Just because it's written in a Microsoft EULA doesn't mean it's the law. I challenge you to find a legal opinion backing up your claim that I do not own the physical copy of software which I bought.
It's like I walked down the street, unbolted the "NO PARKING ANYTIME" sign from the post and say "well, I didn't agree to the sign, so I removed it, and now I can park here persuant to normal traffic laws!"
It's not illegal to park in a certain place because of the sign. It's illegal to park there because the county parking authority passed a rule stating that it's illegal to park there, and the legislature passed a law saying you have to listen to the county parking authority.
This is the problem. If you don't own the copy, but only the disk, then it seems that section 117 has been legal-hacked.
The disk contains the copy of the software.
It's obvious that it would make sense that you own the copy of the program. But then, the whole system seems to be built on the idea that you don't own a copy of the program, merely "license" the right to run the program.
No. The EULA may be built on that idea, but the law is not. When I buy a CD from a store, I am buying a physical object, which I then own. On that physical object is a physical copy of software. I own that physical copy of that software. The EULA may say otherwise, but the EULA is wrong.
If you can get away with ignoring the EULA because you're too small-fry, then the strip-EULA program is irrelevant anyway.
I agree with you there. This strip-EULA program is completely irrelevant. In fact, using it may subject you to the DMCA, copyright infringement for creating an unauthorized derivitive work, etc.
But I've seen enough legal debate over whether you actually do own the copy, that I think the poster is treading onto very dangerous ground if he or she believes he's unarguably correct.
It's arguable, but my own personal opinion is that EULAs are completely non-binding if all you do is use the software. And since I'm now stepping into the world of opinions, I should state that IANAL and this is not legal advice.
By the way, whether or not you own the copy is based on state law, not federal law, so that's part of the reason you're going to see so many varying legal opinions. Copyright law is federal, but contract law and most commerce law is state.
That's where things get very weird, with the MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer decision. The whole part of the DMCA (Title III) was to overturn that law, but only in the context of hardware maintenance.
That's because the law already applied to consumers. The reason the old Title 117 didn't apply to hardware maintenance was because the person fixing your computer was not the owner of the copy.
But it shows that there is law considering that running a program without licence is considered copyright infringement.
Running a program without a license is copying, because you are copying the copyrighted instructions into ram.
The poster has the idea "I own this copy. Therefore, I can run the program, except the EULA takes away my rights in it. So ha-ha-ha, hack-out the EULA, and I keep all my rights".
That was likely made illegal by the DMCA, but pre-DMCA, it was perfectly legal. So was hacking shareware and using serial numbers found on the internet.
That is, the situation may be that you own the disk, but not the right to run the program, unless you agree to the EULA.
What then does section 117 mean?
I don't like this. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
Actually in this case ignoring it will make it go away. Even if EULAs are legally binding, software companies aren't going to go after the little guy who's not hurting anyone anyway.
There's much law which says you are NOT THE OWNER of the copy
Huh? What law is that? You are the owner of the copy. Not the owner of the copyright, but the owner of the copy.
See, for example, the comments about the MAI Systems decsion
Huh? "Title III amends Section 117 of the Copyright Act to ensure that independent service organizations do not inadvertently become liable for copyright infringement merely because they have turned on a computer in order to service its hardware components." The whole point of Title III of the DMCA is to avoid that decision in the future.
The number of people dialing up to AOL, MSN, and other dial up providers is still pretty high. It would seem to me that they are probably the same people that would be buying a $300 computer at walmart.
You're probably right, but for those dialing up to AOL and MSN it's pretty dumb. The $5 a month extra for life has an expected value of $5*12=$60/year, factoring in a 5% interest rate=$1200 expected value, more than four times the cost of the machine.
Can you output the data to a computer/PDA? If so it would be pretty trivial to tunnel just about anything through email. $30/month for unlimited internet access is pretty cool, even if it is dirt slow.
Anthony, can you please explain exactly how the GPL license uses copyright against copyright?
RMS does not believe that copyright should prohibit people from freely distributing software, yet the GPL prohibits people from distributing their software once they have broken the terms of the GPL.
Actual, IMO it does. As I have pointed out, Microsoft's exclusionary practices are in breach of the intent of the US Antitrust laws and the EU Commerce Commision are concerned over Microsoft's policy of discriminatory and selective disclosure on the basis of a "friend-enemy" scheme. Microsoft need to present very valid arguments to excuse their exclusionary practices.
I don't see how that's relevant to whether or not Microsoft uses GPLed software.
