POURNE%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (11/17/83)
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE@mit-mc> I think I am confused. It's OK to advertise one's car for sale, or an apartment for sub-lease, but not to offer to trade software? Are there indeed rules to the use of these nets, or is t here a sort of concensus, or do we simply have self-appointed proctors, or what?
cfh@cca.UUCP (Christopher Herot) (11/29/83)
Recent press coverage has speculated that the entire software protection mechanism for micros is built on a rather unstable foundation. I haven't heard yet of anyone being taken to court yet for swapping micro software. It is entirely possible that a judge or jury could decide that the fine print on the back of the floppy package no more of a contract than the fine print on the back of a box of cereal. As a software vendor, would you want to try to explain to a jury why the law should have more to say about what you can do with your floppy disk than what kind of bread you can put in your toaster.
jim%rand-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (11/29/83)
Copying copyrighted software for a friend is quite a bit different from putting bread in a toaster (where did you get that simile??). It's more like putting a book in a Xerox machine. If Xeroxing were cheaper, would you feel that copying the latest book by Trevanian for a dozen friends is perfectly moral? Jim@rand-unix randvax!jim
cfh%cca-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (12/01/83)
From: Christopher Herot <cfh@cca-unix> In response to your message of Wed Nov 30 19:49:04 1983: I got the simile from the Wall Street Journal. It wasn't meant to apply to copying disks but only to the swapping of the originals. Believe it or not, this practice is prohibited by many of the contracts which claim to license the program to the original purchaser. The article in the Journal went on to express doubt that this doctrine would hold up in court, since it would be hard to justify placing any more restrictions on the use or disposition of one product over another.
edhall%rand-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (12/07/83)
The `non-transferability' language in these software contracts sounds a bit like a publisher requiring you to agree that you won't loan your book to a friend. Obviously, such use is not prohibited by copyright and I doubt that a publisher that required you to agree not to loan your books would last long. Yet on the other hand per-CPU licensing agreements have been the norm in the computing industry for a long time. As the publishing and the software industries converge, it will be interesting to see which of these enormous bodies of legal precedence will prevail. Perhaps we need only to look at the current flap over videotape rentals to get a taste of the future. -Ed Hall edhall@rand-unix (ARPA) decvax!randvax!edhall (UUCP)