Supreme Court Lets Utilization Rights Stand

Moof writes "The United States Supreme Court refused to hear a case between a programmer and his former employer. What makes this news is the fact that the court is letting stand the rulings of the lower courts: Essentially if someone owns a physical copy of software, then they are allowed to modify the code as part of their regular use, no matter what other agreements are in place."

Comments

Re:How does he legally claim copyright?

[Xentor]

Maybe it was more of a consultant gig, where he sold them a black-box custom solution. They'd own the program, but he'd keep the code. They'd get it a little cheaper, but they'd have to hire him again whenever changes were needed...

I've seen this tactic before... I wouldn't work that way.

The big point - who owned the code

[MyNameIsFred]

See this for more details. This issue appears to have been whether the company actually owned the source. The courts said yes.