The inclusion of GPL license code in Interix and SFU 3.0 runs counter to the rational [sic] Microsoft uses for the GPL and LGPL exclusion clauses in Microsoft's license agreements.
Now I see what you're getting at, but it's not true. Microsoft has a patent on CIFS. While they are willing to license the rights to that patent directly, they are not willing to give others the right to sublicense the rights to that patent. The GPL itself explicitly states that "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all."
When Microsoft includes GPLed software directly, it's a different story, because they do have the right to grant patent licenses, so they can simultaneously satisfy the obligations of the GPL and the obligation to obey patent law.
There are plenty of people here on slashdot that call the Microsoft EULA a cancer but go ahead and use the OS anyway. Actually, I'm one of them. Does that make me a hypocrite?
It is hypocritical of Microsoft to discourage others from doing what Microsoft is about to engage in itself.
That's just silly. If I own copyright on a work, the whole point is to discourage others from doing what I am engaged in. Copyright is an exclusive right in a work.
I think the problem is you're confusing morality with legality. Microsoft's license terms state that it is illegal to do certain things, not that it is immoral to do those things. Hypocrisy is when you don't follow the morals you possess. It is not simply when you try to force others to do things that you yourself do not do.
Copyright is not a law of morality. It's not immoral to copy something. Copyright is not a God-given right. Rather, the people who created our country have decided that giving artists exclusive rights to their works would encourage science and the useful arts.
When dealing with legalities, as opposed to moralities, it's perfectly legitimate to exploit every loophole in the system.
They are trying to spin the GPL so people think it limits what software you can distribute with GPL'd stuff. They are trying to convince commercial developers that they will have legal problems if they try to get their commercial packages distributed with Linux.
What about their position are you claiming is immoral?
How can Microsoft use GPL licensed products, such as GNU GCC, for the express purpose of 'interoperating' with Unix and Linux systems and at the same time deny everybody else the right to use GPL licensed products to interoperate with Microsoft's own products?"
It's really simple. They own the copyright to their products, so they make the rules. There is no requirement that those rules be uniform across all people. They have every right to say "We can do X with our product, but no one else can".
It's not immoral to use someone else's product against them. If it was, then it would be immoral for RMS to use copyright against copyright.
It may be immoral for Microsoft to have such a draconian EULA in the first place, but the fact that they use GPLed products legally doesn't change that one way or the other.
Re:Speak 'n' Spell emulation?
on
PDAs For Kids
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· Score: 2
They definately should. When I saw the E.T. rerelease in the theatre and heard that voice I remembered it immediately, and realized that that device single handedly taught me how to spell (I used to think that ' was pronounced "doink"). I leaned over to my friend and told him "if no one is making one of those things any more, I'm going to make one."
It'd probably be legal. I'm sure the patents have expired, the voice was public domain, and I could clean-room engineer the look and feel. Call it something like "Spelling Speaker" and you'll avoid trademark laws. With so many of the twenty-somethings now married with their own children, I bet they'd sell like hotcakes.
If only I knew the first thing about manufacturing. Anyone?
How much autonomy can a regular person get on the Internet?
You can get pretty much any autonomy you need, but you might have to go to multiple places to get it. If you're not breaking laws, serving porn, sending spam, or hosting sites which are referenced in spam, then you can go just about anywhere. If you want to serve porn, send spam, or host sites which are referenced in spam, then you're going to have a much harder time finding a location, but it is possible. If you want to break the law, well, you already said you don't...
As for bandwidth, you pretty much have three choices: cap your maximum bandwidth, cap your monthly transfer, or be willing to pay additional fees.
a bill has been introduced into Congress that makes it easier for wiretaps to be authorized by allowing material constituting or containing child pornography to be valid grounds for requesting a wiretap.
My biggest problem with the bill is that it will further enhance the corporatization of the web. Imagine if slashdot had to comply with these rules when it first started out. The access rules alone would be a nightmare (imagine sorting through gigs and gigs of server logs to find all the instances of one person's IP address, printing them out, and mailing them, all for $3). Add the cost of defending litigation, and hiring lawyers just to ensure compliance, and quite simply, slashdot would not have existed.
It would be kind of neat to be able to request from companies all the information they have about me, but this is something that should be optional, not mandatory. The government should set up a certification program, similar to truste, and offer it to those who have the resources to comply. Then the user can decide for him/herself whether they want to go to a certified site or not.
I'm not sure what people want the government to do to stop people from exploiting each other with copyright. Enforcing copyright law will bring the prices of CDs down, but it will probably cost as much in taxes to enact the enforcement. The easiest way to stop being exploited is to stop buying CDs for $35.
