 | |
| Founded | July 2004 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Noel Unwin and Jonathan Horley |
| Website | discount-licensing |
Discount-Licensing (formerly known as Disclic) is a Burton-upon-Trent, UK-based vendor or broker of secondhand Microsoft software licences. It is notable for being the first company to establish a secondary market in such licences which is accepted by Microsoft as being valid. [1]
Discount-Licensing was founded as Disclic Ltd in July 2004 by Noel Unwin and Jonathan Horley. [2] In 2006 Disclic Ltd changed its name to Discount-Licensing.com Ltd. [3]
When Discount-Licensing launched, it was predicted that it, and other companies like it, would have a significant disruptive effect on Microsoft's pricing and its resellers and some resellers reacted with shock and anger however this disruption has not materialised and the secondhand licence market remains small compared to the primary market. [4] [5] [6] Only a few other companies, such as German firms UsedSoft , preo Software and Susensoftware and British firm Value Licensing have sought to enter the market for secondhand Microsoft software. [7] [8] [9] Instead, the secondhand licence market exists as a smaller "parallel market" selling to companies who require licences for specific previous versions of Microsoft products, or who might not otherwise have purchased licences due to the cost. [10]
Discount-Licensing trades in Microsoft Open, Select, Enterprise volume as well as SAP licences. It typically obtains these from the liquidators of companies which have ceased trading or which are downsizing their IT requirements. These are then sold on to customers at a discount to the cost of new licences. [1] This allows customers to purchase licences for non-current as well as current Microsoft versions, which they may have standardised on. [11]
Only Microsoft products with licences that permit transfer (either explicitly or by means of legal loopholes in the licence) are offered. These include Microsoft Office, Windows Server licences and Client Access Licenses, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server but exclude any desktop versions of Windows or any rights under Software Assurance. [1]
The actual licence transfer can sometimes be facilitated directly between the original owner and the new owner, without Discount-Licensing taking ownership of the licences. [12] Licences are supplied in the form of licence agreement numbers which the recipient can register in Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center in order to obtain the volume license keys. Following the completion of all paperwork, Microsoft updates it records to reflect the new user, but note that the VLSC does not necessarily show the legal owner. In the case of licences created after October 2007, the sale may sometimes require the creation and transfer of a "shelf company" which owns the licences. [13]
Only whole licences may be transferred so the customer has to choose from the agreements available and may not be able to obtain exactly the combination of licences desired. [14]
The company operates internationally and, following advice from Microsoft that it was permissible, has transferred licences between countries. [15]
The legalities of the secondary-volume and digital-software markets were reaffirmed in a 3 July 2012 European Court of Justice ruling which involved the Exhaustion Principle and the Software Directive 2009. [16]
In addition to the CJEU ruling, several other legal decisions have further clarified the legality of secondhand software licenses: the Münster Public Procurement Chamber ruling (01.03.2016, ref. VK 1-2/16), which reaffirms the principles established by the CJEU and emphasizes the right of software license holders to resell their licenses, and the Federal Court of Justice ruling (17.07.2013, Case I ZR 129/08), which confirms the legality of secondhand software licenses, shedding light on the issue at the national level. [17]
Microsoft has made it clear that it regards the resale of licences as exploiting an unintended loophole in the provisions for divestiture in its pre-2007 licence agreements. [14] In October 2007 Microsoft introduced a clause prohibiting resale of all types of licences into its EULAs. This was intended to prevent licences issued after this date from being resold, however a further loophole was found to enable licences to continue to be sold, albeit in a more complicated way. [12] Despite this game of cat and mouse, Microsoft accepts the legality of Discount-Licensing's business model and Discount-Licensing remains a Registered Microsoft Partner and authorised Microsoft Reseller. [3] Discount-Licensing describes its relationship with Microsoft as "fairly good". [18]
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. The term is also used in several other ways, which causes ambiguity. It sometimes means the maker of a system that includes other companies' subsystems, an end-product producer, an automotive part that is manufactured by the same company that produced the original part used in the automobile's assembly, or a value-added reseller.
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
The SCO Group was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation, including the UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, and then, under CEO Darl McBride, pursuing a series of high-profile legal battles known as the SCO-Linux controversies.
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.
The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer sell the product.
