Windows Server Key
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Has this been proved in court? eg I can prove I have purchased the product (ie I have the invoice for it), but I have lost the paper licence. Has a court ruled that I don't own the licence and therefore that Microsoft can sue me for using unlicenced software? It all sounds very murky. I'd have thought that so long as I can reasonably prove that I purchased the software, I can prove that I own it.
An Invoice doesn't prove you own it. You could have bought for someone else or bought it and transferred it to someone else.
I have many invoices for things I've had to buy on my personal credit card while traveling for work. But they aren't my property they are my employers as we get reimbursed.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
Has this been proved in court? eg I can prove I have purchased the product (ie I have the invoice for it), but I have lost the paper licence. Has a court ruled that I don't own the licence and therefore that Microsoft can sue me for using unlicenced software? It all sounds very murky. I'd have thought that so long as I can reasonably prove that I purchased the software, I can prove that I own it.
Yes and no. It HAS been proven in court (I don't have a reference but I'm pretty confident.) However, the "paper" that you have to have can include the invoice. So your first question, yes. But if you can prove that you have purchased the product you should be okay.
As far as I understand it, Microsoft can show that you breached agreement by not maintaining the license but cannot show any damage as you can prove that you paid for it. Basically MS can pursue you for a violation of $0... technically you are at fault, but the amount of fault is $0.
The issue is when you have no paper and can't prove that you bought it.
Meaning you still don't get to use the license you lost though, and will have to buy another.
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Realistically MS would never go after someone who had an invoice... they would be putting themselves at risk for an abuse of litigation charge, risk their licensing being found to be invalid, risk a counter suit for bad faith and simply just risk losing. And then, on top of it, they would be telling legit customers to F off... sending them to the media and into the arms of Linux. A bad move that they would never make.
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@Jason said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
Has this been proved in court? eg I can prove I have purchased the product (ie I have the invoice for it), but I have lost the paper licence. Has a court ruled that I don't own the licence and therefore that Microsoft can sue me for using unlicenced software? It all sounds very murky. I'd have thought that so long as I can reasonably prove that I purchased the software, I can prove that I own it.
An Invoice doesn't prove you own it. You could have bought for someone else or bought it and transferred it to someone else.
I have many invoices for things I've had to buy on my personal credit card while traveling for work. But they aren't my property they are my employers as we get reimbursed.
License does not prove that you own it either. Same issues, you might have transferred it, sold it, just gotten the license online, etc.
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Bottom line is, if you want to be safe, you run Linux. Windows just adds all kinds of complication and risk around licensing that I'm very surprised by the number of businesses that are willing to take that on. Some need to, of course, and for some it makes sense. But the number of companies that could avoid that risk and get more for less and decide to spend the money to take on the risk astounds me.
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Everything in the Windows world comes down to a court case. Even Microsoft will never tell you 100% when things are legal or not, they always leave you at risk or in a grey area.
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From "how do I find my licence key" to "companies should run Linux" in 24 posts
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@Carnival-Boy said:
From "how do I find my licence key" to "companies should run Linux" in 24 posts
Well, how else do you interpret the findings of the thread? All these IT pros and no one is actually completely sure what is or isn't legal even for very basic licensing.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
From "how do I find my licence key" to "companies should run Linux" in 24 posts
Well, how else do you interpret the findings of the thread? All these IT pros and no one is actually completely sure what is or isn't legal even for very basic licensing.
Microsoft won't admit or deny anything in a lot of cases we ask our Microsoft Rep stuff.. He sends us links to the vagauge terms microsoft always uses. We ask for clarification on something, and get told it's up for interpretation.
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@Jason said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
From "how do I find my licence key" to "companies should run Linux" in 24 posts
Well, how else do you interpret the findings of the thread? All these IT pros and no one is actually completely sure what is or isn't legal even for very basic licensing.
Microsoft won't admit or deny anything in a lot of cases we ask our Microsoft Rep stuff.. He sends us links to the vagauge terms microsoft always uses. We ask for clarification on something, and get told it's up for interpretation.
