"Used" licenses reselling

[NicoC]

Hello,

After being in contact with french responsible of Chaos Group support, I'm a bit angry and would like to share my experience here, with other VRay users, to get some advice. Please let me explain quickly my problem: I've run a small company for about 5 years, and it's now about to close for several reasons I won't develop here (not enough work, disagreement with associate ...). Obviously, there are a few things to pay left. That's why I need to resell not only the hardware we have, but I was thinking about reselling the software licenses we bought as well ... and this is where the troubles start. Since we have 2 VRay licenses, I wrote an email to Chaos Group support to know how to proceed to resell our licenses. You can find below a quick translation from French of Chaos Group guy answer, as well as the one the answer I sent him:

Our licensing policy, as well as all other publishers, excludes the possibility of resale, lease or transfer its license to a person / company third.
Technically, you could give your friend the dongle but know that in this case it will be considered illegal user and therefore punishable.
I understand your difficulties and find it a pity because I think your reports are really not bad, but unfortunately we can not accept this kind of request.

Thank you for your understanding and good luck for the future.

My answer:

Hello,

Thank you for your answer.
However, I find it outrageous. My company bought 2 licenses VRay, and therefore paid for the right to use this software for commercial purposes. How this right would not it be transferable?
I also invite you to visit various links on recent case law on the subject: http://www.afjv.com/news/1308_revent...s-occasion.htm or http://curia.europa.eu / jcms/upload...cp120094fr.pdf

This case is very recent, so it's probably normal for software developers such as Chaos Group has not yet learned ... or pretend to ignore it.

I hope that you will be ready to reconsider your position. I totally disagree to "abandon" licenses purchased while my company goes out of business, and so anything that can be sold to pay the debts of the company.

Waiting to hear from you,

Cordially.

What do you guys think ?
Thanks in advance.

Regards.

[instinct]

While i hate not being able to resell used software, to be fair this is explicitly written in the license agreement. According to this you did not "buy software" but pay for a "personal non-exclusive, non-transferable limited license to use the enclosed program".

Recent lawsuits is probably the reason for companies to move their licensing schemes to "the cloud" (See Adobe, and probably AD in the future). Which is just another reason to hate that buzzword. Bye bye perpetual licenses...welcome higher costs and less security.

I guess the situation is also very different for different countries. A recent ruling here for example stated that the publisher can not force you NOT to resale the software, but also does not have to actively support it. So if it is a node locked license that equals not being able to sell it.

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[NicoC]

Hello Thorsten,

Thank you for your answer.
While I'm totally aware of the license agreement, I think it's now out of the law. I could for example write in my Sales Conditions whatever I have in mind, that would not mean I respect the law.
This all the more pisses me off that it's a problem legal users have, while warez software users don't have to care about for sure ! I mean, we initially want to work with "legal" tools, thus buying licenses ... and now, we're told we can't transfer the right to use the software, right we initially paid for ? wtf ... if it's the way to go, believe me, I won't bother buying ANY software license in the future (as freelancer or whatever), just use nicely cracked software to produce work I get paid for. And I'll wait for any software dev to sue me


Regards.

[super gnu]

something similar happened at the company i used to work at. in this case it was 16 seats of 3dsmax though. the company went bankrupt, and a new company was formed from the ashes. despite all the same people being there, and having not two pennies to rub together, we were contacted by autodesk, who had heard we had gone broke, and were told in no uncertain terms we had to purchase all our software again. we had to borrow money to comply, which in the height of the 2007 crash, wasnt exactly easy.

[Neilg]

we're told we can't transfer the right to use the software, right we initially paid for ?

You bought the right to use it. not somebody else.

If you're starting a new company, and you still have the licenses, you can still use it. What you asked was if you can sell them to make some money. Pirates also couldn't sell their software to make some money, so it was totally irrelevant bringing that up and kind of a childish threat.

[flino2004]

I agreed with you, Nico...Nico is not trying to make some money, he wants to recover some money...He has to sell at a lower price to be attractive to a potential buyer.
for example, Vue let you transfer the licenses...this new user or an existing one will pay for upgrade them anyways, maybe chaos could you work on that a little more and maybe force the users that want to resale their licenses under Chaosgroup supervision at fix price for everybody to protect the value of the product.

