Displaying items by tag: European Union

There is good news for consumers, but some pretty bad news for content owners as the High Court in the European Union has declared that it is legal for someone to sell their software licenses to another person. The caveat is that they (the original purchaser) must uninstall or otherwise deactivate their copy first. This is sure to annoy many software companies that felt the resale of these items was a violation of their copyright (as it cut them out of the resale).

The EU Parliament will be voting on ACTA this week. If you have been living under a rock lately ACTA (Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement) is a US backed bit of legislation that wants to establish better control over the internet for copyright holders. The agreement has been the subject of controversy not only for the oppressive terms, but also for the secretive way in which it has been presented. In many cases only certain members of a country’s government have been given access why the copyright lobbies have had full access and a hand in setting it up.

We already knew that Google was on the RADAR in the EU for possible AntiTurst issues (they were reported by both Microsoft AND Apple). The complaints seem to stem from a couple of items and while valid complaints are interesting in their timing. When the complaints were filed Google was still waiting to get the green light to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion (yes with a B). Motorola was also embroiled in a patent dispute with Microsoft and Apple over a few devices (Microsoft just won a ban on imports of all Motorola devices that infringe on this patent). With Google coming in as the new owners it seems that both Apple and Microsoft wanted to put something into the EU Commission’s mind about the Google.