The problem with that is that what the RIAA wants to do is move the burden of dealing with copyright infringement (a civil matter) onto the government.
Copyright infringement is also a criminal matter, even sometimes when distributing for non-commercial purposes.
I have a hard time understanding what it is that people want the government to do with copyright. It seems that most people are not against the law, and even favor enforcing it when it suits their interests, but then they regularly break the law, using napster or not paying for shareware or whatever, and get all disturbed when the government tries to enforce the law.
I guess one argument is that copyright law should be civil law, and the government shouldn't get involved except through the court system, and that's a good start, I guess. It's a tough situation having a nation full of criminals. Not only does it waste money and resources, it creates a powerful means for law enforcement officials to discriminate. When everyone is a criminal, freedom becomes a priviledge.
"only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer" Most distros I know of distribute the source by "offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place," which counts under (3)(a), not (3)(b).
So if you send a friend a binary Linux ISO and don't send him the source, you're probably breaking the law.
Here's a summary. I don't have the book any more so I can't quote, but notice in the summary of chapter 10 where the summary reads "When shrinkage to below the Planck length is attempted, the crunch becomes a bounce."
Since many mail administrators have simply blocked anything coming from the.cn TLD (as well as pretty much any other domain known to originate from China), who is the massive DDoS going to affect?
uce@ftc.gov, when all you lamers forward the spam to the government thinking you're doing the world a favor.
"just" require all SMTP traffic to use TLS, and have them all under one CA, so everone can test the authentication of the sender..
Well, yeah, but if you're going to do all that why not throw out all the whole protocol altogether, or just require all messages to be PGP encrypted.
Spam is easy to solve in theory, but next to impossible in reality. Because we're stuck allowing backward compatibility, the spammers can always just pretend to be using the old broken protocol.
Email is never going to get fixed. The fundamental concept is flawed. You can't allow arbitrary messages from arbitrary anonymous sources without getting spam. Probably well over 99% of solicited mail is non-anonymous anyway, so the solution is simple, in theory.
Until anonymous email is deprecated the spam problem will not be solved, plain and simple.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, most or all EULAs have a provision in them to the effect that the Waiver doctrine does not apply.
Very interesting. Has this clause ever held up in court? And what happens if they waiver the waiver clause?
Catch that last sentence?
Just because it's written in a Microsoft EULA doesn't mean it's the law. I challenge you to find a legal opinion backing up your claim that I do not own the physical copy of software which I bought.
It's like I walked down the street, unbolted the "NO PARKING ANYTIME" sign from the post and say "well, I didn't agree to the sign, so I removed it, and now I can park here persuant to normal traffic laws!"
It's not illegal to park in a certain place because of the sign. It's illegal to park there because the county parking authority passed a rule stating that it's illegal to park there, and the legislature passed a law saying you have to listen to the county parking authority.
This is the problem. If you don't own the copy, but only the disk, then it seems that section 117 has been legal-hacked.
The disk contains the copy of the software.
It's obvious that it would make sense that you own the copy of the program. But then, the whole system seems to be built on the idea that you don't own a copy of the program, merely "license" the right to run the program.
No. The EULA may be built on that idea, but the law is not. When I buy a CD from a store, I am buying a physical object, which I then own. On that physical object is a physical copy of software. I own that physical copy of that software. The EULA may say otherwise, but the EULA is wrong.
If you can get away with ignoring the EULA because you're too small-fry, then the strip-EULA program is irrelevant anyway.
I agree with you there. This strip-EULA program is completely irrelevant. In fact, using it may subject you to the DMCA, copyright infringement for creating an unauthorized derivitive work, etc.
But I've seen enough legal debate over whether you actually do own the copy, that I think the poster is treading onto very dangerous ground if he or she believes he's unarguably correct.
It's arguable, but my own personal opinion is that EULAs are completely non-binding if all you do is use the software. And since I'm now stepping into the world of opinions, I should state that IANAL and this is not legal advice.
By the way, whether or not you own the copy is based on state law, not federal law, so that's part of the reason you're going to see so many varying legal opinions. Copyright law is federal, but contract law and most commerce law is state.
That's where things get very weird, with the MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer decision. The whole part of the DMCA (Title III) was to overturn that law, but only in the context of hardware maintenance.
That's because the law already applied to consumers. The reason the old Title 117 didn't apply to hardware maintenance was because the person fixing your computer was not the owner of the copy.
But it shows that there is law considering that running a program without licence is considered copyright infringement.
Running a program without a license is copying, because you are copying the copyrighted instructions into ram.