Yup.... customer is always at fault is the policy. There is no such thing as sleeping easy with Microsoft products in house. It's always a relationship of our lawyers against yours. That's their singular mode of working with customers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
From "how do I find my licence key" to "companies should run Linux" in 24 posts
Well, how else do you interpret the findings of the thread? All these IT pros and no one is actually completely sure what is or isn't legal even for very basic licensing.
I actually thought his post was quite humorous.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yup.... customer is always at fault is the policy. There is no such thing as sleeping easy with Microsoft products in house.
I sleep pretty easy. I act in good faith and believe if I ever make a mistake Microsoft will ask me to make good but won't sue me for damages. I think it's unlikely that I've never broken a Microsoft licence agreement, because they can be very complicated, but I've never done it on purpose. If I started reading stories about businesses getting sued for mistakes, then I might lose sleep, but I get the impression that the only people who should be worried are the ones who knowingly break the law.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
If you're in a part of the world that doesn't pay attention to legal licensing issues - well good luck with that, and I'm hoping these forums won't openly participate in helping you buy pass those fees.
There is a difference between the part of the world that looks the other way and the world where this is fully legal. Don't conflate American legality with global legality. You don't know that they ARE legal in his country.
I put a if in there.
I suppose the question then comes down to - can a country declare that they don't have to abide by the owner's copyright, licensing scheme? And just take the software from other countries and use it at will?Of course we know that they can, and from the sounds of it, there are ones that already do.
This will lead to a great conversation that I sadly don't have time to partake in today.
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@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
It could also be an OEM copy on the other server if you have no documentation (in which case a sticker would be on the server) and in no way are you allowed to use this on any server besides the one it's on.
Actually, this isn't entirely true - You could use the downgrade rights of a different license, and MS allows you to reuse your OEM licenses from other machines assuming you own no VL licenses/media/keys.
But in general, this is not a typical concern, especially on servers.
That's not true. You either use Downgrade rights from the OEM licesnse or from another package on them machine. You don't get to use downgrade rights from another package then transfer the OEM licesnse to another system.. It doesn't work that way. You can never transfer an OEM license.
You're misunderstanding what I said.
Let's say you have an older Win 2008 OEM server. And you have a brand new 2012 OEM server.
you can use the media and CD key that came with the 2008 OEM to install Windows onto the 2012 OEM server.
Obtaining the software and keys has always been left up to the end user/company to obtain when using downgrade rights of OEM products. Of course VL licenses give the media and keys in the portal, but OEM users don't have access to that.
So if they couldn't use the cd and key from something else they own, how would they be able to install downgrade?
It would have been awesome if MS would have provided a portal to register your OEM licenses and hence allowing the download of a lower level key/media - but they never did this.
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@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
@Dashrender said:
@Jason said:
It could also be an OEM copy on the other server if you have no documentation (in which case a sticker would be on the server) and in no way are you allowed to use this on any server besides the one it's on.
Actually, this isn't entirely true - You could use the downgrade rights of a different license, and MS allows you to reuse your OEM licenses from other machines assuming you own no VL licenses/media/keys.
But in general, this is not a typical concern, especially on servers.
That's not true. You either use Downgrade rights from the OEM licesnse or from another package on them machine. You don't get to use downgrade rights from another package then transfer the OEM licesnse to another system.. It doesn't work that way. You can never transfer an OEM license.
You're misunderstanding what I said.
Let's say you have an older Win 2008 OEM server. And you have a brand new 2012 OEM server.
you can use the media and CD key that came with the 2008 OEM to install Windows onto the 2012 OEM server.
Obtaining the software and keys has always been left up to the end user/company to obtain when using downgrade rights of OEM products. Of course VL licenses give the media and keys in the portal, but OEM users don't have access to that.
So if they couldn't use the cd and key from something else they own, how would they be able to install downgrade?
It would have been awesome if MS would have provided a portal to register your OEM licenses and hence allowing the download of a lower level key/media - but they never did this.
Well that's different. That's not the license. That's a key. That's different.
