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Comment by NonNefarious | Hacker News Reader

Autodesk's behavior has long been acknowledged as despicable, marked by such offenses as attacking instructional fan sites and managing to get some ignorant judge to rule in favor of their rip-off licensing scam. They claim that when you buy their software, you only buy a "perpetual license"; so if you find that you can't use the software, you can't sell it to someone else. If you tried to sell an unopened, new copy of their software on eBay, for example, their lawyers would threaten eBay and have your auction canceled. Yes, they did this for ONE copy.

Can't innovate anymore? Just behave like assholes.

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Really? Software sold in a box, can't resell it? Tell me more.

Not unusual. MS used to do the same thing.

Not excusing either party, just pointing out it's not that uncommon in high-end corporate software.

You're not buying a thing in a box, you're buying a license with associated terms. Which may include prohibiting resale.

If the US had credible anti-trust laws this kind of thing would be taken apart in court. But it doesn't, so here we are.

Like if you don't even open it? Isn't the license shit only in the software when you start it up? Or do they ask for your social and link it to the box? The for sure want to.

That became an issue in Australia. There is an extensive article here:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/PrecedentAULA/2009/97....

Great article, very informative. So apparently you can always buy a box and give it back as is--though stores selling them were typically reluctant to provide refunds in general. Except with the shrink-wrap license: provided the shrink-wrap is intact, by all means you can return the box. That clarifies many things.

What more do you want to know? I just told you what they did. I put a shrink-wrapped box of Autodesk software on eBay and they threatened eBay in order to have it taken down.

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