Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!coy From: coy@ssc-vax (Stephen B Coy) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Any piracy statistics in the US ?? Message-ID: <4209@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> Date: 27 Jun 91 00:18:42 GMT References: <1991Jun24.205146.3372@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Jun25.211142.514@kithrup.COM> Sender: news@ssc-vax.UUCP Reply-To: coy@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stephen B Coy) Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics Lines: 32 In article <1991Jun25.211142.514@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes: >In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >>The "fine print" is not legally binding in the UK. I actually own the >>software I have bought, regardless of what any shrink-wrap license may say. > >You do? Does that mean you can go into business selling copies of whatever >software you've bought? > >Oh, so you *don't* own the software! Semantic sqabbling. Mathew clearly "owns" the manuals he bought and the disks with the software. The vendor "owns" the copyright on the material encoded into those media. As "owner" of the software package Mathew may make copies as long as he doesn't violate the rights of the vendor. Generally, Mathew's legal copies will fall into the following catagories: archival backups, loading the software onto his hard disk, and loading the software from the hard disk to RAM for execution. Any further copying infringes on the rights of the vendor, no shrink-wrap license necessary. Back to the question of who "owns" software. IMO software is information and information cannot be owned. The rights to control that information may be owned. The right to access/use a copy of that information may be owned. But the information itself just is. >Sean Eric Fagan | "What *does* that 33 do? I have no idea." >sef@kithrup.COM | -- Chris Torek Stephen Coy coy@ssc-vax.UUCP brain dead is forever