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From: edhall%rand-unix@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Reply to:Re:  Call for Osborne Executive owners
Message-ID: <14200@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Dec-83 00:42:00 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14200
Posted: Wed Dec  7 00:42:00 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 05:57:04 EST
Lines: 15

The `non-transferability' language in these software contracts sounds
a bit like a publisher requiring you to agree that you won't loan your
book to a friend.  Obviously, such use is not prohibited by copyright
and I doubt that a publisher that required you to agree not to loan
your books would last long.  Yet on the other hand per-CPU licensing
agreements have been the norm in the computing industry for a long time.

As the publishing and the software industries converge, it will be
interesting to see which of these enormous bodies of legal precedence
will prevail.  Perhaps we need only to look at the current flap over
videotape rentals to get a taste of the future.

		-Ed Hall
		edhall@rand-unix        (ARPA)
		decvax!randvax!edhall   (UUCP)