Proposed consumer rights changes 'could hit software companies'

Moves to apply standard consumer rights to software downloads could prove problematic for developers.

Proposals to change online consumer rights in the EU could cause problems for software companies, it has been claimed.

The European Commission recently published a guide to consumer rights relating to shopping online, accompanied by a Digital Agenda containing eight recommendations for change.

Among the issues identified as a priority by the Commission was the extension of basic consumer rights to include licensing agreements for software downloads.

That could mean software and games publishers become liable for compatibility issues or problems with code and would have to provide fixed-term guarantees.

Some major IT companies believe that would be unfair, as software developers cannot foresee problems with their work which may be related to future changes to operating systems.

While such legal changes may prove problematic for established IT companies, independent software producer Benjamin Henrion told BBC Click they could be disastrous for small technology businesses that rely on open source software.

He explained that many small developers use freely-available code in their products, but would not know if there is a bug in it.

As open source software does not usually come with a warranty, independent producers who make use of it would struggle if they are sued because of problems with it.

Mr Henrion said: "Creating liabilities is especially bad for small producers because they don't have the means to fight a trial in court against a client."

Among the other suggestions made by the Commission in its Digital Agenda were the standardisation of laws governing what can be done with copyrighted content downloaded from the internet and the establishment of a trustmark system for online retailers.