Fred Weiss
Merchant Member
We have received a DMCA Take Down demand from Aurora Graphics today with which we have complied. It seems that a member here in good standing had placed a classified ad to sell his legally licensed versions of three Aurora Graphics products.
For anyone not aware, DMCA stands for:
What does this mean to you?
For openers, Signs 101 will no longer permit advertising of any software product for sale from Aurora Graphics.
Secondly, and I will point out for the record that my company is a direct competitor of Aurora Graphics and that my comments reflect, in part, that relationship, anyone considering the purchase of a licensed product from Aurora Graphics should take fair warning that the EULA (End User License Agreement) provided by Aurora Graphics specifically prohibits any right on the part of the licensee to sell and transfer his or her rights in the license.
In short, if you invest in software from Aurora Graphics, that investment is final and you are prohibited from recovering any part of that investment should your plans or needs change.
It is absolutely the right of Aurora Graphics to offer their products under any terms they choose. As a competitor and as an admin here at Signs 101, however, I believe that Aurora Graphics has not made these prohibitions clear in their advertising or their presentation of their products. Further, their licensing restrictions are at variance with the overwhelming number of licenses offered by publishers of graphics software which do provide for the orderly and legal transfer of a licensee's rights to any other party. My Plotter Art™ collections allow such transfers. So do the Vector Art brand collections. So do all Adobe and Corel products, Gerber products, SAi products, and most others.
Finally, I would point out to anyone considering the purchase of a license from Aurora Graphics for any of their products that the license that covers these products is not available at their website and is not prominently displayed or available at any of their dealers and only is available to you after you have purchased a license and received the product. Because the license includes provisions which are both unexpected by most licensees and is out of step with industry norms, it is inherently deceptive. Prospective licensees are well advised to consider this before purchasing any Aurora Graphics licensed product from any Aurora Graphics dealer.
For anyone not aware, DMCA stands for:
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.
What does this mean to you?
For openers, Signs 101 will no longer permit advertising of any software product for sale from Aurora Graphics.
Secondly, and I will point out for the record that my company is a direct competitor of Aurora Graphics and that my comments reflect, in part, that relationship, anyone considering the purchase of a licensed product from Aurora Graphics should take fair warning that the EULA (End User License Agreement) provided by Aurora Graphics specifically prohibits any right on the part of the licensee to sell and transfer his or her rights in the license.
In short, if you invest in software from Aurora Graphics, that investment is final and you are prohibited from recovering any part of that investment should your plans or needs change.
It is absolutely the right of Aurora Graphics to offer their products under any terms they choose. As a competitor and as an admin here at Signs 101, however, I believe that Aurora Graphics has not made these prohibitions clear in their advertising or their presentation of their products. Further, their licensing restrictions are at variance with the overwhelming number of licenses offered by publishers of graphics software which do provide for the orderly and legal transfer of a licensee's rights to any other party. My Plotter Art™ collections allow such transfers. So do the Vector Art brand collections. So do all Adobe and Corel products, Gerber products, SAi products, and most others.
Finally, I would point out to anyone considering the purchase of a license from Aurora Graphics for any of their products that the license that covers these products is not available at their website and is not prominently displayed or available at any of their dealers and only is available to you after you have purchased a license and received the product. Because the license includes provisions which are both unexpected by most licensees and is out of step with industry norms, it is inherently deceptive. Prospective licensees are well advised to consider this before purchasing any Aurora Graphics licensed product from any Aurora Graphics dealer.