You Don’t Own That Software You Bought

ghost6303 said:
if i dont actually own the software i pay for, then i guess that means that i dont actually have to pay for it anymore... torrents here i come. thanks US district courts, your logic is flawless as always.......
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After reading posts on three tech sites about this ruling it seems that is the consensus of most of the readers. Software engineers are the main ones who disagree.

Honestly this is really a dangerous president. What if everything you buy eventually came with an EULA that prevents resale? Seriously what makes a bunch of code special that they can basically rent you the right to use their product?
 
Anemone said:
Remember these are all "Busch" era installed judges and the "big business" mentality is likely to linger for a long time to come in court judgements. The fact that decisions like this are contributing to the economic decay (because this money is going to fatten bottom lines not to hire more folks or reduce working people's costs) is something the judicial system seems quite ignorant of. But why would they worry, they all have jobs.
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Actually, the 9th "circus" are mostly Clinton appointees.
 
Exavior said:
I don't know why this always surprises people when this comes up. YOU DO NOT BUY GAMES, MUSIC AND MOVIES, you only by a license to use them.

If i go buy a DVD what should make me think that the entire rights of that movie now belong to me. that I now own full rights to that movie and the person that made it now owns nothing and has to pay me from now on for all money that is collected.

Or that if i buy a game, that full ownership of it is now mine.

How does that work when you and 10 million other people buy it. Which of you becomes the owner of the software?

All you are paying for is a license to use the software (or movie or music). you do not at any point in time become the full owner of the software (or whatever) and take ownership away from the creator.

guess what the same happens when you buy a book also. you are buying a copy of it to read. you are not buying the actual rights to the book allowing you to make and distribute more copies of it yourself, taking said rights away from the author and orginal publisher.
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A flawed argument. You do drink the Koolaid.

You buy the book, which contains a copy of the work. You have no right to copy it and sell the copy, BUT you do own that specific copy of the work. You have a right to sell it, destroy it, turn it into confetti, put it on a bookshelf, give it to a friend, use it to stabilize a wobbly table etc. The copyright holder has no right to tell you which room you can read it in, under what type of light to read it with, the choice of fragrance in the room, whether you can read it out loud or quietly to yourself, the time of day to read it, how many times you can read it, nor where to place it when done.

It's no different than selling a car. You may have bought a Ford. Ford owns the patents on the design, copyrights on the ECU software, and built the car themselves. However, they have no right to tell you where you can drive it, for how long you can drive it, how to drive it, when you can drive it, nor do they control if and when it merely starts.

This idea of software licensing is an abomination to the free market system, and is not in any way "Capitalism". It is monopolism and unfair control of a product period. Think realistically. They do not market software as a license. They market it as a product, good or tangible item, then they do a switcheroo and tell you it's a license. If it was honestly marketed as a license NOBODY would pay for it.

It's just like income taxes. Nobody would agree to pay as much as they now pay if they were not required to deduct taxes before they are paid (no "NET"). Getting their gorss and paying in April would piss off the populace so much by seeing how much they are actually paying that the IRS would be gone quite quickly.

The same goes for software. It's no different than a car or book. If the software companies were honest, they'd openly say they are LEASING the software to you.
 
With this ruling, chapter 1 section 117 of copyright law is pointless. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117 Corporations always find away around the laws that are supposed to be for our benefit. Sony Betamax case: Fair use doctrine and the right to make copies of our legitimately purchased media. Then the entertainment cartel bribes congress to pass the DMCA to illegalize breaking copy protection which they then put one everything thus nullifying our rights. Then we have chapter 1 section 117 of copyright law. Corporation start saying we are not selling it to you, we are licensing it to you. Thus nullifying that law.

Around the world they call it bribery. Here, we call it lobbying.
 
So what dose this mean when I sell my PC and it still has Windows on it along with other software?

I'm sure the RIAA, MPAA and Author's guild will jump on this. Goodbye used games, CD warehouse, Half-Price books and yard sales.

I see myself as the arch-angel Terial (from Diablo 2) grabbing these money hungry corporate leaders and saying "Your day of judgement has come. Your sin, GREED!" Then impale them with my sword of holy fire
...Keep dreaming Neghvar
 
not sure how much legal weight this would have. If this is the case though isn't piracy of the software ok then. Since they aren't selling the software just the license. I mean if I pirate the software it's not like I'm in any way pirating a license since that's impossible. I'm pirating a product which isn't a true product in there eyes.
 
AutoDesk has been stealing from DirecTV's playbook. They do the same thing with hardware - you pay $200 for a box, a $5/mo lease fee, and never own the box after the contract.

Software isn't the only thing at stake. At least change the law to say that you "rent" the license.
 
nutzo said:
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
Click to expand...

