on grounds of speculation, but hardly against someone with a clear trading record for a year.
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I know this is not yet law, but I put here to try explain why the EU is not insignificant party like TECHSHARE seems to represent.
I know this is not yet law, but I put here to try explain why the EU is not insignificant party like TECHSHARE seems to represent.
Still does not matter. There might be the idea of a law in china which would possibly concern an even bigger part of humanity. Yet, its still an idea and as such no applicable to a single chinese citizen.
However, IMHO being such practice illegal in my jurisdiction i could be justified to give people trading in MSDN Keys a -ve trust feedback.
Im pretty certain I have strong arguements that this is indeed not illegal, but lets say it was. In this case your warning should at least state the region. E.g. This user is selling eggs, which is illegal in antarctica which makes me believe the user is most likely a scammer.
The last part is usually given.
I dont know what the problem is, if MSDN keys were illegal, they would be removed from the forum, its just against Microsoft's TOS. So while that isn't for forum moderation to handle, people can do as they wish with the trust system, Vod being on default trust puts him at a higher standard, but again he doesn't misrepresent any claims. As Vod is a Microsoft engineer, would it not make sense that he would be more involved than others?
The feedback he left doesn't misrepresent anything. It looks like a fair warning in my opinion. He doesn't say this guy scammed anyone in particular out of X BTC, he says, Microsoft can trace it back to the original MSDN subscription and invalidate all of the keys. People are still free to purchase the keys, but they should be aware that they could be invalidated.
The feedback he left doesn't misrepresent anything. It looks like a fair warning in my opinion. He doesn't say this guy scammed anyone in particular out of X BTC, he says, Microsoft can trace it back to the original MSDN subscription and invalidate all of the keys. People are still free to purchase the keys, but they should be aware that they could be invalidated.
At the very least he is misusing the word illegaly in order to make his point. I think a rephrasing is in order.
[1] http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/eugh-zu-oracle-vs-usedsoft-gebrauchte-software-darf-verkauft-werden-a-842260.html
[2] http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094de.pdf
[3] Im sorry, but I cant find an english source on these, its EuGH case C-128/11
[4] similar, but prefably not on a Mac: http://realgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/laptop-stickers/laptop-sticker-nerd.jpg
[5] http://i01.i.aliimg.com/wsphoto/v0/1717672545_4/15sets-lot-Hot-sale-Doodle-Luggage-STICKERS-Laptop-STICKERS-Notebook-Skins-mini-stickers-5-9cm-in.jpg
