Re: Software 'licensing' <RANT>

[eefacdk@acmez.gatech.edu (RICHARD KENAN)]

Peter F Handel (handel@stolaf.edu) wrote:
: Michael Hackett <at217@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
: : Peter F Handel (handel@stolaf.edu) wrote:
: : > This is the way I've always understood the law (and please correct me
: : > if I'm wrong): It is perfectly fine and legal to buy one copy of a
: : > program and put it on 2 computers _IF_ you can be 100% sure that only
: : > one copy of it is running at once.  The moment you run the same
: : > program on two different computers at once is the moment you're
: : > breaking the law.

: : Bingo! That's how I read it as well. We'll all admit that no software
: : company is going to come after anyone for this sort of infringement,
: : but it is nonetheless illegal, UNLESS the license specifically gives
: : you this right. (Licenses can give you more rights but probably cannot 
: : legally reduce the rights you would otherwise have. I say probably
: : because I don't think this has ever been challenged in court, and I'm
: : a programmer (dammit!), not a lawyer. :-)

: Ok, I have a question then: say you have a copy of some program at
: work, and you copy it and run it at home.  Is this legal, since you
: can be 100% sure that no one's running the program when the office is
: closed?  Something tells me there's something non-kosher about this,
: but from both our arguments, it seems as if this would be perfectly
: legal.

At work, you probably have a site license.  This gives you a license
to install the program on a given number of computers (or on a 
network with a given number of terminals computers), with no
regard to how many people, if any, are using the product at any
one time.  It's a marketing scheme that works pretty well.  The
company pays for a license for the program for every PC it has,
and gets a pretty whopping discount over the price to get personal
use licenses for all the workers.

Personal use licenses are nearly always "like a book" although the
companies will often lie in print claiming that there are other
restrictions.  Nobody ever prosecutes those violations of those
restrictions, because they routinely get thrown out of court on
those rare occasions when some software publisher starts to feel
muscular and tries.  But site licenses are very different beasts,
and are pretty well tested in the courts.

Just me.

--
Richard Kenan
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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