Dear Colleagues,
I have a question regarding your views on the placing on the market of software.
I appreciate your thoughts on it since the new EC CRA FAQ has currently a different view on software…
The FAQ has been shared publicly so most folks haven't had access to it. I've only skimmed through it so far, so please take my comments with a grain of salt.
Case:
A manufacturer finished the development of software 1.0 and makes it downloadable on a website and an app store for European customers. European customers download the software from the website or the app store.
Statement 1:
Software 1.0 is the product with digital elements, and the first download is the first making available – placing on the market – of software 1.0. Any other download of software 1.0 is another making available. Any other
distribution via distribution channels are other instances of making available of software 1.0. Placing on the market of software 1.0 can happen only once.
From my understanding, this is not the correct interpretation of what placing on the market means. Blue Guide 2.3 spe
cifically states that: "As for ‘making available’, the concept of placing on the market refers to each individual product, not to a type of product, and whether it was manufactured as an individual unit or in series."
The distinction between placing and making available is that placing is the first time an individual product enters the EU market, whereas making available can happen multiple times, for example as a product is sold to an importer, which then resells it to a national distributor, which itself sells it to a consumer.
This is easier to understand with physical goods. The importer imports 300 connected washing machines. Each washing machine is placed on the market as they are imported (so there are 300 distinct made available on the market "events" and as many placed on the market "events"). The importer sells 200 of those to the French distributor (that's 200 made available "events") and 100 to the Spanish distributor (that's 100 made available "events"). The Spanish seller now sells 5 washing machines (that's 5 additional made available "events"), the french one sells none. So the total here would be: 300 placed events, 605 made available events.
I do agree that this is quite weird for software, but the same idea applies. And so in your example, every new sale is both a new placement and making available at the same time.
Statement 2:
When software 1.0 has been modified or repaired to 1.1 and this is not considered as a substantial modification, the download and distribution of software 1.1 is still making available.
Falling from my explanation above, I don't believe that's correct. Every new purchase is a placement on the market.
Statement 3:
When software 1.0 has been modified or repaired to 2.0 and this modification is seen as a substantial modification, the first download of software 2.0 is the first making available on the market – placing on the market.
All separate new purchases of v2 will be a separate new placing on the market event, as it was for V1.
Question:
What is seen as a product regarding software? Do you agree to this view and statements?
This is a crucial viewpoint for Support Period and legacy products. In that view, Legacy software is still downloadable on the website without the danger of falling under the CRA.
My belief is that it is not the case. Any software sold once the full application of the law kicks in, whether legacy or not, is immediately subject to the CRA for that particular sale.
However, the same software sold the night before won't be.
Happy to discuss more and/or turn some of this into FAQs.
Best,
--tobie
