[dvd-discuss] Sun vs first sale

["Robert S. Thau" <rst(at)ai.mit.edu>]

Eric Seppanen writes:
 > Interesting, but offtopic:
 > 
 > http://store.sun.com/catalog/doc/BrowsePage.jhtml;?cid=82431
 > 
 > Sun seems to think that they can shrinkwrap-license away first sale.

More precisely, their legal theory is that no sale has taken place, so
the first sale doctrine doesn't apply.  As the actual license
agreement, at

  http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/bcl.html

helpfully explains:

  1.  LICENSE TO USE. Sun grants you a non-exclusive and
  *non-transferable* license for the internal use only of the
  accompanying software and documentation ...

  2.  RESTRICTIONS.  Software is confidential and copyrighted.  Title
  to Software and all associated intellectual property rights is
  retained by Sun and/or its licensors.

This theory is common to a *lot* of software licenses, BTW.

rst