Re: Intellectual Property II

[Rui Miguel Silva Seabra]

On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 18:28 +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> - When you get GNU software by anonymous ftp, *there is no contract*
>   and you have no legal right to use it.  You are granted rights by the
>   GPL that you did not have, but these are not legal rights, because
>   you cannot enter into a binding contract without consideration.  So
>   although you are permitted to use the software, you have no
>   enforceable legal right to do so.

This is bullshit. Usage is not covered by copyright law[1], only
distribution of copies of the work outside fair use.

> - When you order a tape from the FSF, the situation is unclear.
>   If your payment is clearly only a handling free, then any contract
>   that exists is solely for the purpose of the tape being shipped to
>   you, and it does not govern the contents of the tape.  If the payment
>   is actually for the software itself, then there is a contract that
>   affects how you use it.

When you pay for a CD of Microsoft Windows, you only have warranties on
the _CD_ itself, not on the data it contains.

That's almost all you get as far as your money is concerned.
Then there's this license, that restricts your rights even more by
forbidding private copying (install on no more than one computer at a
time), and since it restricts beyond default copyright, you have to
"agree" to its terms.

Since not agreeing means you don't have even a single license, all you
get is a worthless piece of plastic.

With Free Software you get default copyright + extra rights.
In the case of the GNU GPL, distributing new copies is allowed under
certain unilateral restrictions. Nothing else gives you the right to do
that.

This is just plain copyright.

Rui

[1] except in what relates to DMCA and equivalent horror laws.

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