Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!mirror!prism!jib
From: jib@prism.TMC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Blindness / pirating
Message-ID: <242000009@prism>
Date: 21 Oct 88 12:47:00 GMT
References: <1523@netmbx.UUCP>
Lines: 53
Nf-ID: #R:netmbx.UUCP:-152300:prism:242000009:000:2530
Nf-From: prism.TMC.COM!jib    Oct 21 08:47:00 1988


RE: Software and copyrights

There is some misinformation being passed in notes about rights and
copyrights.  This is not the right notes group to get into details (and
some rights are not yet well-defined  by the courts), but I thought I'd
clarify a few things.

FIRST, A CAVEAT: I am a lawyer (as well as a programmer) and I work for a
legal publisher who also puts out software products.  Nonetheless, the
following are my personal (not professional) opinions, and are not to be
considered formal legal advice. 

Someone said that you could not loan a book (or by analogy a program).
This is simply not true under the copyright laws.  If I own a copyrighted
property, I may sell it, loan it or give it away and NO ONE (meaning the
copyright owner) has any say in the matter.

I may NOT copy it (that's why it's called COPY RIGHT), except as allowed
by the law.  Software (but not books and other materials) may be copied
for backup purposes only because the copyright law was modified to allow
it. 

As far as transfering software and licensing thereof:  The copyright laws
do not deal with  whether you own the property or have a license to use
it.  That is a matter of contract between you and the seller.  If, in
fact, you only have a license to a software package, then you have only
bought the right to use it, not to transfer it to someone else.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, even though most software publishers state
that they are licensing and not selling their software, when it comes to
commericially available (as opposed to custom) software, chances are that
the license is INVALID and you bought it.  Why, because the publisher
treats it like a product that is sold, (for example, via retail stores,
distributors, etc with disclaimers of warranties, etc.) and because you
did not really have any opportunity to agree to a licensing arrangement
with the publisher.

Despite what software publishers say, NO court that I am aware of has
enforced such a license, and in fact, in Louisianna, which passed a law
that said opened a shrink wrapped software package meant you agreed to be
bound by the license terms, the courts struck down the law.

ANY FOLLOWUPS SHOULD BE POSTED TO MISC.LEGAL.

The above represents my personal opinions and NOT necessarily those of my
employer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Block		jib@prism.TMC.COM  
{mit-eddie, pyramid, harvard!wjh12, xait, datacube}!mirror!prism!jib

Matthew Bender Inc, 11 Penn Plaza, NY, NY 10001 (212) 216-8018