Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
On Fri, 1 Nov 2002, John Cowan wrote: Brendan Hide scripsit: The first two books I pick up from the shelves: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: (c) Oxford University Press 1999 Database right Oxford University Press (makers) First published 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, [remainder snipped] [second example snipped] These look like licenses to me. They're not. They are warnings that the standard rights of copyright owners are reserved. A license includes a grant of rights: these notices are anti-licenses that don't grant anything. BTW what does the team think about notices such as this one: Copyright (C) 1997-1999 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 901 San Antonio Road, Palo Alto, California 94303 U.S.A. All rights reserved. Duke(TM) designed by Joe Palrang. RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the United States Government is subject to the restrictions set forth in DFARS 252.227-7013 (c)(1)(ii) and FAR 52.227-19. The release described in this manual may be protected by one or more U.S. patents, foreign patents, or pending applications. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUN) hereby grants you a fully paid, nonexclusive, nontransferable, perpetual, worldwide limited license (without the right to sublicense) under SUN's intellectual property rights that are essential to practice this specification. This license allows and is limited to the creation and distribution of clean room implementations of this specification that: [... list of conditions omitted for brevity]. I read this as a one-sided grant, rather like the BSD license: if I take the trouble to read it then I find I have more rights than I previously thought, provided I comply with the conditions. Otherwise, I'm just reading a book. However it has been suggested to me that this notice could be intended to restrict the ways in which the book's contents can be used: that if I go ahead and create and distribute a clean room implementation then it has to fulfil all the listed conditions. And that I may not distribute my implementation under an open source license, because that would amount to sublicensing. Fact or FUD? -- Chris Gray VM Architect, ACUNIA -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
See below. I should have made some extra things clear. David Johnson wrote: 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. Added emphasis I didn't mean that without the license you can do only nothing. I just meant that if you haven't read the license, you should assume that you don't have any additional rights. Bull pucky! Good one - LOL 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 The first two books I pick up from the shelves: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: (c) Oxford University Press 1999 Database right Oxford University Press (makers) First published 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. Cryptography in C and C++ reads: Copyright (c)2001 by Michael Welschenbach All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. These look like licenses to me. You're also supposed to get fair use rights, of course. I forgot to mention that I'm South African and that my experience of US law is limited to cliché television programs (and reading the license-discuss list). 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. I should have said do anything beyond the rights given to you by fair use law rather than use. 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. Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let my 8-year-old sister click on Agree, that I can reverse-engineer Windows XP? In South Africa, the receipt would count for diddly squat. You can't make a backup copy unless the license specifically says so. 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. -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
Brendan Hide scripsit: The first two books I pick up from the shelves: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, reads: (c) Oxford University Press 1999 Database right Oxford University Press (makers) First published 1999 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, [remainder snipped] [second example snipped] These look like licenses to me. They're not. They are warnings that the standard rights of copyright owners are reserved. A license includes a grant of rights: these notices are anti-licenses that don't grant anything. But as owner of a lawful copy, you still have lots of rights, just not the five standard copyright rights. You're also supposed to get fair use rights, of course. I forgot to mention that I'm South African and that my experience of US law is limited to cliché television programs (and reading the license-discuss list). ZA is a signatory to the international copyright treaties, so its law is pretty well aligned with everyone else's. It may differ in the question of copyright terms, moral rights, etc. I should have said do anything beyond the rights given to you by fair use law rather than use. You are misusing the term fair use. Anyway, the ZA legal term is fair dealing. Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let my 8-year-old sister click on Agree, that I can reverse-engineer Windows XP? In South Africa, the receipt would count for diddly squat. Minors can't make valid agreements. Not reading a license does not relieve you of it, any more than trying to walk out of a store with something is legal if you haven't read the price tag. You can't make a backup copy unless the license specifically says so. This is a matter of local law, and may be true in ZA. -- Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far John Cowan coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that www.ccil.org/~cowan O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word www.reutershealth.com to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All [EMAIL PROTECTED] she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. _Ulysses_, Oxen -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
On Friday 01 November 2002 12:32 am, Brendan Hide wrote: Cryptography in C and C++ reads: Copyright (c)2001 by Michael Welschenbach All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. These look like licenses to me. Hmm, are those really licenses, or are they mere copyright notices? Does this mean that, if I don't read the license for MS Windows XP (I haven't and never will - I refuse to install such a trojan), and I let my 8-year-old sister click on Agree, that I can reverse-engineer Windows XP? I don't know about South Africa, but here in the United States lawsuits are won not according to the law, but according to who has the biggest laywers. Microsoft has bigger lawyers than you do. This means that if they say you have agreed to their license, then you have indeed agreed to their license. If they say the moon is made of green cheese, who are you to argue? -- David Johnson ___ http://www.usermode.org pgp public key on website -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
IANAL, but I think I have finally nailed this sucker. If anybody disagrees with me please let me know why. You have the right to do anything with a copyrighted work only if you have agreed and complied with (and read) the license. If you have not read the license, then you are not aware of your rights to the work and you should assume that you have no rights over the work, bar the fair use rights given to you by the law and international treaties. 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 the license gives you secondary rights, then you have to read that license in order to get those rights. If a user claims that there was no assent that the user agreed with the license, because the license was not presented to them, then there was no assent from the author that the user can *use* the work either. Fair use laws give the user some basic rights but that is it. If anything still needs clickwrap, it is the warranty. The only reason for this is that the law already gives the user fair use rights, thus potentially giving room for a suit. Other than that, I do not see why a clickwrap licenses/contract are in any way legally necessary. Here, I can easily see Larry's single-click click-wrap solution working very well. -- Brendan Hide [EMAIL PROTECTED] Technical Writer SA Computer Magazine http://www.sacm.co.za/ +27 21 715 7134 - Opinions expressed in this Email are those of the individual sending it and not necessarily of the Company. This Email is confidential. - -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
Re: Copyright vs? Click-wrap contract
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