The conservatives bailed out wall street, housing lenders, and banks... before the dems were even in power, and one of the last acts of Bush (Dec 21st, 2008) was to give 17.4bn to GM and Chrysler as bail out loans.. or are we forgetting how the crash and deficit happened on their watch?... It is also a rather well known fact that the conservative party receives far more corporate funding and support than the dems.. so I don't know where your got your view; just look at McCain fund sources vs Obama, or which side throws a fit when limits are set on corporate contributions or lobbyists.

I have no idea how you reconcile your views.
 
IcarusSC said:
Is there anyone (other than Autodesk and other content producers) who doesn't think this decision is crap?

Two serious questions: one, since software on physical media (as someone else pointed out) is analogous to printed books or to vinyl records, why aren't those models taking precedence in court rulings?

Two, if reselling software is now illegal, what makes it legal to rent a game at Blockbuster?
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Actually Blockbuster and the rest have to buy special copies that are sold as rental copies and not the normal copies that we buy. That is what got red box in trouble. A normal movie that you buy is only for private viewing only. After red box agreed that they would not rent out WB movies for 30 days after they come out, they then started just buying the movies at stores and putting them into their devices since they could buy them that way but not directly. WB went after them for rental out movies that are not meant for rental purposes.

SuperSparky said:
OK, if I don't own it, then why do I pay sales tax on it? I've never heard of a license tax.
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You are still buying something.

Ur_Mom said:
So this ruling will effectively destroy libraries and used book stores. Nice.

They are really trying to screw the consumers lately... Fine, I'm not selling my software. I'm selling the plastic media. It's up to you what you do with it. I'm just charging someone else to dispose of it for me.
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I wasn't trying to say that, only that even books have limits to them. Not as much as music and movies and stuff. But there are still limits imposed on you when you buy a book and that you don't own the actual content of the book. I believe just like i mentioned above for blockbuster and them, even libraries have to get special copies of books to be able to lease them out.

SuperSparky said:
A flawed argument. You do drink the Koolaid.

You buy the book, which contains a copy of the work. You have no right to copy it and sell the copy, BUT you do own that specific copy of the work. You have a right to sell it, destroy it, turn it into confetti, put it on a bookshelf, give it to a friend, use it to stabilize a wobbly table etc. The copyright holder has no right to tell you which room you can read it in, under what type of light to read it with, the choice of fragrance in the room, whether you can read it out loud or quietly to yourself, the time of day to read it, how many times you can read it, nor where to place it when done.

It's no different than selling a car. You may have bought a Ford. Ford owns the patents on the design, copyrights on the ECU software, and built the car themselves. However, they have no right to tell you where you can drive it, for how long you can drive it, how to drive it, when you can drive it, nor do they control if and when it merely starts.

This idea of software licensing is an abomination to the free market system, and is not in any way "Capitalism". It is monopolism and unfair control of a product period. Think realistically. They do not market software as a license. They market it as a product, good or tangible item, then they do a switcheroo and tell you it's a license. If it was honestly marketed as a license NOBODY would pay for it.

It's just like income taxes. Nobody would agree to pay as much as they now pay if they were not required to deduct taxes before they are paid (no "NET"). Getting their gorss and paying in April would piss off the populace so much by seeing how much they are actually paying that the IRS would be gone quite quickly.

The same goes for software. It's no different than a car or book. If the software companies were honest, they'd openly say they are LEASING the software to you.
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Problem with comparing a car and software is how easily one can be duplicated. I can't buy one car and then make 10,000 to give one to all of my friends. Same as the book. Giving the book away makes you lose the book. with software you can give it away and still retain what you had before. I haven't been drinking any koolaid, i can just understand why software and stuff like that is sold the way it is. All software developers do is tell you that you can't install the software on unlimited computers, that you must per computer you install it on. And in some cases do tie it to a single computer / install of windows. I will agree that last part is excessive, but that is their way of deciding to deal with keeping it from being installed on an unlimited number of computers.
 
Exavior said:
Problem with comparing a car and software is how easily one can be duplicated. I can't buy one car and then make 10,000 to give one to all of my friends. Same as the book. Giving the book away makes you lose the book. with software you can give it away and still retain what you had before.
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And in the same guise the software developer doesn't have to do anything more to make an unlimited amount of copies of their product. This isn't about you owning the idea, you are owning 1 copy of the idea, if you want you can resell that idea exactly once as long as you don't keep a copy of it for yourself.
 
heatlesssun said:
But software is NEVER owned by the individual [...]
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This isn't true at all. It's certainly something software vendors would like, and have even written into their EULAs, but this alone doesn't make it so.

