Autodesk, after a long wrangling legal battle has lost its suit that indeed software is not truly sold, but is in fact licensed. The ruling comes after a long legal dispute over whether a man could resell legal copies of Autodesk software. Yes say the courts, no says Autodesk. The man in the middle seemingly forgotten, is now again free to make a few dollars doing whatever it was that had been up to.

The ruling states that “The Autodesk License is a hodgepodge of terms that, standing alone, support both a transfer of ownership and a mere license,” meaning that no one short of a lawyer could understand it, let alone apply it. That this had to go to court is a definitive slap in the face of DCMA rulings in general, this one being specifically odious.

When I buy a copy of Sim City 2000, I can sell it to my friend. As much as the software companies would love to have it be illegal for me to transfer ownership of my property, when indeed I buy it, I do buy something other than a permission to use. Companies can easily …

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