A small win for the "used software" market as it applies to online purchases within the EU:
According to an anolysis by Yves Bot, Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, the following course of action is perfectly legal in the EU:
* Buy a software online
* Download it from the distribution channel provided by the rightholder (or a third party which is doing the distribution on the rightholder 's behalf)
* Use it
* Sell the serial key/licence to use it to someone else, who then downloads the software the same way
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX%3A62011CC0128%3AEN%3AHTML
One important quote:
83. I consider that, in circumstances such as those in the main proceedings, the rightholder has received appropriate remuneration where he has been paid in return for the grant of a right to use a copy of a computer program. Allowing him to control the resale of that copy and, in that event, to demand further remuneration, on the pretext that the copy was fixed on a data carrier by the customer after having been downloaded from the internet, instead of being incorporated by the rightholder in a medium which was put on sale, would have the effect not of protecting the specific subject-matter of the copyright but of extending the monopoly on the exploitation of that right.
Short version: It doesn't matter if you buy your software on CD/DVD or from an on-line store; you retain the right to re-sell it.
Now, this isn't a legal ruling
yet. However, in almost all cases the ECJ followed such advice in their rulings, so the chances are good it'll become official in a few months.