4 Dec
1999
4 Dec
'99
11:58 a.m.
At 01:28 PM 12/3/99 -0800, Mike Ford wrote:
Well, I agree. It would be like buying a Sony music CD that had a shrink
wrap license restricting it from being played on anything but Sony
equipment,and certainly not on an MP3 player. Sounds like Divx.
I haven't paid any attention to the fine print on a Playstation CD,
does it actually contain language that restricts its use?
I see where
this is going, though - it's similar to a shrink-wrap
license. When I buy a Nintendo cart, am I in effect signing a
contract that says I won't run it on an emulator?
How is this different from buying a CD and making a cassette for your
walkman from it? This is familiar ground the courts have ruled in favor of
the consumers on. The wet dream of software companies is "pay per
use", ie you actually don't
get ANYTHING tangible for your money just permission for a specific use.
Linux looks better and better every day.
Microsoft has come to close to this in the past two years. I think
2000 will be the year they actually start charging by subscription
(time-period licenses) and I can easily see the industry migrating
to a license scheme that requires periodic communication with
the Internet to fetch new keys.
- John