The first-sale doctrine is an American legal concept that limits the rights of an intellectual property owner to control resale of products embodying its intellectual property. The doctrine enables the distribution chain of copyrighted products, library lending, giving, video rentals and secondary markets for copyrighted works. In trademark law, this same doctrine enables reselling of trademarked products after the trademark holder puts the products on the market. In the case of patented products, the doctrine allows resale of patented products without any control from the patent holder. The first sale doctrine does not apply to patented processes, which are instead governed by the patent exhaustion doctrine.
Software copyright is the application of copyright in law to machine-readable software. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number of distinctive issues that arise with software. This article primarily focuses on topics particular to software.
A reseller is a company or individual (merchant) that purchases goods or services with the intention of selling them rather than consuming or using them. Individual resellers are often referred to as middle men. This is usually done for profit. One example can be found in the industry of telecommunications, where companies buy excess amounts of transmission capacity or call time from other carriers and resell it to smaller carriers. Resale can be seen in everyday life from yard sales to selling used cars.
Used goods, also known as secondhand goods, are any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Used goods may also be handed down, especially among family or close friends, as a hand-me-down.
A dedicated hosting service, dedicated server, or managed hosting service is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone else. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.
In software licensing, volume licensing is the practice of using one license to authorize software on a large number of computers and/or for a large number of users. Customers of such licensing schemes are typically business, governmental or educational institutions, with prices for volume licensing varying depending on the type, quantity and applicable subscription-term. For example, Microsoft software available through volume-licensing programs includes Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
Microsoft Corp. v. Commission is a case brought by the European Commission of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft for abuse of its dominant position in the market. It started as a complaint from Sun Microsystems over Microsoft's licensing practices in 1993, and eventually resulted in the EU ordering Microsoft to divulge certain information about its server products and release a version of Microsoft Windows without Windows Media Player. The European Commission especially focused on the interoperability issue.
Digital goods or e-goods are intangible goods that exist in digital form. Examples are Wikipedia articles; digital media, such as e-books, downloadable music, internet radio, internet television and streaming media; fonts, logos, photos and graphics; digital subscriptions; online ads ; internet coupons; electronic tickets; electronically treated documentation in many different fields; downloadable software and mobile apps; cloud-based applications and online games; virtual goods used within the virtual economies of online games and communities; workbooks; worksheets; planners; e-learning ; webinars, video tutorials, blog posts; cards; patterns; website themes; templates.loan
A Contributor License Agreement (CLA) defines the terms under which intellectual property has been contributed to a company/project, typically software under an open source license.
Microsoft has been involved in numerous high-profile legal matters that involved litigation over the history of the company, including cases against the United States, the European Union, and competitors.
The bundling of Microsoft Windows is the installation of Microsoft Windows in computers before their purchase. Microsoft encourages original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of personal computers to include Windows licenses with their products, and agreements between Microsoft and OEMs have undergone antitrust scrutiny. Users opposed to the bundling of Microsoft Windows, including Linux users, have sought refunds for Windows licenses, arguing that the Windows end-user license agreement entitles them to return unused Windows licenses for a cash refund. Although some customers have successfully obtained payments, others have been less successful.
Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. was a case in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington regarding the applicability of the first-sale doctrine to software sold under the terms of so-called "shrinkwrap licensing." The court held that when the transfer of software to the purchaser materially resembled a sale it was, in fact, a "sale with restrictions on use" giving rise to a right to resell the copy under the first-sale doctrine. As such, Autodesk could not pursue an action for copyright infringement against Vernor, who sought to resell used versions of its software on eBay. The decision was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which issued a decision on September 10, 2010, reversing the first-sale doctrine ruling and remanding for further proceedings on the misuse of copyright claim. The Ninth Circuit's decision asserted that its ruling was compelled by Ninth Circuit precedent, but observed that the policy considerations involved in the case might affect motion pictures and libraries as well as sales of used software.
Microsoft Corp. v. DAK Indus., Inc. 66 F.3d 1091 is a court case in which Microsoft contended that in being licensed rights to sell Microsoft Word (Word) software, the then-bankrupt DAK Industries had been granted permission to use this intellectual property, so Microsoft was entitled to receive payments during post-bankruptcy in the form of royalties.
UsedSoft is a used-software commerce company that instituted the business-to-business (B2B) market for used computer programs. The company is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland.
Sir Simon Picken is a British High Court judge.