There is conflicting precedent regarding whether one is a licensee of software, or an owner, but there have been no cases where the concept of software ownership has been outright rejected. (Feel free to post a link to a case or some law which rejects the notion of software ownership.) In fact, the concept is explicitly codified in copyright law.

In this case, the district court analysis originally upheld first-sale rights. Obviously this was overturned by the ninth circuit analysis, but that was done so on the basis that in this particular case the original user of the software was not an owner and therefore could not exercise first sale rights in giving it to Vernor (for later sale on Ebay).

Judge Callahan said:
This case requires us to decide whether Autodesk sold Release 14 copies to its customers or licensed the copies to its customers.
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We see that judge acknowledges that you can be an owner and with that would have first sale rights, or licensee of the software, and that the basis of the judgment rests on determining in which category the original user of the software was.

More evidence to this effect:
Judge Callahan said:
The Copyright Act provides that an “owner of a copy” of copyrighted software may claim the essential step defense, and the “owner of a particular copy” of copyrighted software may claim the first sale doctrine. 17 U.S.C. §§ 109(a)
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The Judge's opinion notes that the Copyright Right Act acknowledges software ownership.

The judge considers three factors in determining whether the one is an owner or a licensee,
Judge Callahan said:
[...] prescribe three considerations that we may use to determine whether a software user is a licensee, rather than an owner of a copy. First, we consider whether the copyright owner specifies that a user is granted a license. Second, we consider whether the copyright owner significantly restricts the user’s ability to transfer the software. Finally, we consider whether the copyright owner imposes notable use restrictions.
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Even if we are to take this judgment is being definitive in the question of software ownership then we can conclude one is an owner if there is no license provided with the software, or if the license provided with the software is not especially restrictive.

So yes, you can indeed own software.

Judge's opinion is here if you wish to read it. See "B. Owners vs. licensees" for the details.

HOCP4ME said:
I thought you never owned a piece of software, just a license to use it. I thought every software EULA from the past ten years has contained a "not for resale" clause.
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A lot of illegitimate and unenforceable stuff ends up in EULAs. See above.
 
jimmyb said:
The Judge's opinion notes that the Copyright Right Act acknowledges software ownership.

The judge considers three factors in determining whether the one is an owner or a licensee,

Judge Callahan said:
[...] prescribe three considerations that we may use to determine whether a software user is a licensee, rather than an owner of a copy. First, we consider whether the copyright owner specifies that a user is granted a license. Second, we consider whether the copyright owner significantly restricts the user’s ability to transfer the software. Finally, we consider whether the copyright owner imposes notable use restrictions.
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Even if we are to take this judgment is being definitive in the question of software ownership then we can conclude one is an owner if there is no license provided with the software, or if the license provided with the software is not especially restrictive.
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So what if you buy software off the store shelf, never open it, and resell it on ebay. Were you granted a license when you bought it or when you install it? Or do you own that copy and allowed to resell it?
If you don't own the copy (cant resell it), haven't installed it yet, and want a refund, then are you now screwed? Shouldn't there be some consumer protection involved before we allow DMCA nutjobs to control our lives.


SuperSparky said:
Then, of course, is the issue of the retailers. If it's a license, then are the retailers "agents"? If so, then that dumps a crapload of laws on them regarding agents and their responsibilities. If they are an agent, then who do they represent? It is the licensor or the licensee? How do you make a profit off of a license if you are not an agent and do not hold the right to license? Agents, be they talent agents or stock brokers, require some sort of license or limited power of attorney. You see, a license that is brokered by a go-between requires an agent or attorney if not dealing directly with the licensee.

Thus puts the retailers and the licensors in even greater leagal trouble if this stands. I wonder if the defense attorney's considered this in their presentations. You see, if it's deemed anyone can be an agent, then they just eliminated the requirements for passing the BAR to be an attorney.

This is a "can of worms" situation if I ever saw one.

The 9th "circus" court has an average of their cases being overturned 80% of the time. In other words, they are useless wastes of liberal human skin. To label them "competent" judges is to stretch the limits of reality.
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heatlesssun said:
But software is NEVER owned by the individual, be it proprietary, open source, whatever. Renters can't the housed they live in, lessees can't sell the cars they drive because they don't own anything either. I don't see how this is going to get overturned as even though people may think this is whacked out and I don't necessarily like it either it seems to be based on pretty sound logic and precedent.
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The mile-wide flaw in their logic they seem to be overlooking is you can't make people agree to a contract AFTER the sale was completed. Why isn't this being dealt with???
 
-PK- said:
So what if you buy software off the store shelf, never open it, and resell it on ebay. Were you granted a license when you bought it or when you install it? Or do you own that copy and allowed to resell it?
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This is a good question. I'm not really sure - my guess is that you would be an owner.

