illegal creativity

[Randall Reetz]

That is why they dont matter.  For to many years companies have taken such wild liberty in writing them and the reasonable man doesnt read them at all anyway.  User licenses are mute in the eyes of the court.  The binding is in purchace and use.  Even the above clauses would not stand up in court because programming is a medium.  Would you find said clauses in a contract for paper or a video camera?  What revolution is protected from is the copying and sale or distribution of copies of revolution.  Same goes for using revolution's good will and name for a similar product.  And neither of these protections require a user agreement. As far as i can tell, the whole mechanism is simply a way for lawyers to get hired and paid and look important.  But the blatent missuse of contract and copywrite law is having the opposite effect.  Clicking this message closed infers that you are in full agreement with all above statements.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Richmond Mathewson" <geradamas at yahoo.com>
To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
Sent: 3/21/2009 7:16 AM
Subject: illegal creativity


It would be very helpful, Randall, if you could define "downstream clause".

Are these 'downstream clauses'? :

1. That I, as an owner of an instance of Runtime Revolution am not
   allowed to use it to produce something that will compete directly
   with Runtime Revolution.  [something that seems perfectly normal]

2. That having once used, say, Runtime Revolution, I couldn't use,
   say, SuperCard to produce a standalone that could do the same thing
   that I could have produced with Runtime Revolution. [seems bizarre]

And, if both of these are 'downstream clauses' where is the barrier
between a company protecting its own interests and "coming the heavy
father"?

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson.
____________________________________________________________

A Thorn in the flesh is better than a failed Systems Development Life Cycle