Buying Adobe Photoshop off Ebay for Tarot Deck Creation...

darwinia

elf said:
I just copied this off of one of the ebay seller's descriptions of a product:

I found another page that cites some legal examples of wrangling over this:
http://www.aallnet.org/committee/copyright/pages/issues/firstsale.html

There are two case studies which seem to set precedents for opposite resolutions. The decision whether a person or company is actually the "purchaser" seems to be open to interpretation.

So, to apply this to eBay, you don't really know if the seller is entitled to the benefit of "first sale doctrine." That would depend on if they fit the legal criterion for being a purchaser. They may not, despite their statement to the contrary, and you don't know.

The First Sale Doctrine is part of the Copyright Law of the United States of America, so I'm not quite sure what applies if you buy software from another country.

Depending on that, eBay sellers may still be in violation of the Adobe license.

My thought is this: You buy the software from an eBay store and register it. No one else has ever opened, installed or registered it. SO you are considered the purchaser and are thus restricted in use by the Adobe license for educational software. If you in turn sell it to someone else, the First Sale Doctrine would apply.

If you buy it from someone who has used and registered it in the US, then I can see where the First Sale Doctrine would apply to their sale to you, and you'd be fine.