[jlawer]

For consumers in some jurisdictions they may be able to get refunds on the product if it can be argued that this feature was a core reason the application was purchased.

However once you are a business many of those protections aren’t present. There is an assumption that businesses should be able to sort things out amongst themselves and the court system. However an SME barely has any more power then a consumer going against a giant like Autodesk.

I wonder if the solution wouldn’t be to extend those protections to smaller businesses, and additionally allow reclaiming the cost of any investments in the platform (Training, etc) and other expenses. Your not telling autodesk what they can do with their product, but if they are selling it based on features they are removing, they will be liable to make right anyone who purchased on that basis.

[Spooky23]

Small, yes.

When I worked for a .gov we’d have issues like this from time to time, and it was always amusing to see the face of the douche VP of whatever realizing how screwed he was when our attorneys would school them on the various contract provisions they had agreed to without reading.

They’d lay out the basic approach of how they would approach the fraud litigation, and let them know that the “retainage” terms means that the all current receivables would be held in escrow until the matter was resolved.

[wombatpm]

Contracting officers who really know FARS and DFARS rules and regulations are worth their weight in gold subject to an audited BMI index

[BonoboIO]

I think even as a business you would be in the right. Selling you a license and then removing functionality from it after you sold it to them.

[cartoonfoxes]

With a fat EULA attached. Insert obligatory

definition of product applies to current billing period only, Autodesk reserves the right to add or remove functionality without notice

[viraptor]

Depending on how the product was advertised, Australian ACCC may take issues with the change. They intervened in much smaller issues and it's trivial to report things to them. So if someone is Aussie-based and affected... fill out a form.