What do you really own?

When it comes to software, what you can and cannot do with the program after purchase can be complicated. There has been some legal gray area on whether you are buying the program or just renting a license to use it. "The end of software ownership- and why to smile" by Larry Downes mentions a story of an eBay seller auctioning off old software program copies. The company then pressed charges for reselling the programs when he had no rights to do so; a ruling in favor of the company resulted. Even though he had fairly bought the software, his purchase only gave him the license to use the program not true ownership. Now there is discussion of why this would be the case for software, when CDs and books can be resold freely. There will continue to be quite a bit of controversy on the subject. I believe that any orignial copy should be allowed to be resold within secondary markets; however, copies of the original should be restricted by copyright law.