About to list for sale on eBay when...

SpammyTheSpammer

"It's theft?"

A clearer example would be getting stuff from freecycle and selling it.

Yup - spot on!

You are 100% correct with that statement.

SpammyTheSpammer

Can I get items to sell from freecycle?
The simple answer is no, that’s not the point of freecycle. The idea is to stop items going in a landfill, not to give ebay sellers a source of products. However, the freecycle rules say if you ask the person freecycling if you can sell it and they agree, then you are allowed to resell it. I’ve seen ads that say, “I know this is worth something, you can sell it if you like, I just want to get rid of it.” In that case you are allowed to resell it. You are allowed, for instance, to make 1 working computer out of 2 freecycled broken computers and sell those. What you are not allowed to do it take something, and immediately resell it on ebay or Craigslist without improving it in any way.


http://tinastreasures.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Use-Freecycle


Of course, you could copy it onto a CDR disk, add a Menu then its yours, isn't it?

macfly

Still not theft. It's breaking a rule set up by a website. In law, it's not even actionable. Deception maybe? But never theft.

RHemmings

Can software be released under a Creative Commons non-commercial licence? I.e. one that allows free distribution but bans it from being sold?

Creative Commons themselves say no, as this would lead to too many types of free licences.
https://creativecommons.org/tag/free-software-foundation

But even if free software was released with a non-commercial licence, the experience of a previous poster suggests that people like "MTS Software" might just ignore it anyhow.

Rotor

Is it illegal to claim copyright on freeware? It may be unenforceable but I'm not sure it is illegal to claim it.

sharpy2010

They aren't claiming copyright on freeware, they are claiming copyright on the compilation of the CD Rom. That isn't illegal.

RHemmings

Rotor wrote: »

Is it illegal to claim copyright on freeware? It may be unenforceable but I'm not sure it is illegal to claim it.

The seller might argue that they are claiming copyright on the CD itself, not the individual pieces of software. It's like if you take out of copyright books and put them into a compilation. You then own copyright on the compilation, but not on the individual books.

It's quite easy to get copyright on something. If you take an out of copyright book and changes a few unimportant works, or even just change the layout a bit, then you have copyright on your changes.

I believe - I am not a lawyer.