> 1) Software is covered by copyright, which automatically confers
>    certain rights and restrictions. Copyright does not prevent you
>    reselling the original copy, providing you keep no copies.

This is true, AFAIK, everywhere in the world.

> 2) Most software has a licence agreement associated with it that
>    grants you certain additional rights and imposes additional
>    restrictions. The licence agreement may impose restrictions on
>    resale of the original package (it may prohibit it, or it may
>    require the new owner to agree to the licence, etc.)

There are definite limits as to what restrictions software vendors may
impose via such licenses in ordinary commercial transactions.  If you sign
a contract BEFORE you buy a piece of software, the restrictions imposed
may be much more severe than those imposed after.

> 3) Most software vendors rely on so-called "shrink wrap licensing"
>    to enforce the licence agreement - i.e. you are assumed to have
>    agreed to the licence if you open the package/use the software/etc.
>    The validity of this is untested in Australian courts, but I believe
>    it has been upheld in US courts.

I don't think there has been any Supreme Court ruling on this subject, and
some state courts may differ slightly.  In general, though, a purchase is
made when money exchanges hands; neither the buyer nor the seller may
place additional conditions or restrictions on a sale after it is
complete.

While certain licenses which generally coincide with copyright law
(Borland's famous "like a book" license for example) are generally
enforceable, it's unclear whether the courts are really upholding the
licenses or merely upholding copyright law.  The more detailed licensing
agreements found on more expensive products (e.g. cross-compilers or CAD
systems costing many thousands of dollars) are often enforceable even
when they are much more stringent than copyright law, but that is because
an exchange of SIGNED contracts occurs BEFORE the exchange of product and
payment.

> 4) If you don't agree to the licence terms, you are at the very least
>    bound by copyright law, which may allow you to resell the entire
>    package, but would, e.g. prevent you from embedding compiler
>    libraries in your application (because this constitutes copying
>    of the software that is not permitted under copyright law).

Here is one place where shrink-wrap licensing could get interesting.  A
compiler writer has the right to restrict distribution of that compiler's
run-time libraries, but will frequently grant blanket permission for
users to incorporate those libraries into their own programs.  A licensing
agreement which required that anyone who transferred posession of the
compiler would also recall and transfer or destroy all copies of the
run-time library that they'd distributed *might* be enforceable.  [this
would effectively allow people to sell their compiler if they hadn't
released any software using it, but would prevent them from selling it if
they had]

> 5) Software is considered to be "goods" under the terms of the
>    Trace Practices Act and other consumer protection law - but
>    this has never been tested in Australian courts (it was recently
>    upheld in a British court). This provides protection in law against
>    faulty software, but most licence agreements (even for chips, now!)
>    have a clause banning use in safety-critical applications.
>    I don't believe consumer protection law would overturn a valid
>    licence agreement that prevented resale of the original package. But
>    only a court can answer that definitively.

Unfortunately, the current state of the laws in the US--and probably
Australia as well--is a mess.  Absent court rulings, there's no way to
know what's enforceable and what isn't; even with court rulings, there's
often still no way to discern the underlying principles or logic.

> So you should read the licence agreement carefully - it should tell
> you what you can and can't do. Many software agreements (including ours)
> do allow transfer of the licence under reasonable conditions, but some
> do not.

Even someone who reads the license agreement, however, still won't know
what terms they're REALLY bound by.  Unless a purchaser uses the software
in a way which copyright law would not permit absent the vendor's
permission (e.g. distribution of run-time libraries) or signed a contract
with the vendor BEFORE purchase waving the right to sell or transfer his
software, the normal rules of commerce and copyright would dictate that
the software could legally be resold.