17 Jan
2003
17 Jan
'03
4:40 p.m.
The problem with this is that you are totally ignoring
the owners rights in this.
You are treating a program like physical property when
it isn't. It is Intellectual Property.
If you do not purchase a license from the author to
use his work, you are not entitled to own it.
Whether you have made a copy so that nobody else is
deprived of their copy is immaterial.
Something is lost by him/her. His/her rights to
control the distribution of his/her work.
If you don't want to buy it, then you shouldn't have
it.
If you say "F" you, I'm going to take one anyway...
What's the point in having copyright/ownership laws?
If the laws aren't used, respected and enforced..
eventually people will decide not to create cool stuff
because most people will "copy" it (and in your
concept, since they won't buy it anyway... No harm is
being done...), and the author will recieve little to
no compensation for his work.
So, those people will decide to do something where
they will get paid.
If you consistently rob a store, eventually it will go
out of business, and you won't have anything to rob
anymore, not to mention... Actually buy something you
need....
So there is HUGE harm in stealing software by copying
it. Most pirates won't admit to it, because then
they'd have to admit they are bad people, stealing
from someone/everyone...
This is all elementary business/copyright law. Not an
opinion. It's the basis of all copyright law.
Regards,
Al
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18 Jan
18 Jan
6:29 a.m.
On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Al Hartman wrote:
The problem with this is that you are totally
ignoring
the owners rights in this.
You are treating a program like physical property when
it isn't. It is Intellectual Property.
If you do not purchase a license from the author to
use his work, you are not entitled to own it.
Whether you have made a copy so that nobody else is
deprived of their copy is immaterial.
Something is lost by him/her. His/her rights to
control the distribution of his/her work.
If you don't want to buy it, then you shouldn't have
it.
Ok, here's a scenario. What if I find a small stack of original audio
CDs? They were up for grabs in a "FREE" box at the ACCRC. I took them.
Since I didn't pay for them, should I not have them?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
10 Feb
10 Feb
2:09 a.m.
New subject: CDs and the rights thereto
Ok, here's a scenario. What if I find a small
stack of original audio
CDs? They were up for grabs in a "FREE" box at the ACCRC. I took them.
Since I didn't pay for them, should I not have them?
I once bid on a pile of junk in the corner of an auction, and turned out
under a layer of misc there was a full pallet of cases of spindles of CDs
for some current commercial software. About 20,000 CDs, no jewel boxes, but
many boxes of the paper inserts, just I am sure no legal right to sell or
distribute them. Sure looked pretty in the 40' roll off dumpster we tossed
them all in.
Its not unusual in the auction arena to find manufactured goods that carry
no rights with them, production overruns, defects, contract problems, and
number one maybe is the manufacturer goes belly up and everything in the
plant is sold off including production inventory.
BTW yeah yeah, maybe I would do differently now, but at the time I had no
space for the stuff I did take and thought was better. It was 5 days of
little sleep, and lots and lots of loading and sorting.
8:01 a.m.
New subject: CDs and the rights thereto
Mike Ford wrote:
I once bid on a pile of junk in the corner of an
auction, and turned out
under a layer of misc there was a full pallet of cases of spindles of
CDs for some current commercial software. About 20,000 CDs, no jewel
boxes, but many boxes of the paper inserts, just I am sure no legal
right to sell or distribute them.
In the US? If so, you bought them, and you have a legal right to sell
them. This isn't even subject to any sort of license; the ownership
of the physical media is completely clear-cut. The manufacturer has
no right to control your sale of the media in any way, except by
asserting that the physical media has been stolen (physical item theft,
not "software piracy"), or that the media was in fact produced without
their authorization.
Another way to look at it: what if you had bought a lot at an auction,
then discovered that it happened to contain a bunch of books, perhaps
the latest Stephen King novel? Could you sell those? Of course! The
case with software is similar, although there is a law prohibiting
software rental [*].
