Legal Question About Selling microSD preloaded

[trizzant]

Is it legal to create and sell Android loaded microSD cards with marketplace and other apps preinstalled?

 

[Johnly]

It's legal to sell SD cards, and as long as you aren't charging for software you don't own, I don't see a problem with it. What exactly is your point in doing that? Is there a market for that, when all of the android stuff is already free on the web for anyone to DL? Are you providing software support too?

 

[Johnly]

You just need permission from the developers.

 

[EVO-lutionary]

You should really get the Developers permissions however legally from what I can tell you don't need it. You wouldn't be selling the software, you would be selling the SD Card and the work you put into making it a ready-to-boot disk. Kind of a grey area but it would be like selling a PC with Ubuntu pre-loaded. It's still free, its the PC you are selling and they work it took to put Ubuntu on there. So you don't have to pay anyone for the Ubuntu. That being said, you are pretty much a douchebag if you make any money on this and don't share that with the Devs who made it possible. Then again I suppose if they wanted to make more money from it they could be selling the SD cards themselves. I don't really see much of a market for this anyway.

 

[irid10t]

Be aware that you are distributing things licensed under the GPL - which means that you will have certain obligations (making source available, etc)

 

[patruns]

Interesting question since there is at least one company out there selling SD cards with either CM7 or Honeycomb on them and also offers rooting service. Was just quoted by an author fro a major publication. Now where was that.........

Yeah, here it is...... RootNookColor.com - Root your Nook Color Externally with microSD card!