Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:21:20 -0400, Jeremy \"UncleHoot\" Praay wrote:
> 
>> Nevertheless, DMCA aside, it has
>> never been illegal to do anything you want to any copyrighted work,
> 
> Any copyrighted work that you purchase a copy of.  That's why software 
> companies tend to not sell you the software, but a license to use the 
> software.  It's my understanding that the licensing agreement is intended 
> to be what it is you are purchasing, the media included notwithstanding.

But there are various limitations on how you can enforce such a thing. For 
example, say you buy a game, open the CD, put it in your drive, install it, 
and then it asks you if you agree to the license. Will the game store take 
that back if you didn't accept the license at that point?  If not, you 
bought it under copyright.

The box doesn't say they're selling you a license. It says they're selling 
you a copy of the game. If you get it home and find you only bought a 
license, you could probably claim bait-and-switch. :-) Plus, it's still the 
case that a license can't take away rights granted to you by copyright law. 
That's exactly what the Copywrite v Prolock case was about.


Both of these facts have come up in various court cases, and in each case 
the court managed to find some way of not addressing the fundamental 
problem. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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