Patches breaking stuff is one thing. Service Packs breaking stuff is a completely different matter.
Windows XP Service Pack 1 managed to break Windows Networking on one of my networks (WinXP SP1 talking to Win2K server). File transfer rates dropped to 0.1 Mbps, shares became read only. Admission of the problem by microsoft.
You still can't download the hotfixes to fix the problem though - you have to call their support line. When I called them to get the necessary files I was informed that it was quite a popular request. (812937 largely fixes the problem)
I would have thought that Windows clients being able to talk to Windows servers was somewhat important to the Microsoft end to end solutions they like to promote. Apparently not a feature worth testing.
Sorry I didn't make that clear: software is the special category music/movies/anything else do not fall in this category.
Music (and everything else) has no legal restrictions on what the owner of the copyright can license or not license you to do. You will find that most music is licensed ("sold") to you such that you can listen to that intelletual property and not much else (ie not make any copies). Such a license carrys weight in Australia and a breach of the license is a civil offence (unless you profit out of the breach then it is criminal).
In Australia there happen to be some other funny copyright thingys to do with software - eg the right to copy the software to allow creation of interoperable products, and the right to copy the software to allow the reproduction and fixing of bugs in that software. Read more about that in the Copyright Act at AustLII. (software stuff in around section 47 - it isn't really all that heavy)
They very much fail to make clear that breach of copyright is only a criminal offence when the breacher makes money out of it (or breaches "to an extent that affects prejudicially the owner of the copyright" - quote from the law). Any other breaches are simply civil offences (in general much less rewarding in Australia when compared to the US). [how large a breach needs to be before affecting the owner prejudicially has never been tested in the courts here to the best of my knowledge]
They also don't make mention of the right to back up software - a right which has been supported by the Australian Competition and Consumer comission when they supported the right to sell Playstation modchips.
Use GPLed code in your code - then your code can only be released under GPL. If your University tried to sell this software they would be breaching the license conditions under which you initially used someone elses GPLed code (ie they would be breaching copyright). I doubt it should be too hard to find some useful GPLed code to perform some trivial task in your software (or maybe even something significant thus saving you some time).
Forcing the hand of the "intellectual property" office sounds somewhat more convenient than having to compromise with them. The IP department is a group that should actually understand copyright law and thus why they would have no other option.
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Windows XP Service Pack 1 managed to break Windows Networking on one of my networks (WinXP SP1 talking to Win2K server). File transfer rates dropped to 0.1 Mbps, shares became read only. Admission of the problem by microsoft.
You still can't download the hotfixes to fix the problem though - you have to call their support line. When I called them to get the necessary files I was informed that it was quite a popular request. (812937 largely fixes the problem)
I would have thought that Windows clients being able to talk to Windows servers was somewhat important to the Microsoft end to end solutions they like to promote. Apparently not a feature worth testing.
Music (and everything else) has no legal restrictions on what the owner of the copyright can license or not license you to do. You will find that most music is licensed ("sold") to you such that you can listen to that intelletual property and not much else (ie not make any copies). Such a license carrys weight in Australia and a breach of the license is a civil offence (unless you profit out of the breach then it is criminal).
In Australia there happen to be some other funny copyright thingys to do with software - eg the right to copy the software to allow creation of interoperable products, and the right to copy the software to allow the reproduction and fixing of bugs in that software. Read more about that in the Copyright Act at AustLII. (software stuff in around section 47 - it isn't really all that heavy)
They very much fail to make clear that breach of copyright is only a criminal offence when the breacher makes money out of it (or breaches "to an extent that affects prejudicially the owner of the copyright" - quote from the law). Any other breaches are simply civil offences (in general much less rewarding in Australia when compared to the US). [how large a breach needs to be before affecting the owner prejudicially has never been tested in the courts here to the best of my knowledge]
They also don't make mention of the right to back up software - a right which has been supported by the Australian Competition and Consumer comission when they supported the right to sell Playstation modchips.
Other than that the copyright owner can license their intellectual property however they want (which will ordinarily prevent a copy being made).
That is - the guy who did this has likely committed a civil offence (but not a criminal offence).
Forcing the hand of the "intellectual property" office sounds somewhat more convenient than having to compromise with them. The IP department is a group that should actually understand copyright law and thus why they would have no other option.