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Comment by qqj | Hacker News Reader

dunno about the others but 27$ Win10 is OEM license that is locked to a single machine. Seems legit.

The link I attached is to a normal license, not an OEM one, which goes for even cheaper: https://www.g2a.com/microsoft-windows-10-oem-home-microsoft-...

That's actually way too high a price for a windows 10 OEM licence. You can get entirely legitimate ones on eBay for <7€.

The reason they are so cheap is that EU laws protect the consumer right to resell things they purchase, and EU feels very strongly that this extends to software licenses. Most pre-built computers come with a bundled OEM Windows, which any EU resident can legally sell. Since a lot of computers bought by businesses, schools, hospitals, etc also contain Win 10 Home licenses, which are promptly replaced by whatever OS the site actually uses, and then immediately sold to someone reselling them, there is a healthy marketplace that has pushed license prices very low.

Yes exactly. The computer 'recyclers' take the parts out of EoL computers if viable and take the key off. Considering the demand for Windows keys is pretty low, and tens if not hundreds of millions of laptops/desktops go EoL each year, it's basically a virtually worthless commodity now the EU lets you transfer licenses from a PC.

That explains the cheap "consumer" (eg. home/pro) versions, but how does it explain the "rare" ones (eg. enterprise/LTSC) selling for $8 as well?

I'd speculate that the market for people who want or need an enterprise license but are willing to mess with grey market risks is actually pretty small?

Considering that enterprise is better than other editions in every way[1], there's no reason why anyone would not get enterprise, especially since it's around the same price.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison...

We're talking about your average Windows user, here.

Well I don't see any of those on G2A.

OEM licenses are tied to the hardware that they were originally sold with and cannot be transferred. These licenses would not pass an audit.

The person you’re responding to is saying that such licenses are not legal in the EU.

Not in EU they are not, because doing that is not legal.

Do you have a reference for that? Does Microsoft continue to sell OEM licenses in the EU?

They do, but you are legally allowed to sell them on. Yes, the licence forbids that, but it's not enforceable and is meaningless. Courts have decided many times that software licences are like any other asset and yes, you can sell them on.

There's a full summary of the legal situation(in Polish, but I'm sure google translate will manage), with legal documents supporting it(it's actually been going on in early forms since 2000, but it's the ruling from 2012 that has cemented your right as a consumer to sell on software, regardless of whether the manufacturer allows it or not)

https://www.forscope.pl/blog/gwarancja-legalnego-oprogramowa...

IANAL, but if the license is illegal, it wouldn't mean that it's illegal to sell a product under such a license.

It would just mean that enforcing all terms of that license would be impossible.

Nothing prevents you from writing an illegal contract, even enforce it a bit. Laws needs to be enforced to have an effect.

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