Microsoft pivots to copyright claim in ValueLicensing case • The Register

The long-running authorized battle between ValueLicensing and Microsoft over the resale of software program licenses has taken one other flip following Microsoft’s try to make the case about copyright.

The litigation has rumbled since 2021, starting with reseller ValueLicensing submitting a go well with alleging Microsoft had slipped clauses into buyer contracts to limit the resale of perpetual licenses in return for reductions. The impact, in keeping with ValueLicensing, stifled the market. A sueball claiming £270 million in misplaced earnings was lobbed Microsoft’s means.

Microsoft, naturally, denies the alleged wrongdoing and earlier this yr bit again with an argument that reselling perpetual licenses was, in truth, infringing its copyright.

Based on ValueLicensing, reselling a perpetual license is completely authorized. The corporate is counting on a European ruling within the UsedSoft case, which discovered that used software program licenses could possibly be offered. Microsoft, then again, asserted that Workplace just isn’t coated by the Software Directive, however by the Copyright and Information Society Directive. The latter covers artistic works, and since Workplace has assets like icons, fonts, and assist information, Microsoft argues Workplace qualifies as a artistic work.

In September, ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley told The Register: “It is a exceptional coincidence that their protection in opposition to ValueLicensing has modified so dramatically from being a protection of ‘we did not do it’ to a protection of ‘the market ought to by no means have existed.'”

Through the Preliminary Issues trial earlier than the UK Competitors Attraction Tribunal in September, Justin Turner KC, the chairman, commented to ValueLicensing’s KC, Matthew Lavy: “As you level out, Microsoft solely had this vivid concept comparatively lately. Somebody within the authorized group could or could not turn out to be a hero or heroine, we will see.”

Horley instructed The Register: “It was an vital trial coping with [the] means the pre-owned marketplace for second-hand software program licenses operated ever because the UsedSoft decision from the ECJ in 2012 and whether or not it was lawful. The judgment might be of curiosity to the Wolfson class motion and lots of different pre-owned resellers throughout Europe.”

The Wolfson class motion refers to a declare introduced on behalf of UK prospects relating to alleged abuses of market dominance and restrictive licensing practices by Microsoft. A loss may see Microsoft pressured to make a multibillion-pound payout.

Microsoft additionally claimed that the apply of firms promoting solely a portion of their licenses was not permitted and that licenses bought beneath quantity licensing should be offered of their entirety. ValueLicensing disputed this.

Nonetheless, the copyright query and its potential results on reselling software program as a complete have been the celebs of the present. Is Workplace a creative work quite than a program? Whereas the photographs on the Workplace toolbar may be an integral a part of the software program, Microsoft’s representatives identified that an Workplace set up additionally contained different copyrighted works, resembling documentation. “It is not Dickens,” mentioned Jaani Riordan, on behalf of Microsoft, “but it surely’s a literary work. It is unique.”

Will probably be as much as the Competitors Attraction Tribunal to make a judgment on Microsoft’s newest argument. Discovering within the tech big’s favor dangers blowing a gap within the pre-owned software program market. Discovering in opposition to may, nevertheless, finish with Microsoft being on the hook for £270 million. ®