wnp@iiasa.ac.at (wolf paul) (11/16/90)
In article <1990Nov15.172428.14527@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) writes: >In article <1339@bbxsda.UUCP> scott@bbxsda.UUCP (Scott Amspoker) writes: >>Most of the "agreements" affixed to software are boilerplate >>efforts that may or may not be meaningful in some extreme cases >>(where a prosecuter may go overboard in interpreting the agreement). > >Nope, at the very least, the "agreement" is a legal contract between you >and the software producer. Violation of that agreement is, at a minimum, >considered breach of contract (in the absence of extenuating circumstances). In light of the fact that in many cases the agreement is contained inside the packaging, and is not readable before you purchase the software, it may not have any legal value at all. After all, the vendor SOLD you THE PACKAGE; that you later find a piece of paper inside it saying that you did not actually buy the package is rather irrelevant at that point. You would have to be notified BEFORE purchasing the software that you are just being offered the right to use it in certain ways. Even if the license agreement is afixed to the outside of the package, if you bought it from a mailorder place which advertised, for example, "Microsoft Word 5.0", rather than "License to use MS Word 5.0 plus media and manuals", you did buy the program, not a license to use it. Of course, maybe the mailorder vendor had no right to sell you the package, only the license, but thats between him and the publisher of the program. But since the publishers keep supplying the mailorder places, while being well aware of how they advertise their goods, I doubt that even that will hold up. -- Wolf N. Paul, UNIX SysAdmin, IIASA, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa@relay.eu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET