Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:26840 comp.misc:4461
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software Development And Piracy (Spurred By FTL replies)
Message-ID: <3127@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 20 Dec 88 14:43:51 GMT
References: <3121@sugar.uu.net> <2854@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 73

In article <2854@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Greg Lee) writes:
> From article <3121@sugar.uu.net>, by peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
> " Look, Lee, when you "buy" software you are entering into a contract with the
> " seller. The terms of this contract are more or less: you get the right to use
> "...

> A very nice well reasoned argument.  And for those cases where a
> contract actually is executed between buyer and seller, and the buyer
> breaks the contract by selling or giving the software to a third party,
> I agree, he has done something wrong, as well as illegal.

And all the laws that have been passed to help deal with the piracy problem
come down to streamlining this process. It's not changed any from the old
days when you actually signed a license agreement with DEC, or whoever, just
the mechanism has been simplified.

Or are you telling me that you really want to go back to explicit licensing?
If your arguments are to be believed, you do.

> I think you would have to be pretty
> gullible to believe those notices.  I never have, nor considered that I
> entered into any contract.

I'm not talking about "shrinkwrap licensing". I'm talking about the laws that
basically define purchase of software in terms that are functionally equivalent
to a conventional open-ended licensing agreement.

> It sounds like Da Silva wants us to believe that *every* buyer of software
> enters into some sort of implicit contract not to distribute the
> stuff to others.  Is anyone going to buy that?

That's what the law means. Because people didn't like shrink-wrap
agreements. There's nothing inherently wrong with shrink-wrap agreements so
long as the terms are spelled out ahead of time (i.e., you don't have to
pay money to read them). The legal system may disagree, since the law has
superceded them, but that's a different matter.

So what do *you* want people to do? What's your motivation here? You want
people to buy software, license software, or steal software? These are the
three alternatives. Option 3 is economically unjustifiable. Option 1 is
convenient, but since you don't believe in copyrights or intellectual
property, that's out of the question. That leaves us with Option 2: licensing
the stuff.

So you can either sign a peice of paper or accept the law that makes "buying"
software equivalent to signing that peice of paper.

Where do you go from here?

> " It is the authors right to put any terms he wants to on a contract. It is your
> " right to accept or reject the contract as a whole. It is not your right to
> " turn around and force a third party, who has agreed to that contract, to
> " break it.

> What's this about third parties?  Are we trying to sneak the pirates
> into being partiies to broken "contracts" by claiming they coerce the
> people whose software they copy into distributing it?  Whew!  Awesome
> reasoning.

We're not trying to sneak anything in. There are two cases:

	You pay your money and then give copies of the software away. You're
breaking that implicit contract.

	You pay your money and then someone copies the software. The contract
has still been broken, and you've been negligent in protecting the terms of
the contract.

	In the second case, yes, the pirate is responsible for forcing the
original licensee into breaking the contract. You do not have the legal right
to force someone to break a contract. QED.
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva  `-_-'  peter@sugar.uu.net