Re: WinXP legality issue. Advice please.

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From: Phil (nimbusjunk_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 11/12/04 

Date: 12 Nov 2004 12:37:14 -0800

Those are for sale only by registered system builders with at least
some
item of hardware and with restrictions on transfer, and no support
from
Microsoft. I doubt if copies on eBay are being sold in accordance
with
that and it would treat them with a lot of suspicion. They might be
copies that had been bought in that way and happened never to have
been
used, but it seems more probable that they are not 

-- 
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K.  Alexn@mvps.D8E8L.org (remove the D8 bit)
> >
> > Such sales are not illegal.
> >
> 
>     Unless those OEM installation CDs are also accompanied by the 
> Dell/Gateway/etc computer with which they were originally sold, then 
> those sales _are_ illegal.  Have you never read an OEM EULA?
I am not surprised at Bruce talking about what an eula has to do with
the law but I am a bit amazed that Alex who is in England does.
For the record here in the UK a company does not make the laws but
Parliament do. NO one may impose contract terms retrospectivly. If I
go to my hardware supplier and Buy a disk with OEM XP I am perfectly
at liberty to sell it on. It belongs to me. I have agreed with no one
that I need to be registered. It was not a condition of the original
sale that I so be.
Provided I do not break UK copyright laws then I may do what I want
with it.
The EULA is pretty meaningless in terms of UK laws and I wish that you
Bruce
would stop saying that breaking the EULA is illegal.
It is not as I have stated contract terms imposed retrospectvly are
invalid Here in UK and our statutary rights cannot be over written by
a company and in any case in the UK you do not have any type of
contract with a manufacturer so attempting to make you agree to a
license to use something bought condition free from a retail shop is a
nonsense and cannot be enforced.
This has as far as I know never been tested in a UK court. Of course
MS would via the likes of you Bruce who are not very well informed
about UK law love to give the impression that they make the laws here
and that selling an OEM disk is "Illegal" however it is not. All it
does is breaks an unenforcable license to which i have been forced to
agree before I can use it. The EULA probably breaks our unfair
contract laws even if it was seen to be a legally binding contract.
Actually Bruce since you constantly tell us that it is Illegal under
the EULA to sell your COA disk or transfer your OS perhaps you would
tell us which British Law you believe this contravenes.
PS I am not at all interested in the situation in US of A

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