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Comment by NolF | Hacker News Reader

For Australians, if you are affected, this is the kind of issue that should be raised with ACCC at https://www.accc.gov.au/about-us/contact-us/report-a-consume....

It falls under the Australian Consumer Protection under misleading or deceptive conduct.[0] A lifetime licence marketed as such cannot be withdrawn let alone with EULA/TOS presented after the purchase.[1] Probably could also get your money back from the retailer/autodesk too if you cannot use the software with your lifetime licence.

[0] https://consumer.gov.au/sites/consumer/files/2016/05/0553FT_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_cases

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Are people/orgs who file such complaints legally protected from retaliation? For instance, might Autodesk respond by giving complainants a full refund and a lifetime ban from their products?

It would likely fall under "unconscionable conduct" which is illegal under the ACL.

I would imagine it would difficult for them to prevent individual licences being sold through their retail/online mechanisms.. You would have more limited protections if >100,000 in licence fees, and they may or may not have an enterprise programs for those purchasing that many licences. But where they engage in retaliatory behaviour they could be sued and through discovery determine if they refused to engage with you or jack up the prices in retaliation for a lawful complaint. As you can imagine this would be expensive but... you would also likely be at a scale that could afford such litigation.

Are businesses able to claim under Consumer Protection in Australia? In the Netherlands a whole lot of consumer protections do not apply when buying as a company

Yes. Businesses are covered under Australia’s Consumer Protection if the value of the goods or services under consideration is less than A$100,000.

Some of the protections do apply to business purchases such as section 18 of the ACL which relates to misleading and deceptive conduct and section 29 regarding false or misleading representations. Businesses, will, in some scenarios (they need to meet the definition of consumer under the Act) also have access to consumer guarantees found under s51-59 which provide some of the stronger remedy options including full refunds.

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