[NicoC]

Yes, "I" bought the right to use the software, not somebody else - I totally agree. That's not the point at all -> I'm not trying to have somebody else using the same license "simultaneously", simply transferring the right to use the software, thus not using the license anymore myself. Sorry, but at the 21st century, deciding that "no, you can't transfer the right to use our software" appears stone-age to me, to say the least. On top of that, it can't be to make money, because it would imply that one would resell at an higher price than the one initially paid ... which is obviously not the case when reselling "used" software. So please, Cubiclegangster think twice before writing nonsenses.

I'd add that even if it wasn't for economical reasons (= company closing here), why the hell wouldn't we be allowed to resell a software we wouldn't use anymore ? for any reason you can imagine, for example you found something that fits your needs better, or changed your field and don't need it anymore, who knows ....

Oh and btw, Cubiclegangster, I don't see where you found any "threat" in my posts, even less a "childish" one ... you'd have to explain me that point, as well as a reason to use a childish pseudo please don't jump out of the roof, just kidding ... I don't understand the use of pseudos between professionals anyway, but that's not the point

regards.

[instinct]

Yes, "I" bought the right to use the software, not somebody else - I totally agree. That's not the point at all -> I'm not trying to have somebody else using the same license "simultaneously", simply transferring the right to use the software, thus not using the license anymore myself. Sorry, but at the 21st century, deciding that "no, you can't transfer the right to use our software" appears stone-age to me, to say the least. On top of that, it can't be to make money, because it would imply that one would resell at an higher price than the one initially paid ... which is obviously not the case when reselling "used" software. So please, Cubiclegangster think twice before writing nonsenses.

There are different types of licenses and contracts. Some are transferable, some not. Why didn't you bring that up when buying the software? The license agreement was all there...My bus ticket is only transferable because i paid extra to have it be so. My landline contract is not transferable at all (e.g. to a following tenant). While i agree that there needs to be clear regulations i find it to be the other way round. It seems stone age to "having bought software" like a physical good when it is not. No need to call other peoples' opinions on that issue nonsense.

I'd add that even if it wasn't for economical reasons (= company closing here), why the hell wouldn't we be allowed to resell a software we wouldn't use anymore ? for any reason you can imagine, for example you found something that fits your needs better, or changed your field and don't need it anymore, who knows ....

Because it reduces the potential amount of sales by the developer along with causing additional costs (e.g. support). It may or may not be the better way for a company to allow or not. But it is not a crystal clear black or white topic.

Oh and btw, Cubiclegangster, I don't see where you found any "threat" in my posts, even less a "childish" one ... you'd have to explain me that point, as well as a reason to use a childish pseudo please don't jump out of the roof, just kidding ... I don't understand the use of pseudos between professionals anyway, but that's not the point

I'd say jumping on a typo to call other peoples name is pretty much along these lines In addition using real names seems pretty stone age. I think what he meant was, that this thread seems like you are trying to make this a PR topic to settle your case. Which may be understandable, but is not really good style.

Wrapping up i do agree that there need to be clear regulations and i would like to be able to sell used software (a license cannot be "used" i'd say. It is granted or not) but current License agreements hardly allow for it and are available to read before hand.

Regards,
Thorsten

[joconnell]

Would it be a thought then to get Chaos to bring in some kind of license transfer fee to cover the admin cost of updating things? Again if the license is moving from one person to another, the amount of support customers doesn't increase, just the point of contact changes?

[NicoC]

No need to call other peoples' opinions on that issue nonsense.

What I called "nonsense" here is only the fact that Cubiclegangster seemed to suggest I wanted to resell my licenses to "make money" ... if you consider, like I do, that making money implies a profit/gain, so yes, it's a nonsense in this case

I think what he meant was, that this thread seems like you are trying to make this a PR topic to settle your case. Which may be understandable, but is not really good style.

I'm sorry if one may think this way, because it's not what I had in mind. I'd only like to share some experience, because it's new to me ! I'm in CG industry for about 12 years now, and I've tried as much as possible to stay legal. For example, when I started as a freelancer, I made a bank loan to get 3dsmax and Combustion as well as a few other tools. But I never thought about reselling what I call "used" software here ... meaning that the software license would be "second hand" or whatever. But since we're in a "give us money and shut up" mode ... anyway, I can't do much more, I mean I probably won't sue every software editor with License Agreement not really conform to UE law I'd do that with pleasure if I had time/money though.

