Invisible wrote:
> It's against the terms of the EULA to resell an XP license if you've 
> used it. 

Interestingly enough, I think one could argue in a hoist-on-you-own-pitar
d 
kind of way that this is unenforcable, at least in the USA.

When you buy a piece of software, it's just like buying a book. You can 
resell it, rent it out, or otherwise do whatever you want with it, as lon
g 
as you don't violate copyright law.

Installing it on your computer makes a copy, and *that* copy has the EULA
 to 
which you must agree to run it. Indeed, forcing you to agree to the EULA 

before you run it is exactly how the company gets around the permissivene
ss 
of copyright law.  (Altho before the DMCA that didn't actually work.)

So, technically, the EULA applies to the copy you installed on your hard 

disk and transitively to the copy you made into memory (since the courts 

here have said that the copy in memory actually *is* a separate copy, and
 
not just an essential step of using the software).

All this together would seem to imply that the EULA does not apply to the
 
CD, but only to installed copies. Hence, limitations on what you can do w
ith 
the CD after you've wiped out the installation to which the EULA applies 

wouldn't seem to be enforcable.


> (And let's face it, how many people will have paid hundreds of 
> pounds for something and not used it?)

You'd be surprised. Buy a license pack of 25, use 15, go out of business,
 
auction off the other 10 on e-bay.

> Even more interesting... Checking the nearest website shows that you ca
n 
> now buy Windows 7 for less than £400.

Buy the upgrade version. Install XP. Upgrade it to Win7. Downgrade it bac
k 
to XP. ;-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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