[CLUE-Talk] Copyright vs. software license.

[Jeffery Cann]

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On Monday 11 June 2001 10:31, David Anselmi wrote:

>He seems to know more than me about copyright law and basically says
> that license agreements are unenforcable as they violate what you're
> allowed to do with software you buy.

Dave,

I enjoyed your post.  However, I think Dan Berstein is confusing copyrights 
and license issues.  

Given that he is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and not teaching 
copyright law, I would be suspicious of his analysis simply because he does 
not appear to have legal training (just like us!).

Based on what he does teach (Number Theory, for example), it seems that he is 
an intelligent guy who has presented a reasoned rebuttal to software 
licenses, based solely on logic.  Unfortunately, our legal system is governed 
by both logic and precedence.  For our discussion, the Copyright Act is the 
legal precedence.

It may be that the Microsoft license agreement is not enforceable (this is 
debatable).  However, based on the Copyright Act, It is clear that you cannot 
violate the copyrights of Microsoft.  For example, you violate their rights 
if you make copies of the software and distribute them.  In fact, the same 
would be true of I wrote a book and you copied it and distributed the copies.

The copyrights of Microsoft (and anyone for that matter) are a separate 
issue, governed by separate Federal laws.

If you get Linux Journal, you may want to read the 'Geek Law' column that 
appears in the July 2001 issue (page 112).  Actually, I just checked and this 
column is available at:

http://www2.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue87/4754.html

The discussion of the following question "Can a software license restrict my 
ability to use software?" seems applicable to our discussion.

Check it out and give us your thoughts.

Later,
Jeff
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