However, you (or any party to whom you sell the media) might or might
not have any right to *use* the software. This hinges on whether you
can run the software from CD or must first copy it to a hard drive,
whether such copying is infringement (possibly not as it may be fair
use), and whether making a transient copy of the software in the RAM
of the computer is infringement. As I understand it, there is
conflicting case law on these issues.
However, IANAL so YMMV.
Eric
[*] The prohibition on software rental was strongly pushed by the
publishers of video game cartridges. The law was passed, but
ironically video game cartridges are exempted and may be rented!
8:14 a.m.
New subject: CDs and the rights thereto
And thusly Eric Smith spake:
case with software is similar, although there is a law prohibiting
software rental [*].
[*] The prohibition on software rental was strongly pushed by the
publishers of video game cartridges. The law was passed, but
ironically video game cartridges are exempted and may be rented!
And console video game CDs... *sigh* This must have been made
international law, since there used to be a couple of great software
rental places in London, Ontario called "Software Library" that were
closed because of it. :(
Cheers,
Bryan
11 Feb
11 Feb
12:56 a.m.
New subject: CDs and the rights thereto
In the US? If so, you bought them, and you have a
legal right to sell
them. This isn't even subject to any sort of license; the ownership
However, you (or any party to whom you sell the media)
might or might
not have any right to *use* the software. This hinges on whether you
can run the software from CD or must first copy it to a hard drive,
[*] The prohibition on software rental was strongly
pushed by the
publishers of video game cartridges. The law was passed, but
ironically video game cartridges are exempted and may be rented!
This rental thing always puzzled me, I mean whats to stop me from selling
something with a no questions asked return with say a $3 restocking fee. It
isn't called rental, but I don't see 10 cents difference, or how it could
be prohibited.
As far as games go, the rights can be weird. I was looking to put up a
couple internet game joints, with like 50 high end PCs and a fast
connection etc. Turns out you have license the games AS WELL AS BUY THEM,
and it aint cheap, ie Blizzard chardges about $5,000 a year for what I
planned to do.
Regarding the CDs I can say flat out for sure the intellectual property
owner can shut down any sales and get pretty nasty along with it. Case in
point a CD plant goes belly up and somebody buys a pallet of CDs. Turns out
in the pallet of misc there are several hundred Apple Dealer Service CDs
with diagnostic software and fully installable OS for all recent machines.
Shortly after some bozo bought one and tried to register it with Apple, the
Apple Lawyers were all over the poor guy selling them.
Auctions make for some weird issues. Leased equipment gets sold, all sorts
of snafu.
8:28 a.m.
New subject: CDs and the rights thereto
Regarding the CDs I can say flat out for sure the
intellectual property
owner can shut down any sales and get pretty nasty along with it.
Not normally.
Case
in point a CD plant goes belly up and somebody buys a pallet of CDs.
Turns out in the pallet of misc there are several hundred Apple Dealer
Service CDs with diagnostic software and fully installable OS for all
recent machines. Shortly after some bozo bought one and tried to
register it with Apple, the Apple Lawyers were all over the poor guy
selling them.
If they were made under contract to Apple, they are Apple property and
shouldn't have been sold at the liquidation. So they may legally be
stolen property. This is a general problem, not a copyright issue.
This is MUCH different from the more common case where the publisher
scraps a pallet of finished goods, or a distributor or dealer does.
In such a case, the publisher may attempt to suppress sales, but has
no legal ground to do so.
If the publisher is smart about how they scrap stuff, they can
contractually require the buyer to destroy the material. In that case,
if the buyer resells the CDs, the buyer (but not the end user) is liable
for damages.
Auctions make for some weird issues. Leased equipment
gets sold, all
sorts of snafu.
Which is why leasing companies that are smart affix labels to leased
equipment saying things like "Subject to a security interest in favor
of and/or owned by <name of leasing company> <address> <phone
number>"
(seen on one of our laser printers at work). However, there are many
leasing companies that don't do this, which is mind-boggling.
7904
days inactive
7929
days old
6 comments
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participants (5)
-
alhartman＠yahoo.com -
bpope＠wordstock.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com