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Who Owns Software?
SeeSp0tRun writes to remind us of Blizzard's lawsuit against MDY Industries over the Glider cheat. It seems that Blizzard is pushing it even further. They're trying out the legal theory that a software creator retains complete control over how a program is used, meaning that anyone who uses it in a different way could be found guilty of copyright infringement, at $750 a pop. The EFF and Public Knowledge are among the organizations trying to assure that the court doesn't set a really bad precedent here.
They also hate it when you complete the game sooner rather than later because all that grinding earns them additional months of revenue from you, sucker!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That's a poor analogy. The screwdriver isn't copyrighted. The manufacturer isn't selling a "license" to the screwdriver or a "copy" of the screwdriver. He's selling you a screwdriver. The screwdriver has intrinsic value as an object. It's a chattel.
In contrast, the physical media the game comes on has little intrinsic value. And to the extent that it does, nobody can complain about you using the install disc as a coaster. The real value is in the copy of the software, and many courts allow parties to contract around copyright (even things like fair use, or not copying things that are in the public domain). Lookup the ProCD case out of the Seventh Circuit. Not everybody agrees with it, but many courts have followed it. The question is tougher when it's a "click-wrap," but many courts will even uphold those. The fact pattern is not unique: A sells a copy of a work to B under a contractual license. B breaches the contract. A sues for copyright infringement, because B only received a copy under the terms of the license. When B breached, his license was invalid, so his rights to the copy are lost. A wins. If it didn't work like this, you could never license anything to anybody except under the existing copyright language. Meaning, for example, that the GPL would not be valid, nor would any software license. So based on precedent, this is not an absurd case.
I'm not saying it has to be that way. Nimmer on Copyright is very critical of ProCD, and some courts have declined to follow it. Nimmer would prevent parties from contracting around some fundamental copyright policy. The problem with that approach is "fundamental policy" is very dependent on who's defining it. So many courts (probably a majority) just don't go there. They uphold the contract, period. If you don't like the result, really the only way to change it is to encourage Congress to pass a version of 17 U.S.C. 301 that expressly preempts some contractual provisions, but leaves the rest undisturbed.
Disclaimer: I don't represent anybody here. This post is not legal advice. Don't rely on it for any reason.Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
You've both got it all wrong. The problem is not the government saying how we can drive our own cars. That is analogue to the government telling how we can use copyrighted stuff, which it does (i.e.: DON'T REDISTRIBUTE IT WITHOUT PERMISSION).
The problem here is that blizzard sells you the product, *then* wants to tell you how to use it.
A more fitting analogy would be if Ford sold you a car, then told you "but you can't use it on highways, interstates or parking lots, and you must park it in a covered garage", which is BS, 'cause once you bought it it's YOUR car, and you can do whatever you want with it, as long as it doesn't break the law (over which Ford isn't supposed to have any say...).
The worst they can do is refuse to service you or void your warranty if it was explicitly specified before you bought the car, but they can't tell you what to do with your own stuff.
Now, if they're Renting you a car, or leasing it, that's another thing altogether, but then they should clearly advertise it as a rent, and not as a product you buy out of the shelf.
And even when renting, that implies a whole lot of responsibilities from the vendor..
This is all fucked up big time.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
"You would deny me the right to sell my copyright why?
You would open me up to theft of my material until I personally could publish why?"
No. You could not "sell" what is a statutory right. You could, however, LICENSE it. Authors do this all the time.
I don't necessarily agree with the GP about individual ownership - it totally blows the concept of "work for hire" out of the water. But the time limits for corporations are definitely out of hand - if anything, they should be LESS than those for an individual.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
They're out on a limb here, and the wind is going to pick up shortly. Any EFF lawyer could argue this down in seconds.
By the way, the next paragraph (b) also directly addresses the notion of selling a legally obtained copy of a copyrighted work. It directly and explicitly puts to pasture the idea that you need a company's (like MSFT's) permission to re-sell a singular copy of their software. At least from the standpoint of copyright.
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