The drifted SCO thread has opened a new arena. "IS there a place for a de facto IP freedom realm"
Bradley Hook
bhook at kssb.net
Fri Sep 28 11:10:27 CDT 2007
David Nicol wrote:
> http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html
>
> which says, once you legally obtain software, you may modify it,
> if you have the time and inclination.
The problem is that Microsoft doesn't sell copies of software, they sell
licenses. If you carefully read Microsoft's recent EULA, as with many
others, you should note that the license does not grant you ownership of
the software. Microsoft has made much more of a shift in this direction
recently. For example, my employer purchased a large number of licenses
from Microsoft recently, and we waited for something (anything!) to come
in the mail. After about a month, we started making calls because we
hadn't received anything. We were informed that our purchase wouldn't
result in us receiving anything... our invoice served as proof of
purchase for the licenses. In my mind, this basically meant we spent
thousands of dollars on an *invoice*!
Under Microsoft's logic, the shrink-wrapped CD you have still belongs to
Microsoft. Since you do not own it, most of the rights granted under
fair use are not available to you. I do not agree with this!
However, this does present us with a couple of loopholes.
First: The whole "invoice=license" concept means that in order to use
the license, you have to purchase a "media kit". The media kit is *not*
licensed, and therefore by purchasing it you legitimately own a copy of
the software - fair use applies.
Second: Certain fair use rights don't require you to own the copy in the
first place. For example, academic fair use permits copying for academic
purposes, and this right is often exercised in libraries where the
person does not own the copy.
~Bradley
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