I seem to recall from the one time I bought AutoCAD that I signed some agreements before I bought it, so they've side-stepped this question somewhat.
 
What is ruled in the USA doesn't apply to those of us in other countries so BFD.
 
The Red [H]ard|Gawd, 4.0 Years


Quote:
Originally Posted by nutzo
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
The conservatives bailed out wall street, housing lenders, and banks... before the dems were even in power, and one of the last acts of Bush (Dec 21st, 2008) was to give 17.4bn to GM and Chrysler as bail out loans.. or are we forgetting how the crash and deficit happened on their watch?... It is also a rather well known fact that the conservative party receives far more corporate funding and support than the dems.. so I don't know where your got your view; just look at McCain fund sources vs Obama, or which side throws a fit when limits are set on corporate contributions or lobbyists.

I have no idea how you reconcile your views.
__________________
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

The Power of Nightmares - Documentary Presented by the BBC
Everything you need to know about the origin of the Neo-Con and the Fundamentalist Extremist, truth, myth, and fear. For the intelligent non-reactionary in you.

[Win 7 Beta x64 & Vista Ult x64] - [Storage: 2.72 TB] - [Mobo: Abit IP35 Pro] - [CPU: e6850 C2D @ 3.9ghz on air w/Big Typhoon] - [RAM: 8GB G.Skill] - [Case: Antec P180B] - [Video: PowerColor 4870 1GB @ 800 / 940] - [Audio: X-Fi Xtreme Music w/ Mister X amp + Audio Technica ATH-AD700s]
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The democrats took control of both the House and Senate in January of 2007, so any bailouts were with their blessing.
 
rpchip said:
The Red [H]ard|Gawd, 4.0 Years


Quote:
Originally Posted by nutzo
Not a joke, the truth.

Why do you think the Democrats receive the vast majority of the donations from Wall Street?
It's the left that champions corporate welfare. (yes that included both Democrats and so called moderate Republicans).

Even when they "pretend" to be helping the little guy, they end up making it worse.
For example punish those evil corporation, raising taxes on the rich, passing more excessive regulations, and then they wonder where all the middle class jobs went.

BTW, Conservatives are not pro-business-at-all-cost. They would not have bailed out GM & would have let the wall street companies fail.
The conservatives bailed out wall street, housing lenders, and banks... before the dems were even in power, and one of the last acts of Bush (Dec 21st, 2008) was to give 17.4bn to GM and Chrysler as bail out loans.. or are we forgetting how the crash and deficit happened on their watch?... It is also a rather well known fact that the conservative party receives far more corporate funding and support than the dems.. so I don't know where your got your view; just look at McCain fund sources vs Obama, or which side throws a fit when limits are set on corporate contributions or lobbyists.

I have no idea how you reconcile your views.
__________________
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

The Power of Nightmares - Documentary Presented by the BBC
Everything you need to know about the origin of the Neo-Con and the Fundamentalist Extremist, truth, myth, and fear. For the intelligent non-reactionary in you.

[Win 7 Beta x64 & Vista Ult x64] - [Storage: 2.72 TB] - [Mobo: Abit IP35 Pro] - [CPU: e6850 C2D @ 3.9ghz on air w/Big Typhoon] - [RAM: 8GB G.Skill] - [Case: Antec P180B] - [Video: PowerColor 4870 1GB @ 800 / 940] - [Audio: X-Fi Xtreme Music w/ Mister X amp + Audio Technica ATH-AD700s]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The democrats took control of both the House and Senate in January of 2007, so any bailouts were with their blessing.
Click to expand...

Not at all really. The Fed and the Treasury doled out the money with the power of the executive branch. Never had to really touch Congress because the funds weren't really there to touch, it was all Fed and Treasury money. Couple that with the fact that a signing statement could still render control useless (because Bush loved those loopholes) that really not passing it or looking it or even arguing it was pointless. It was beyond Congress's control.
 
SuperSparky said:
Whatever you've been smoking. It's working real well.
Click to expand...

Compared to the rest of the world pretty much all US politicians are center or right. Look at global politics. I blame cold war ear propaganda. While I have grown much more left leaning (thought I don't mean democrat and this has been in my later college years) I am still a registered republican. I just think conservatives in the USA have cooped the term "right wing" to actually mean super crazy theocracy for social issues and even more crazy laissez-faire for economical issues while assigning "left wing" to anyone who doesn't follow them on the afore mentioned ideology. The right wing kind of lost the "freedom from government" angle to me when they wanted socialization of losses with privatization of profits along with government enforced regulation of the bedroom and private live. At least to me.
 
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