The European Court of Justice has ruled

The European Court of Justice has ruled: ”An author of software cannot oppose the resale of his ‘used’ licences allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet.”

The case follows a complaint brought

The case follows a complaint brought by Oracle in Germany against UsedSoft, a site which buys and sells business software licenses from their original owners. It means the license consumers get when they buy software via download can be traded on in the same way the boxed license can be.

But Purewall as well suspects an alternative tech trend could render the ruling less important: “Two words: cloud computing.  In fact, four more words: Software as a Service.  As software and games increasingly become long-tailed services to put it more exactly than digital goods, the question of the legality of second hand sales recedes into the distance.