That would have been my point - the wheels are NOT yours to do with as you see fit... reselling them as BMW wheels would be illegal. No one would bother you if it was just your car.... but if you did it with LOTS, you'd see BMW coming after you - no way they're going to let you start your own "parts shop" without giving them a cut... (obviously you wouldn't just be selling the wheels, you'd sell engines, doors, etc as well).
OK, how about if we compromise? The situation with selling thousands of BMW wheels, would be almost impossible to develop to begin with, which is why I consider it a fairly ludicrous, "apples to oranges", comparison. Which BTW, I also realize you didn't start.
There are "recycled auto parts enterprises", (AKA "high end junkyards"), which specialize in parts for luxury brands.
With that being said, such a business might sell "thousands (?)" of Beemer wheels over the years. They would, or at least should, be able to do so without rejoinder from Blah, blah, Motor Werken.
I'm sticking mostly with my premise that you would have to manufacture exact replicas of BMW's product, before they truly had legal standing to pursue patent infringement charges. Under those circumstances, then the comparison between printing restore discs and duplicating BMW's wheel would be a direct simile, albeit under a different set of legal statutes
The irony is, that a consumer does have more rights with respect to how he or she disposes of physical goods, as opposed to "intellectual property'. Copyright law is way more limiting, and now extends its protections to at least 75 years.
Patent rights expire much sooner, as is evidenced by "generic drugs". Big pharma, is constantly trying to find, and bring to the forefront, newly discovered off label uses of an existing drug approaching patent expiration, in order to extend patent rights on said product for another term.
In the alternative, drug makers can move a molecule here or there, and file for a patent on the "new drug". This is happening right now, as the patent on "Abilify" has exired, and in its place is, "the new and vastly more effective Rexulti", which is very close in terms of molecular composition. (These are both anti-depressants, so it's pretty much all in the patients head to begin with, and drug makers will tell pretty much any story they want, and get away with it).
The same with these Windows repair disks.... you simply sell your own disk, along with the PC that came with it, and no one is going to prosecute you... but try it with several thousand... now you're looking at jail time.
I made this exact point weeks ago to Mr. Lundgren himself. Dell indeed offers "free restore disc downloads". However, (in spite of the fact I wasn't up for wading through a dozen pages of EULA), I'm pretty sure the concept and intent was that this software was intended for legitimate individuals, (or corporate), owners of a Dell product.
The same rules would attach to a second owner of a Dell computer, since the copy of windows is licensed to the machine, not the owner. So, said 2nd owner could also download a Dell restore ISO, with impunity.
I'm also pretty confident that if a legitimate repair shop downloaded Dell's software, in pursuit of repairing a customer's machine, no action would ariise. That's even if that fell slightly outside of the strict constrution of said EULA. Just a wink and a nudge sort of transaction.
As I said in an earlier post, Lundgren is bordering on being, (if not in fact), delusional. On the surface he appears to be, "pure of heart", which he will tell you over, and over, and over again, if you are foolish enough to engage him on the toipic
Nonetheless, IMHO, he's living in a fantasy world, and thinks of himself as a "social movement unto himself", and that faulty logic came back to bite him in the a**, big time.
As an example, he thinks that "planned obsolescence", is a new concept dreamed up in the past couple of years by only electronics manufacturers, and it must be stopped.
If you take the general sentiment and desires of our membership, obsolescence can't really come soon enough. How many times have you heard, "Intel isn't doing enough with each generation of CPU, to make it worth me upgrading". The money for a substantial upgrade, is burning a hole in many people's pockets. So that's pretty much tantamount to begging manufacturers for "planned obsolescence", and opposed to being bitter in any way shape or form about it.
EDIT and ADDENDUM:
OK, I suppose if you set up a store to sell BMW wheels, BMW could shut you down for not being an "authorized dealer". Still, the likelihood of someone doing that is beyond remote, and fails as an analog.
There does exist somewhat of an exception in the camera market. All of the major NYC dealers carry USA branded cameras, as well as unauthorized imports from abroad, (read "China"). Now these cameras come from the same fctories as the USA market, but wouldn't be covered under USA warranty. They're labeled "gray market", and priced somewhat lower than the intended for USA equivalent market.
AFAIK, Nikon hasn't revoked anybody's "authorized USA dealer" status over the sale of these units along with the USA models. Were a dealer not authorized to sell Nikon at all, any warranty would be null and void, including the USA warranty for USA branded cameras.
The message here is very clear, Nikon makes its money on manufacturing cameras, and "gray market" goods, limit its liability for service after the sale. It's tacitly a "win, win" for Nikon, since they still make their money as planned.
I could also see the BMW wheels issue align itself with Nikon's strategy. But still, it's pretty far fetched.
Here's a forum link on the gray market topic:
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2686121
This looks very interesting on the topic at Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcwe...t-cameras-what-you-need-to-know/#423e2dc456b9
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