Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!sean
From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Paying for Shareware (Was: Re: v09i070: newsclip 1.1...)
Message-ID: <14122@s.ms.uky.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 90 20:15:15 GMT
References: <1201@utoday.UUCP> <13946@s.ms.uky.edu> <1212@utoday.UUCP> <1990Feb8.140220.6168@pegasus.uucp> <1233@utoday.UUCP> <10807@zodiac.ADS.COM> <14108@s.ms.uky.edu> <1237@utoday.UUCP>
Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 39

greenber@utoday.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) writes:

|In article <14108@s.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
|>It's very doubtful that you are legally responsible for following those
|>conditions. Wonder why software vendors won't prosecute for violation of
|>a shrink wrap license? It's because they have every reason to fear that they
|>will lose, and set a precedent.

|No, it's because we have never been able to track someone down, it 
|would cost too much money to sue (tens of thousands, actually) and people
|too unethical to register for their usage of someone else's intellectual
|property probably don;t have deep enough pockets to go after.

I said "software vendors", like the Lotus corporation so fondly referenced
by Ross. They do have tens of thousands of dollars. So does Apple, and
the other people who will go after violation of copyright but to my
knowledge none have taken a shrink wrap violation to court.


|>I don't like being told that I'm bound by a contract that I never signed.
|>Opening a shrink wrap or downloading software proably does not constitute
|>a valid agreement. For almost anything like that to be legal, it requires
|>a signature or at least some overt paperwork with the author (as in checking
|>"yes" on a subscription offer).

|Balderdash, Sean.  Whethr you like it or not, you are bound by certain laws:
|try selling copies of Lotus 123.  Give those folks up at Cambridge adequate
|notice.  You'll be sued forcopyright infringment.  And you never signed
|anything.  Tell it to the judge.

Ross is playing stupid again. I know he's not stupid.

A copyright does not require a contract to be valid. A license does.

-- 
***  Sean Casey          sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean
***  "May I take this opportunity of emphasizing that there is no cannibalism
***  in the British Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there
***  is a certain amount, more than we are prepared to admit." -MP