In Europe permitted to sell "second-hand" software

The exclusive right of distribution of copies of computer programs within licenses extends only to the first sale, decided court. It belongs as software, downloaded from network, and purchased on CD or DVD. Such court's decision makes very significant precedent for the market of a licensed software in the European Union.

The court also decided that all patches and updates entered to the software according to the service agreement are also a part of this software and can be sold together with it. Nevertheless, the court stipulated that the seller should deactivate the copy of the program on the computer when transfers the license for it to the buyer.

The federal court of Germany (German Federal Court of Justice) submitted this question of the European Court of Justice within legislative fight between Oracle and UsedSoft. The last is engaged just in purchase and resale of the "used" software. Oracle submitted a claim to UsedSoft in October, 2005.

Clients of Oracle can download copies of programs on the PCs directly from the website of corporation. User rights on such programs stipulated by the corresponding license agreement allow them to store software on the server constantly and to provide to it access to 25 users from a base memory of the computer.

It is interesting that the European Court of Justice recognized impossible "smashing" of licenses at resale if they are purchased for bigger number of users, than is in fact.

Clients of UsedSoft download programs directly from the website of Oracle after "second-hand" purchase of licenses. The federal court of Germany initially made the decision for benefit of Oracle, but after the appeal of UsedSoft made the decision to submit case to higher instance. Now the Federal court of Germany should make the final conclusion, but, taking into account the decision of the European Court of Justice, most likely it will appear not for benefit of Oracle.