The poster has the idea "I own this copy. Therefore, I can run the program, except the EULA takes away my rights in it. So ha-ha-ha, hack-out the EULA, and I keep all my rights".
That was likely made illegal by the DMCA, but pre-DMCA, it was perfectly legal. So was hacking shareware and using serial numbers found on the internet.
That is, the situation may be that you own the disk, but not the right to run the program, unless you agree to the EULA.
What then does section 117 mean?
I don't like this. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
Actually in this case ignoring it will make it go away. Even if EULAs are legally binding, software companies aren't going to go after the little guy who's not hurting anyone anyway.
There's much law which says you are NOT THE OWNER of the copy
Huh? What law is that? You are the owner of the copy. Not the owner of the copyright, but the owner of the copy.
See, for example, the comments about the MAI Systems decsion
Huh? "Title III amends Section 117 of the Copyright Act to ensure that independent service organizations do not inadvertently become liable for copyright infringement merely because they have turned on a computer in order to service its hardware components." The whole point of Title III of the DMCA is to avoid that decision in the future.
The number of people dialing up to AOL, MSN, and other dial up providers is still pretty high. It would seem to me that they are probably the same people that would be buying a $300 computer at walmart.
You're probably right, but for those dialing up to AOL and MSN it's pretty dumb. The $5 a month extra for life has an expected value of $5*12=$60/year, factoring in a 5% interest rate=$1200 expected value, more than four times the cost of the machine.
Can you output the data to a computer/PDA? If so it would be pretty trivial to tunnel just about anything through email. $30/month for unlimited internet access is pretty cool, even if it is dirt slow.
Anthony, can you please explain exactly how the GPL license uses copyright against copyright?
RMS does not believe that copyright should prohibit people from freely distributing software, yet the GPL prohibits people from distributing their software once they have broken the terms of the GPL.
Actual, IMO it does. As I have pointed out, Microsoft's exclusionary practices are in breach of the intent of the US Antitrust laws and the EU Commerce Commision are concerned over Microsoft's policy of discriminatory and selective disclosure on the basis of a "friend-enemy" scheme. Microsoft need to present very valid arguments to excuse their exclusionary practices.
I don't see how that's relevant to whether or not Microsoft uses GPLed software.
The inclusion of GPL license code in Interix and SFU 3.0 runs counter to the rational [sic] Microsoft uses for the GPL and LGPL exclusion clauses in Microsoft's license agreements.
Now I see what you're getting at, but it's not true. Microsoft has a patent on CIFS. While they are willing to license the rights to that patent directly, they are not willing to give others the right to sublicense the rights to that patent. The GPL itself explicitly states that "If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all."
When Microsoft includes GPLed software directly, it's a different story, because they do have the right to grant patent licenses, so they can simultaneously satisfy the obligations of the GPL and the obligation to obey patent law.
There are plenty of people here on slashdot that call the Microsoft EULA a cancer but go ahead and use the OS anyway. Actually, I'm one of them. Does that make me a hypocrite?
It is hypocritical of Microsoft to discourage others from doing what Microsoft is about to engage in itself.
That's just silly. If I own copyright on a work, the whole point is to discourage others from doing what I am engaged in. Copyright is an exclusive right in a work.
I think the problem is you're confusing morality with legality. Microsoft's license terms state that it is illegal to do certain things, not that it is immoral to do those things. Hypocrisy is when you don't follow the morals you possess. It is not simply when you try to force others to do things that you yourself do not do.
Copyright is not a law of morality. It's not immoral to copy something. Copyright is not a God-given right. Rather, the people who created our country have decided that giving artists exclusive rights to their works would encourage science and the useful arts.
When dealing with legalities, as opposed to moralities, it's perfectly legitimate to exploit every loophole in the system.
They are trying to spin the GPL so people think it limits what software you can distribute with GPL'd stuff. They are trying to convince commercial developers that they will have legal problems if they try to get their commercial packages distributed with Linux.
So it's kind of like Felton and the DMCA.
What about their position are you claiming is immoral?
How can Microsoft use GPL licensed products, such as GNU GCC, for the express purpose of 'interoperating' with Unix and Linux systems and at the same time deny everybody else the right to use GPL licensed products to interoperate with Microsoft's own products?"
It's really simple. They own the copyright to their products, so they make the rules. There is no requirement that those rules be uniform across all people. They have every right to say "We can do X with our product, but no one else can".
What is hypocritical about what they are doing?
I think the question was a moral one.
It's not immoral to use someone else's product against them. If it was, then it would be immoral for RMS to use copyright against copyright.
