What happens when car companies decided to start selling "licenses" to drive a car? If the courts think that's farfetched, what makes software mfgrs so much more special than car makers?
Without making comments on the merits of this case, I'd point out you're comparing apples to oranges.
The copyright isn't for the physical CD/DVDs themselves. The copyright is for the intellectual property that is contained on the CD/DVDs. That intellectual property, and the functionality that it represents, is what is copyrighted.
When you buy a car, you are buying - and titling - the car itself. The physical property (not intellectual property) that is the car, is what is legally titled in the owner's name. The software license allows the licensee access to the intellectual property.
Software doesn’t have wear and tear. There will never be a need to replace it.
You ever leased a car? That’s basically a license, you can’t resell it, you still gotta do most of the maintenance.
Actually that tried that in their lease program's years ago, trying to make users purchase their oil brands and etc, are it violated the lease. It lasted about five minutes before a judge.
You can't copy a car.
If I buy software (that is, a license to use said software, if it is sold that way), I could copy the bits onto my hard drive or removable media, then try to sell the original media.
Once sold, I could keep using the software, using the copy I made. And now the person to whom I sold the original can use it (or repeat what I did).
You can't do that with a car - if you sell it to someone, it's gone from your possession - the buyer has it, and you can't drive it any more (at least not at the same time the new owner is driving it).
On the other hand, it is not that much different from reselling books. I give up the physical medium, but still retain the knowledge of the story, while someone else gets to read the story without any compensation going to the author.
-PJ