The Software Directive 2009 & How It Applies To Pre-Owned Software

At Discount Licensing, we buy and sell pre-owned, perpetual software licences, working closely with a variety of large businesses across Europe. Trading in your surplus software licences or purchasing pre-owned ones can help you save a significant amount of money for your business.

Pre-owned, perpetual software licences can offer excellent value to a business looking to maximise its savings. When it comes to perpetual software licence resellers, they must abide by the Software Directive 2009.

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What Is The Software Directive 2009?

The Software Directive 2009 is an European Directive that is designed to govern the safe use of software and to lay out the appropriate terms in which a software licence can be used, shared, or sold.

The goal of the directive is to prevent software fraud and "illegal" software being sold, which can considerably damage the profits of software development companies and harm the status of their intellectual property.

You can read the full Software Directive 2009 for yourself here.

What Does This Mean For You?

So how does the Software Directive 2009 actually affect you?

Unverifiable vendors - such as random eBay sellers, for example – may not conform to the requirements of the Software Directive.

At Discount Licensing all our trades are fully compliant with all European software regulations.

Pre-owned software is perfectly legal to buy and sell, providing the appropriate measures are taken to ensure that the licence to use the software, and all keys and copies of the software, are legitimate.

Because Discount Licensing abides by the terms by which software can be appropriately re-sold in Europe, this means that that all of the software we supply is guaranteed to pass a vendor audit.

True Savings

Pre-owned software can offer great savings or returns to enterprising business owners. You can buy pre-owned software at a fraction of the original cost or sell your surplus licenses and recoup a significant chunk of your original software licence investment. To do that, you should engage a reputable reseller, such as Discount Licensing. If you are based in Europe and looking to pay less for perpetual licences, or you’d like to sell your existing licences that you no longer use, we are here to help.

Contact us today for a quote and we’ll be happy to talk you through the process of buying or selling pre-owned software licences.