On Fri, 6 Oct 2000 00:06:31 -0700 John Tomany <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> (BTW - If you legally buy a copy of "superwonderultramegaware", you
> are ALWAYS entitled to to use that software on one computer at a
> time; you have paid for the license - even if it was second hand from
> another person... and this is regardless of any "copy limit" involved
> in the original disk.
> IT IS NOT PIRACY TO RE-USE that software on fifty computers - as long
> as they are your own, and it is done serially. (one at a time.)
I agree with John's sentiments that if you legally buy a copy of some
software package then you should be entitled to use that software on
one computer at a time. Copyright protection for software should be
the same as for a book. If you legally buy a book you may make a copy
of it to read at your office and you may keep a copy of it at home. As
long as only one copy may be read at any one time, then no copyright
law is being violated and the book's author is not being robbed of his
royalties. It would only be fair that copyright protection for authors
of software should be the same as copyright protection for authors of
books. In the case of a book you may legally sell it to someone else
as long as you retain no copy for yourself to read. I do not think that
the copyright laws extend any more protection to software authors than
they do to authors of books.
License agreements on software packages have clauses saying such things
as "By opening this package you agree to the terms of the license",
"This license is not transferable.", "This software may not be installed
on more than one computer".
We are talking about contract enforcement here, not copyright law.
Now I am not lawyer, but I very seriously doubt that such "agreements"
would stand up in court. In the first place, how is the prosecutor
going to prove that the defendant opened the package unless he can produce
witnesses that saw the defendant do it? Even if he can produce such
witnesses, how can the prosecutor prove that the defendant did in fact
read what was written on the package, unless the witnesses can swear that
the defendant read the license aloud to them and can recall exactly what
the agreement stated? Prosecutors generally have a very weak case for
enforcing any kind of agreement when they lack witnesses to the agreement
or any other evidence that any agreement was ever made. Now if the
prosecutor had a document signed by the defendant and having language on
the last line such as "I have read and I understand the terms of this
agreement.", then that would be another story. I submit that entering
into a legally binding agreement should necessarily involve both party's
doing so knowingly, and not by the mere simple act of one of the party's
having opened a package. Fortunately, there is no law that requires us
to read what is written on a package prior to opening it. Otherwise, we
would all be criminals.
You all be good and stay out of trouble now.
Sam Heywood
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