It may be immoral for Microsoft to have such a draconian EULA in the first place, but the fact that they use GPLed products legally doesn't change that one way or the other.
They definately should. When I saw the E.T. rerelease in the theatre and heard that voice I remembered it immediately, and realized that that device single handedly taught me how to spell (I used to think that ' was pronounced "doink"). I leaned over to my friend and told him "if no one is making one of those things any more, I'm going to make one."
It'd probably be legal. I'm sure the patents have expired, the voice was public domain, and I could clean-room engineer the look and feel. Call it something like "Spelling Speaker" and you'll avoid trademark laws. With so many of the twenty-somethings now married with their own children, I bet they'd sell like hotcakes.
If only I knew the first thing about manufacturing. Anyone?
How much autonomy can a regular person get on the Internet?
You can get pretty much any autonomy you need, but you might have to go to multiple places to get it. If you're not breaking laws, serving porn, sending spam, or hosting sites which are referenced in spam, then you can go just about anywhere. If you want to serve porn, send spam, or host sites which are referenced in spam, then you're going to have a much harder time finding a location, but it is possible. If you want to break the law, well, you already said you don't...
As for bandwidth, you pretty much have three choices: cap your maximum bandwidth, cap your monthly transfer, or be willing to pay additional fees.
a bill has been introduced into Congress that makes it easier for wiretaps to be authorized by allowing material constituting or containing child pornography to be valid grounds for requesting a wiretap.
So that constitutes basically every ISP, I guess.
My biggest problem with the bill is that it will further enhance the corporatization of the web. Imagine if slashdot had to comply with these rules when it first started out. The access rules alone would be a nightmare (imagine sorting through gigs and gigs of server logs to find all the instances of one person's IP address, printing them out, and mailing them, all for $3). Add the cost of defending litigation, and hiring lawyers just to ensure compliance, and quite simply, slashdot would not have existed.
It would be kind of neat to be able to request from companies all the information they have about me, but this is something that should be optional, not mandatory. The government should set up a certification program, similar to truste, and offer it to those who have the resources to comply. Then the user can decide for him/herself whether they want to go to a certified site or not.
I'm not sure what people want the government to do to stop people from exploiting each other with copyright. Enforcing copyright law will bring the prices of CDs down, but it will probably cost as much in taxes to enact the enforcement. The easiest way to stop being exploited is to stop buying CDs for $35.
The problem with that is that what the RIAA wants to do is move the burden of dealing with copyright infringement (a civil matter) onto the government.
Copyright infringement is also a criminal matter, even sometimes when distributing for non-commercial purposes.
I have a hard time understanding what it is that people want the government to do with copyright. It seems that most people are not against the law, and even favor enforcing it when it suits their interests, but then they regularly break the law, using napster or not paying for shareware or whatever, and get all disturbed when the government tries to enforce the law.
I guess one argument is that copyright law should be civil law, and the government shouldn't get involved except through the court system, and that's a good start, I guess. It's a tough situation having a nation full of criminals. Not only does it waste money and resources, it creates a powerful means for law enforcement officials to discriminate. When everyone is a criminal, freedom becomes a priviledge.
"only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer" Most distros I know of distribute the source by "offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place," which counts under (3)(a), not (3)(b).
So if you send a friend a binary Linux ISO and don't send him the source, you're probably breaking the law.
Here's a summary. I don't have the book any more so I can't quote, but notice in the summary of chapter 10 where the summary reads "When shrinkage to below the Planck length is attempted, the crunch becomes a bounce."
Since many mail administrators have simply blocked anything coming from the .cn TLD (as well as pretty much any other domain known to originate from China), who is the massive DDoS going to affect?
uce@ftc.gov, when all you lamers forward the spam to the government thinking you're doing the world a favor.
What's this guys address so I can send him a distro of Linux?
Make sure you send him the source along with the binary, or you can go to jail, and then you'll have a whole new definition of "free".
"just" require all SMTP traffic to use TLS, and have them all under one CA, so everone can test the authentication of the sender ..
Well, yeah, but if you're going to do all that why not throw out all the whole protocol altogether, or just require all messages to be PGP encrypted.
Spam is easy to solve in theory, but next to impossible in reality. Because we're stuck allowing backward compatibility, the spammers can always just pretend to be using the old broken protocol.
Email is never going to get fixed. The fundamental concept is flawed. You can't allow arbitrary messages from arbitrary anonymous sources without getting spam. Probably well over 99% of solicited mail is non-anonymous anyway, so the solution is simple, in theory.
Until anonymous email is deprecated the spam problem will not be solved, plain and simple.