To conclude with, I'm sorry if my post has been taken the wrong way - the aim wasn't to start any flame war or so. It's mainly to get some other users experience, and maybe pointing what I see like something deeply unfair and hardly (I didn't write "not") justified.

Regards.

[NicoC]

Would it be a thought then to get Chaos to bring in some kind of license transfer fee to cover the admin cost of updating things? Again if the license is moving from one person to another, the amount of support customers doesn't increase, just the point of contact changes?

Totally agree.

[instinct]

Agreed this would be nice.

[trixian]

I think a lot of you seem to live under the impression that any arbitrary corporate entity is entitled to enforce anything they write in their license terms, and that you somehow need to comply regardless. If you think about it for more than a second, and try to see this from a perspective (other than your current one), you should see this is rather preposterous.
The problem here is that up until recently, Software companies have had complete Carte Blanche when it comes to this, and "users"\customers are typically people who don't have too much experience with these matters in a legal term. In addition, legislators have typically been completely oblivious to the need for rules and regulations in this area up until the last few years.

Now, at least in the EU, there has, for the first time, been set a precedent and a court ruling on this specifically stating that software purchased is to be regarded as any other goods you purchase, giving the purchaser and seller the same rights and restrictions as you are guaranteed in other commerce, like physical goods.
That being said, I do think there should be certain exceptions for software, at least when it comes to certain business models and the typical type of digital "consumables", where standard practices would seem impractical.
Reselling a license to use a piece of rendering software, on the other hand, should definitely not be considered as one of those exceptions.

Why Chaos group have decided to stone wall on this, (giving them the benefit of doubt) is most likely because of the fact it is a new ruling, and would force software developers to restructure their practices and Eulas etc. and this has not been done as of yet. They might possibly not even know how to deal with this issue, and need some sort of corporate guideline defined first.

Anyway, I think Chaos is the very type of company that would\should take this into consideration, and set up some type of transfer system, defining their product as a license and it's support. Any binary blobs and dlls attatched are purely a required means for the customer to utilise their product.

Of course, it could also be just plain greed

[instinct]

I think a lot of you seem to live under the impression that any arbitrary corporate entity is entitled to enforce anything they write in their license terms, and that you somehow need to comply regardless.

What makes you think so? See my previous replies. Yes it might be that parts of agreements are not valid in certain countries. But that does not invalidate all license agreements as a whole, nor does it help you a lot if a company does not help you with your needs. You still have to go to court in that case. And this also does not mean you should not read the license agreement and bring up problems before buying, rather than when trying to sell the software, no?

The problem here is that up until recently, Software companies have had complete Carte Blanche when it comes to this, and "users"\customers are typically people who don't have too much experience with these matters in a legal term. In addition, legislators have typically been completely oblivious to the need for rules and regulations in this area up until the last few years.
Now, at least in the EU, there has, for the first time, been set a precedent and a court ruling on this specifically stating that software purchased is to be regarded as any other goods you purchase, giving the purchaser and seller the same rights and restrictions as you are guaranteed in other commerce, like physical goods.
That being said, I do think there should be certain exceptions for software, at least when it comes to certain business models and the typical type of digital "consumables", where standard practices would seem impractical.
Reselling a license to use a piece of rendering software, on the other hand, should definitely not be considered as one of those exceptions.
Why Chaos group have decided to stone wall on this, (giving them the benefit of doubt) is most likely because of the fact it is a new ruling, and would force software developers to restructure their practices and Eulas etc. and this has not been done as of yet. They might possibly not even know how to deal with this issue, and need some sort of corporate guideline defined first.
Of course, it could also be just plain greed

This is still country dependent if i am not mistaken. Also see my previous post that at least here in .de they cannot stop you from selling the license, but they can neither be forced to provide updated license files, serials or update your dongle if it needs to. So as long as it is a node locked license that does not help you. And they do not have to support the buyer either. So the new ruling is not solving the issue in my eyes...just bringing up more questions and gray areas

Regards,
Thorsten

[Preisler]

Hi NicoC,

...I don't want to bring fuel to the fire But I just read a danish article that claims that if you buy software in the EU you can sell it again in the EU as long as it is used software.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...aded-software/
http://www.zdnet.com/oracle-cannot-b...pe-7000000189/

Case-law of the Court of Justice - Case C‑128/11:
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documen...=1&cid=5252243