Software - is this legal?

Smudger · 13 Mar 2008

I've seen this advertised on the bay. Is it kosher to do this?

Here

wizer · 13 Mar 2008

no not really, but its a common eBay trick. It's up to you whether you want kosher licenses or not. The software will still work (afaik)

Smudger · 13 Mar 2008

Thanks. I'll go for a kosher licence, I think.

TonyW · 13 Mar 2008

I think this is rather strange and certainly a little suspect.

The guy is selling his software and licences as he is getting rid of a computer. I assume then that he will wipe the software of his system

Why does his ad only show screenshots of his computer? I would have thought that even if he did not have the original boxes he should have photographed the original CD's and licence to prove they are originals.

I think if it was me I would probably give it a miss

Cheers

Tony

Edit: Looks like I was a little late and you have already made your decision

frugal · 13 Mar 2008

Generally these kinds of things are either:

1 - Someone has downloaded a pirate version of the software and is selling it. the licence key will either be auto generated or from a batch that the pirates have.

2 - Someone has bought and downloaded one copy of the software from the manufacturer legitimately and is now selling multiple copies of it to recoop the costs. The licence key will be legitimate, but when you try to register it you will find that it has already been registered.

In either case you will not have a legitimate copy of the software and you will probably find that the next time it tries to do an automatic update it may well stop working. You certainly will not be able to use it in order to qualify for the upgrade prices to the next version.