🚀 go-pugleaf

>Sorry, when you upgrade, you still only license one copy of EndNote.
>Internally, we keep the same records and add a new EndNote Plus serial
>number.  Therefore, you may not sell your old version of the program (if we
>let you do that, we'd have to charge a lot more for upgrades).
>
>Bottom line: when you upgrade, you are not buying an additional copy: you
>are buying a new version.  You may not sell the old version.
>
>Avi Rappoport
>Niles & Associates, Inc.

A brief legal note.

In spite of the use of the term "licence", I am not persuaded that the
transaction whereby someone gets the use of a copy of mass marketed program
is anything other than an ordinary sale. It is similar to the sale of a
book. You may do with the copy bought as you please, but must respect the
copyright in the contents.

What this means is that the producers of software cannot restrict users
from selling software. Of course, users may not keep for their own use
copies of the software they sell to other users: this would violate the
copying restrictions flowing from copyright (again, as in the case of a
book).

Help lines and similar services as well as the option to buy upgrades at
reduced rate are granted by the software producer beyond what normally runs
with the copy of the software sold. They are "additional goodies."
Producers of software may legitimately restrict such services to first
purchasers, which is, it seems, what Niles intends to do.

Avi is quite correct in stating that in upgrading "you are not buying an
additional copy: you are buying a new version." If Niles intends to make it
a condition of selling the upgrade at reduced price that the user destroy
(or not sell) the old version of the program, then the client purchaser of
the upgrade must explicitly agree to that condition. That condition strikes
me as quite reasonable, but I am not persuaded that the current practice of
distributing the upgrades (in particular through mail order houses) elicits
such consent from upgrade purchasers.

EJAN MACKAAY
University of Montreal