Internet Downloads

[Jarulf]

...continued

You don't.  First, you can't purchase their work in the sense that you're thinking of, because regardless of how many copies of Windows XP you buy, Microsoft still owns it.

As I said above, you are confusing "owning" the work (typically called owning or holding the copyright to the work) with owning individual copies of the work. Two very different and non related things. You buy individual copies of a work just fine.

That aside, Microsoft most certainly has the absolute and inalienable right to tell you, "Yes, we will sell you the right to use our software, so long as you abide by the conditions we set."

That has nothing to do with copyright though. Someone selling you a char or a car can do the same thing. This is typically regulated through (consumer) sales laws though and in most (or many) countries, exactly WHAT type of demands or provisions the seller can include in a sales contract is limited. Besides, normally I buy computer software from a store and I have never ever made any additional contract there with anyone else but the store.

I don't understand why you don't get this.

I can't understand why you can't get the difference between owning/buying the copyright to a work and buying/owning individual copies of a work. When you see that difference (which is also clear and mentioned in copyright laws) there is really not much difference between computer software, books, chairs and cars (for example). There is no problem with someone owning a book, but someone else holding the copyright to the work in the book.

When you buy software, the only thing you can possibly be purchasing is the right to use it.  What the hell ELSE do you think you're buying when you buy Windows?

A copy (material, fixated in another, material, object, typically a CD or DVD for computer software). What is so strange about that?

  Coasters?  Frisbees?  Shiny discs with which to make art projects?  You're certainly not buying the software itself, and I know you understand THAT much, so what else could you possibly be paying money for?

And once you answer that question for yourself, you'll see just how silly it is for you to try and argue that a software company "can't" sell you a "license to use" their product.

To this I can only answer that once you see the difference between copies of a work and the work itself, you will see just how silly it is of you to believe you can't buy copies of a work (including computer software).

No.  It is not.  Under clause (3) of section 106, the copyright holder is given absolute and complete control of the means of distribution of their work, which means they have the absolute and complete right to tell you how you may and may not use it as part of the terms of sale.

Again, see above, this clause only tell they have the right to do the selling (typically initial, they can't control for example the sale of used copies and such). That is it. Anyone else doing it makes them commit copyright infringement.

The act of selling and any possible contractual regulation of a sale, has nothing to do with copyright but with contract and sales law. That can be done just as much by someone selling a chair. Contract and consumer sales laws are what regulate this and what can be done. Still, tossing in a "license to use" software is as silly to toss in a "license to sit" when you sell a chair since there is nothing to forbid it to start with.

What's your point?  I only brought up fair use to point out that it's the only place in US Copyright law where "use" is defined or addressed, in contradiction to your insinuation that you have some right to use copyrighted works in any way you see fit.  The lack of prohibition in this case is NOT a granting of rights.

Excuse me, that is how copyright work, the things you are not disallowed (by given as exclusive to copyright owner) is allowed. So yes, you can do as you see fit as long as it is not disallowed by the copyright law (or other law of course, if you use a computer program to commit fraud versus your bank, you are doing something illegal, it is, however, most certainly not a copyright infringement).

  The copyright holder has the absolute and complete right to determine what may be done with his/her/its work.

No he most certainly does not. What makes you think so? Please tell me were in the copyright law it says that the copyright holder can do that?


Continues...