Old AutoCad Licences for sale?

godtabh

Is there a second hand market for old AutoCad licences?

I am looking to get the most legit version of CAD that I can afford. Doest need to be the most recent (given the price of new it will probably be a couple of years old!)

If thats not economically feasible is their an open source cad problem similar to Open Office is to MS Office?

knewbie

Try DraftSight, it's a free 2D CAD package from the makers of SolidWorks.
Practically the same to operate as AutoCad.

Boyet

Will you use it for business of study? would consider using a trial version.

godtabh

A bit of both. I have an educational version of cad but would like a version to do jobs with

Boyet

Have you tried speaking to authorised cad sellers? In EULA its not transferable in my opinion.. legally
but there's always a way out if you know what I mean..:D

Here's a link about and individual who sold second hand license on eBay

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/the-end-of-used-major-ruling-upholds-tough-software-licenses.ars

Suggestion.. If you know someone who works on site as Resident/Site Engineers from a consulting firm they maybe have a copy issued for that job alone after completion they will not use it anymore.. (hence you could have that).

the_syco

Is it possible to buy it from the US atm? Euro is strong compared to the dollar now.

DublinDilbert

It's an interesting topic and what a poster above says it comes down to the eula for the particular software.

My opinion would be if you legally buy anything you should be entitled to sell it on. The way eula are typically written for cad packages you effectively lease them.

John368

I have recently been thinking of upgrading my AutoCad LT to full AutoCad and notice that Autodesk seem to do everything online now and as far as I can see you cannot buy a box of software, but just apply for the license and get the software downloaded to your computer. This probably has something to do with the court cases that Autodesk have been involved with regarding sale of second-hand software and to which Boyet has referred.

The Vernor v. Autodesk case that Boyet has given a link to, I have seen before. My understanding of it is that the USA Court of Appeal in September last year overruled a 2008 ruling that second sale of AutoCad was just the same as selling second hand any other copyright material such as books or DVD's and thus legal. The Appeal decision overturned this and basically banned second sale of Autodesk software. The Appeal Court's decision, as far as I can see, was based on the argument that Autodesk was just selling a license to use and thus their products were different from other copyright products such as books etc. Since the ruling is relatively new, I am sure the implications have yet to be fully appreciated. I have read that it could have big implications for the games market and all sorts of other software.