Audacity Forum

ATTN IMMEDIATELY: AUDACITY TEAM,

There is a seller on Ebay, nicknamed e1bay1junkie, that is in my opinion profiteering the free Audacity program for $1.99 a piece, titled "MUSIC & AUDIO RECORDING & EDITING, MULTI-TRACK SOUND Software **For Windows**". This is the seller's address link to the Audacity item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/MUSIC-AUDIO-RECORDING-EDITING-MULTI-TRACK-SOUND-Software-For-Windows/163175119252?hash=item25fdfeb994:g:JvkAAOSwopFbXmOM:rk:1:pf:0 This seller has sold 36 of them with 8 left to sell. I urge you to contact Ebay about this seller immediately about this matter. Thank you.

ATTN: AUDACITY TEAM,

There is another profiteer seller, nicknamed sowegastores, selling Audacity software, titled "Audacity 2018 Unlimited Edition Pro Music/Audio Editor Recording Software CD MP3", selling them at $6.97 a piece. Has sold one with four left to sell. This is the webpage link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Audacity-2018-Unlimited-Edition-Pro-Music-Audio-Editor-Recording-Software-CD-MP3/254002218584?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131003132420%26meid%3D69c67444969f4a47befcba9e15c311eb%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D3%26sd%3D163308574101%26itm%3D254002218584&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851 Thank you Audacity for caring about these matters, and that you give the software free of charge.

There are other sellers profiting your wonderful Audacity software on Ebay. Just do a search on your software, and you will see the results.

We are aware of these problems, but unfortunately we are not able to do much about it as ebay refuses to take any action against these people. I hope that eventually ebay will change their attitude in response to complaints from people like yourself.

The license on Audacity does allow people to sell copies ...

audacityteam.org wrote:You may also copy, distribute, modify, and/or resell Audacity, under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as published by the Free Software Foundation – either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. In granting you this right, the GPL requires that the source code you distribute is itself available under the GPL. If you distribute or recommend Audacity in any way, please cite our trademark by referring to Audacity as “Audacity(R)”.

https://www.audacityteam.org/about/license/

Trebor wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 26, 2018 6:26 am

The license on Audacity does allow people to sell copies ...

Subject to the license terms of the software and ebay's terms and conditions.

They are NOT allowed to use the registered trademark "Audacity" without permission of the trademark holder. These sellers do NOT have permission of the trademark holder, which makes there listing illegal, and that breaches the terms of ebay, but ebay appear to turn a blind eye to that.

Also, under the terms of GPLv2 (Audacity's license terms):

• Items covered by GPLv2 should clearly state that they are covered by this license. The seller should not attempt to mislead or deceive buyers about the license terms.
• The seller must make the source code available.
  I'm not a lawyer, but these unscrupulous sellers perhaps have some wiggle room here because they could argue that the source code is available via OUR download links, but the license seems pretty clear to me that THEY should make the source code available, and should be up front about the availability of the source code.

Regardless of the legality, these sellers are certainly parasites, profiteering from the work of others and giving nothing in return.