[NTLK] eBay sale of Newton freeware

[Sonny Hung]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Aaron Brigati <abrigati at gmail.com> wrote:

> Selling something that's available elsewhere for free isn't against
> ebay policy.
>

Let's not go there unless you take care in your statements because this
broad statement has a least a few big holes it in already. Actually it is
(against eBay Policy) if they are not the legal copyright holder or do not
have rights to sell it especially when the copyright holder gave it out for
FREE use only.


> For instance, there are literally thousands of auctions for Linux.
>

This is Open Source software that you are using as an example and they (in
the Linux Community) offer it FREE for download where there is no charge and
also PAID for it being distributed on media and of course PAID for the
commercial/supported versions.

Nor is it, in general, against the law.
>

It is against the law IF the copyright holder only released it for FREE use.
That means not to be sold for profit. You could get around that if you sell
it for the price of burning it on media and postage possibly, but I'm not an
expert on this matter.

It was interesting when this started, but can we end this thread because
it's actually best to goto the horse's mouth and ask them (the developer)
about this. This would mean contact John Powell directly since he had last
contacted the developer. Because it would only require an answer from the
developer and they (the developer) would only need to contact eBay that this
was a infringement on copyrighted software that he holds the rights to.
There could be other mitigating factors which we are not aware of. Whom ever
the seller is it would speak to their integrity.