Help please: how to upgrade rel14 seats?

The firm I have just joined has a number of seats of Autocad14. They also
have a number of LT97/2000 users and I'm on Autocad2004 (being the new boy).
Ideally we need to get onto the same platform for the Autocad users soon.
I realise that Autodesk do not officially allow upgrades from rel14 any
more, but am I allowed to sell these licences and buy newer versions?
Our old Acad dealer did a great deal with us at my last firm, taking our old
rel14 licences in p/ex for some seats of Inventor5 even though the rel14 was
not technically upgradeable.
Or is there any other legal alternative?
Thanks in advance.
JB

 

Actually, licensing issues for AutoCAD seem to be quite tricky. Since
Autodesk has seen fit to screw its R14 and 2000 userbase with forced
upgrages [a little editorializing, I know ;-)], they officially do not
support past products. As with M$ and its past OSes (Win 95, 3.1, etc.), it
raises the issue of what are your rights and responsibilities regarding
officially unsupported software. Of course, Autodesk holds the copyright,
but don't forget the software you bought was licensed to you, not sold. This
is an enormous difference. I'm certainly no expert regarding licensing
issues, but it seems that since Autodesk has decided to quit supporting the
product on an official level, you could perceive this as an abandonment of
the license you purchased when the product was current and officially
supported. Which would mean you are free to do with it whatever you please
as long as you don't violate the copyright, which Autodesk still holds.

My guess is that if you were to privately sell the software, there's not
much anyone can or will do about it. For example, have you ever heard of
anyone having problems selling Windows 3.1??? Didn't think so.