I want to know what rights I obtain to use software when I purchase an
OEM version? Does that give me the right to install the software newly
on my computer? Specifically, I'm curious about Microsoft and Adobe
software purchased on eBay?

---

Clarification of Question by sbammel-ga on 25 May 2004 18:00 PDT

It seems that eBay isn't getting rid of the OEM software sales because
it's so prevalent and done by lots of sellers with high feedback
values. Indeed, it just can't be illegal to sell this stuff since even
Google has plenty of OEM software sites advertising right here.

My question is regarding the usability of such an OEM license though.
Just because it's legal to buy and sell the OEM license, does it mean
that the license bestows any particular useful rights to me. I mean,
I've seen OEM sellers say that the OEM software is useful as a backup.
So what? I can make my own backups...

The Microsoft and Adobe links on the following URL say they have more
information, but it's not clear what they mean:
http://www.pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-aboutme.html#software.
Are they saying I can buy an OEM version of Microsoft Office 2000 or
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 (the two programs I'm interested in right now) and
install it on a new machine? They don't say.

The eBay link at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/oem.html also
doesn't answer definitively. It mentions that the OEM software must be
sold with hardware... But what hardware? I saw a power seller on eBay
say that he was selling his OEM software with a memory stick in order
to follow the licensing agreement... In one place, eBay says to "Watch
out for OEM software.". So what does that mean? That we can't buy it?

I wonder if the manufacturers really don't want us to know that the
OEM software is legal to use and so that's the reason they won't
explain it straight. If it were clearly illegal, don't you think
they'd stop beating around the bush in their explanations and tell us
outright?

the typical end user lisence for oem software is that it is to be
installed and used only on the hardware the software was bundled with.
therefore, you are not to sell the software seperately from the
hardware, nor install it on a computer that the software did not come
with. sometimes there are actual restrictions such as copy protection
to this end, sometimes not.

oh as a side note, microsoft and adobe have been trying to crack down
on sales of their software on ebay. a lot of that software is entirely
illegal or grey market. even when the sale of software is entirely
within your end user rights, microsoft or adobe may complain to ebay
who will pull the listing. ebay's policy on this is to not reinstate a
listing that was pulled for this reason, even if you can provide
reasonable reassurance that the item in question is legitimate. though
this is frustrating, it is somewhat understandable given the high rate
of questionable software sales made on ebay.