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From: mwm@eris (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Guidelines on legal protection for shareware & freeware
Message-ID: <6784@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 30 Jan 88 00:31:15 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Followup-To: comp.sys.misc
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 163

[This is being posted far & wide, as I have been asked to do so. 
Followups have been pointed to comp.sys.misc.]

Here, as promised, is a description of what you need to do to
shareware and freeware so that the law will be on your side about what
people do - and don't do - with it. I consider most of it is common
sense, but "legal" and "common sense" seem to have little do with each
other, so some people might find it usefull.


	<mike

-------------------- document begins here --------------------

This document

	Copyright 1987 by Mike Meyer
	All Rights Reserved

The whole of the document may be freely redistributed. Parts may be
freely redistributed so long as the disclaimer and the list of the
evils of shareware are included with those parts.

The following presents some simple guidelines for what should - and
shouldn't - be present in a shareware product so that the authors may
be able to use the law to extract money from people who use, but do
not pay for, their product. There is also a discussion of things you
might and might not want to include in freeware.  These guidelines are
based on a study of the copyright laws, and discussions with lawyers.
As is usual for software, the laws are still unclear, and there has
not been a precedent covering what is and isn't correct. The following
disclaimer is needed for that, as well as to cover for my own
fallability.

	Disclaimer: These guidelines not guaranteed to be correct.
	Follow them at your own risk.

When in doubt, consult a lawyer. You'll pay for it, but you have some
hope of compensation should you get bad advice.

I believe implicitly that knowledge should be shared, and I possess
knowledge that it seems many will find useful. Therefore, I'm going to
give guidelines on what to do to shareware products so that you have a
hope of extracting funds from non-registered users in a court of law.
However, I'm going to insist you listen to the things I consider evil
about shareware, and ask that you consider making your package
publicly available instead of shareware.

	Among the evils of shareware are:
		1) It violates the hacker ethic.
		2) It uses channels of distribution originally
			intended for freeware, without compensation to
			or permission of the people who run those
			channels.
		3) It uses intimidation to coerce money from people.
		4) It entices them to break the law.


You are also going to have to listen to my lecture on what public
domain really means. Why don't we start by defining that?

Public domain, contrary to an apparently popular believe, means that
anyone who has a copy may do whatever they wish with that copy.
Including put their name and copyright on it, and sell it as a
commercial product. By placing something in the public domain, you've
given it to whoever wants it to do whatever they wish with it.

Next obvious question: How do you place something in the public
domain? Well, the easiest and fastest way is to publish something with
the words "This is in the public domain" prominently displayed. Doing
that negates any copyright notice you may have on it.  The second way
is to publish something without putting a valid copyright notice on
it.  This isn't as fast, as there are provisions in the law
allowing for the accidental publication of things that should have had
a copyright, but don't.

Note that a statement "this is in the public domain, not for
commercial use" is self-contradictory. The document in question is in
the public domain, and available for commercial use.

As an aside, in the context of shareware and freeware, "publish" means
making available to others - uploading to a BBS, posting to USENet, or
sending to a software library would all constitute publishing.

At this point, the first guideline should be obvious:

	Put a valid copyright notice where it will be seen.

Of course, you need to know what a valid copyright notice is. The one
at the top of this document is valid. In general, you want, on a line
by itself, the word "copyright", the year of publication, and your
name. If you can produce it, the copyright symbol (circle-c) will do
instead of the word "copyright". However, the ASCII-ism "(c)" is not a
valid replacement for that.

In most of the countries that agree to the international copyright
laws, that is sufficient. Some, however, require you to explicitly
state what rights you reserve. For that reason, the second line "All
Rights Reserved" should be added if you plan, or expect, distribution
outside the United States.

These should be placed where they will be seen. If you have a title
screen, put them there. Near the beginning of any manual you provide
is another good choice. Printing them on a standard output stream is a
possibility, but will give filters headaches.

To give those of you a who are considering doing the right thing and
publishing your product as freeware instead of shareware some extra
options, I'll point out that after the copyright notice you can place
a notice allowing redistribution under specific conditions. A common
thing to see here is "This code may be freely redistributed so long as
it is not included as part of any commercial product" or words to that
affect.  The GNU copyright notice is probably the best example of
this. They wished that anyone who wanted to use their software should
be able to, yet that nobody be able to make money off it by selling
it, that there not be multiple version, and that they not be held
liable for it's correct operation.

If you still want to make money off it, instead of donating it to the
good of society, you need one more thing - a license agreement.  This
should be as explicit as possible. Asking for money doesn't do it - if
you merely ask, you're begging. You have no legal right to expect
money. So avoid the words "please," "donate," "grateful," and the
like.

The best thing to do is to have a specific license agreement that must
be printed, signed and returned with a check. Then near the copyright
notice put a notice stating something like "Use of this product
without returning the license agreement and registration fee is a
crime." Except, the more specific you can be, the better. Instead of
just saying "Use", say "Use more than 5 times," or "Use for more than
2 weeks."

Should the license agreement seem to much to add to the product, just
place a notice like "Use of this product without registration by
sending $# to <whoever you are> is a crime." Once again, be specific -
give a number of trial uses, or the length of a trial period.

So the second basic guideline is:

	Be as explicit and fascist as possible about licensing.

I have purposefully left the description of a "shareware license
agreement" off. It's up to the shareware authors to decide what they
want to put there; I've described how you can get a good chance of
actually having it enforced. I'd ask for a shareware author to
contribute a sample, but that seems pointless.

That's really all that's needed - a valid copyright, and explicit and
fascist conditions on usage. While this doesn't guarantee that you'll
be able to extract money in a court, it gives you the best chance
possible without going through commercial channels.

Of course, corrections to any of the suggestions above will be
gratefully accepted. Suggested improvements in the document as a whole
would also be appreciated.

-------------------- document ends here --------------------
--
Kiss me with your mouth.				Mike Meyer
Your love is better than wine.				mwm@berkeley.edu
But wine is all I have.					ucbvax!mwm
Will your love ever be mine?				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET