Last week, the European Court of Justice delivered its judgment in UsedSoft v. Oracle. It held that on a first lawful sale of a computer program with its accompanying licence, the seller’s rights are ‘exhausted’. This means that a  program purchased by download  is treated  like one purchased on a CD. The download is treated as intangible goods, to be used in terms of the licence that accompanied them when they were bought, except that  “non-transferable” does not apply. So long as no copy is kept of what has been resold, the purchaser  can resell the intangible goods and accompanying licence, just like reselling a tangible CD.
For further information on this please contact Jim McLean.