Well, Todd, if you want to follow MicroSoft's lead, go ahead. I mean,
do you let the RIAA define "fair use," and all that as well?

MS will claim as much as is humanly possible, and then some. Why?
Because that way they can establish, by precedent, more ways to screw
end users out of their money.

I'm old enough to remember when companies began using the copyright
paradigm to protect software. A fair number of people thought that was
a bad idea, since copyright law was complex as it was. But still,
10-20 years ago, it was accepted that when you bought software, you
bought, and owned, a *copy of the software*. Of course, if that
paradigm had been followed rigorously, companies would have been
obliged to provide free copies to public libraries for fair use...

The classic example of this was Borland's "just like a book."
liscence. You could use their products just like a book. You could
loan your purchased copy to a friend, and he could use it, but only if
it weren't installed on your system (and in use) as well. Quite simple
and effective. Pity it never took off.

Point being that the principle was that you purchased, and owned, a
copy of the code, in the same way you purchased a book or a magazine.
Of course, MS (and everyone else) made a point of including a liscence
which stated -basically- that the software was worthless, warranteed
to accomplish nothing, and if you used XXX software to manage your
business, and lost money, it wasn't their fault. If, however, the
floppies it came on were bad they would replace the physical media for
a nominal fee. On the other hand, if you WERE caught copying this
software (which, recall, was not warranteed for any "fitness or use")
you agreed that the XXX company had the right to carry off your
firstborn in compensation.

Now a few years ago (after they had cornered about 95%+ of the market)
MS realized that income from new sales had flattened out, and the only
way to keep revenue coming in was change how they could charge for
their software. That's when they dropped the original "buy a copy of
the code" idea and moved on to "buy a *temporary liscense* to *use"
their software." That way they can keep gouging people for updates,
especially when they drop support for older platforms.

Well, naturally they had to keep people from recycling all those
copies of older, but (in many cases) perfectly usable software. So
they decided to "limit" transferring software.

What I want to see is the specific statute that says Darren can't do
what he says he can. I don't care about how someone makes a living
agreeing with MicroSoft's interpretation of copyright law, I want a
specific citation, including a direct quote -from an actual statue-,
which says that MS can get away with that crap.

Aside from the fact that no one has taken Bill "I'm the richest man in
the world" Gates to court about it yet, that is.

On 02 Feb 2005 21:51:05 -0600, (Todd H.) wrote:

Refer to the license on the disk you posess for the exact wording of
the license terms. They vary slightly from release to release. But
I'll bet ya a dollar that you'll find it restricted to use on your
Dell system.

But, if you're the sort that needs a big cartoon-like graphic with an
orange X that says what you're proposing is illegal software piracy,
well, you're in luck:

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/partners/YourPC_do.mspx



Best Regards,