> How do they get away with bulling people on such flimsy legal grounds? It's

Bullying or not, I think that you'll find their legal grounds to be
anything but flimsy. 

If you have an OEM copy that's packaged for sale with a computer system,
then that's how you have to distribute it. It'd be a different story if
you had a wrapped box of the reatail version.
 
But with an OEM copy, the fact is, you're not allowed to sell it (and you
probably shouldn't even have those particular copies) because they're
geared towards and authorized for a particular distribution channel of
which you aren't a member. Vendors at computer shows are also not allowed
to sell it (except with system, for some definition of system), but they
do anyway.

So, in fact, Microsoft probably has the ability to put immense legal
pressure on Ebay to prevent them from advertising such sales, and what you
saw was the result of an agreement they had hashed out.

Just like RIAA and crew can put immense legal pressure on Napster for
telling you where you can find a copy of a song that someone else actually
illegally distributes. 

It sucks, but it's the way the world works today. 

> They really do own the world, don't they? =/

Yeah, so the trick is figuring out how to finagle some of it back. 

Andy

> B