Re: Software 'licensing' <RANT>

[cheer@i.hate.spam (Christopher D. Heer)]

It was 15 Mar 1997 06:00:23 GMT.  I was reading instead of working.  And 
RICHARD KENAN <eefacdk@acmey.gatech.edu> said:

>Ed Armstrong (inwards@netrover.com) wrote:

>: Actually, there is _nothing_ in the law books that says this.  It all comes 
>: down to a software company's individual licensing policies.  Take Microsoft, 
>: for
>: instance.  You can legally take a copy of MS Office and load it on every
>: computer in your house - for _you_ to use.  It is licensed _per user_.  On
>: the other hand, you can't do the same thing at work - you need one copy per
>: employee.  Lotus & Corel also do this.  Symantec doesn't.

>: For their operating systems, MS specifies that you must own one copy of the 
>: OS for every machine - regardless of whether they're running at the same
>: time or not.  This seems to be the attitude of Apple // software publishers.

>The problem is, to enforce most of these restricted licenses,
>you have to convince a jury of two things.  The first is just
>plain impossible.  You have a legally protected right to make
>as many backup copies of your software as you want.  Any judge
>in America, and presumably in other countries with similar
>laws, will instruct a jury to accept this as factual regardless
>of any fine print the software company thinks binds you not to
>make backups.  So, if I've installed a program on 3 computers,
>but I only use one at a time, the other two are backup copies.

Utter nonsense.  That's not going to fly.  If you've installed the program on 
three machines, you'd have a tough time convincing a reasonable person that two 
of the installations were for "backup" purposes.  (OK, so that may exclude some 
jurors, but still.)

>The second thing to convince the jury is that you cannot sell
>something you bought.  That is, the company has to make some kind
>of case that you didn't buy anything, you just rented the program,
>regardless of whether this is totally counter to what is actually
>happening.  You see, if you bought it, you can give it away to
>somebody else.  Not the software itself, of course, the software
>publisher will always own it, but the license to use it.  And if
>you can give away the license, then you can give it to somebody
>else while they use it, and they'll give it back when they're
>done.  

But that implies that you don't have it in the interim, so you'd have to delete 
it.  I think you'll find that that is, in fact, in accordance with the terms of 
most licenses.

Otherwise your argument falls apart.

>At all times, the owner of the license was using his
>program in accordance with the license, or at least those parts
>of it that are legally enforceable.  Most of that license crap
>you see written down is pure garbage to intimidate ignorant
>people, so they'll pay attention to the parts that are actually
>meaningful.

If you say so.  You'll forgive me, of course, if I let you try it out in court 
first.
-- 
          Christopher D. Heer - cheer at us dot oracle dot com
     My opinions are my own and do not reflect those of Oracle Corp.
    SPAMProtect: You'll need to fix my email address before replying.