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At 11:07 AM -0800 2/10/02, Bill Wynne wrote:
>The bigger question, and I've never heard an explanation, why is
>software any different from books or music or any other
>intellectual property? Just "because" a contract or license agreement
>exists, that does not make it legal. Particularly when it's at odds with
>advertising for the product. Here's a few links and excerpts:
I was involved in this issue a long time ago and recall that if you
sell somebody something, they own it and are free to do anything they
want with it (including reverse engineer it). This is not a major
problem with a physical product but is with a software product.
The license approach is a license to use. If I license you to use my
search engine on your web site for X months or years, it is still my
property and your rights are circumscribed by the license document.
Early software was often bundled with computer systems that were
leased with hardware such as the early IBM computers. The supplier
certainly wanted to prevent the user from being able to continue to
use the software if they no longer leased the hardware, hence a
license to use.
But an irrevocable, fully paid up license for a software product has
always been transferrable, perhaps with some permission from the
owner to assure proper training, etc., with a "said permission shall
not be unreasonably withheld" provision.
Back to the original topic, I don't think anybody is complaining
about licensing TradeStation. They are complaining that permission to
transfer the license is being unreasonably withheld...
Bob Fulks
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