how much for an older Autocad license 14, 12...?

That isn't correct: You don't buy software, you buy a licence to use a piece of code. This piece of code is the intellectual property of the software company who sold you the licence. What you buy - in terms of "this is mine" - is a CD-ROM and a handbook in a box.

You don't have to stop using the software unless your licence expires, e.g. student versions are usually limited to a period of two years. What keeps you from using a full commerical software licence until hell freezes over? Who forces you to update? And if you update, your original software licence usually becomes part of the new licence, so they mustn't be separated anyway.

Kind regards, Olaf

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Finally, someone that can understand the EULA.

"Olaf Peuss" wrote

wrong. Legally

to do with that

are user rights,

aware of the

forced upon users _ex

national and

non-applicable either only

licence purchase.......

Can you prove this? In the U.S., has an individual or company ever won a judgement against Autodesk to allow for said individual or company to resell an Autodesk license? Please provide URL's to your evidence.

You are correct, a licensee may "use, give away, sell or throwaway", where you are wrong it that a licensee cannot do it legally.

cadmaster wrote:

Or, to be even more precise: Any licencee is free to do with their licence whatever they please: Stop using it, destroy it, donate it to a charity organisation or dispose of it in any way they deem fit. Whatever end users decide to do with their licence, there will always be the flaw that no other end user can become a *legitimate* licencee of that very licence as end user licences are non-transferable without Autodesk's explicit consent. And Autodesk simply refuses to honour licence transfers from one end user to another, i.e., fully commercial licences do not expire but simply stay with the original licencee (= end user) regardless to whom that end user hands over the software CD-ROMs, handbooks, licence documents, purchase contract etc. Consequently, an end user, who acquires an Autodesk software package from another end user, only obtains proprietorship of the "hardware" (CD-ROMs, handbooks etc.) but never of the licence to use that very software package on their computer system. In a nutshell: End users who acquire a fully commerical licence from another end user become software pirats in the very moment they enter the licence code and start using the application on their own computer systems. So, the point at which using the software becomes illegal is not at the transfer from one end user to another (actually, that transfer is irrelevant as it does not exist in legal terms). "Software piracy" starts at the point at which end users, who have obtained the licence from another end user, start using an unlicenced software on their computer.

If anyone has evidence of successful legal proceedings / court decisions according to which Autodesk was forced to honour an end user-to-end user licence transfer, please post such evidence (or the links to such evidence) to this newsgroup. On a footnote, it would also be interesting to learn how long such proceeedings took, i.e., how quickly (or rather "how slowly") such a decision - if it exists - was made.

I simply reckon it a useless "popcorn discussion" to argue that in theory the point of view described above is wrong if there are no facts to prove that end users have successfully convinced (or forced) Autodesk to honour a private licence transfer.

And at this point, I shall rest my case. :-)

Kind regards, Olaf

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This isn't exactly what you're asking for (and I don't think it exists) but maybe it'll help:

Michael (LS)

Great! Any volunteers to go into litigation with Autodesk based on that decision? ;-)

Kind regards, Olaf

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In 1994 I received/transfered AutoCAD 12 from my former emplorer with Autodesk's and the local distributor's blessing and have received several upgrades ever since. What do you say to that! All quite legal. As usual I go through a long procedure to prove ownership every time I upgrade but it is quite legal.

CGH

1. That happened quite a while ago. You may consider that Autodesk has meanwhile changed their policy of honouring licence transfers from end user to end user.
2. Where did I write that licence transfers from end user to end user were illegal as such? I wrote explicitly that they are illegal without Autodesk's consent.

Kind regards, Olaf

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