On Thursday 31 October 2002 07:42 am, Brendan Hide wrote: > You have the right to do anything with a copyrighted work only if you > have agreed and complied with (and read) the license.
Bull pucky! The vast majority of copyrighted works don't even have licenses. Reaching my hand over about two feet, I find myself picking up a copyrighted work at random. This appears to be "In the Court of the Crimson King", by King Crimson. Let's see if there's a license in it...no there is not. Let me reach in the other direction... "The C++ Standard Libary" by Nicolai Josuttis...no license. Licenses and copyrights are beasts residing in different phyla. > Imagine you pick up some software from a store, but the box contains > everything except the license. Do you have the right to use the > software? Legally, you need to secure a license before you can use the > software. Of course, nobody would, in their right mind anyway, sue you > for using the software you paid them for. If I pick up some software from a store and pay for it, and obtain a sales reciept, then I am the legal owner of that copy. If I have a sales receipt then a sale has been made. As an owner of the copy, I possess numerous rights, including the right to use, dispose of, make archival copies of, and reverse engineer the software. Of course, many lawyers will disagree with me. But the boxes and receipts in my possession argue in my favor. One example: Windows ME. The box clearly says "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Operating System". The same is listed on the "Certificate of Authenticity". -- David Johnson ___________________ http://www.usermode.org pgp public key on website -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
