[OT] EULA and legality

[Ken Corey]

We all know companies make the T's & C's to suit themselves as much as 
possible, giving as little as possible while gaining as much as possible.

I feel that EULAs, copyright and patent laws have gone well beyond too 
far. They have gone so far that corporations are far more important than 
people, than facts, than truth (not capitalised).  Their lawyers rewrite 
history, twist laws, and jeopardise markets.

They are morally indefensible in this day where we must use technology 
to get things done.

Personally, I don't pay too awful much attention to EULAs. I prefer 
common sense. Personal use, don't destroy other's businesses.  I do wish 
others felt the same way.

The thing that worries me the most here is that when every new medium 
came along (printed sheet music, player pianos, radio, TV, cassette 
tapes, fax machines, telephones, computers, internet) the entrenched 
media moguls have railed against the tech, and tried to protect their world.

Every time before this, they've been utterly defeated by reality and 
common sense.

This time, I'm afraid they're winning.  Closed shops, licensed software, 
UEFI limited hardware, hardware you can't open, copyright extended 
beyond all reason, IP used as a weapon of business.

Pretty soon we'll all have to pay Apple royalty for breathing iAir.

Feh.

I think the only thing keeping the corporates honest is Linux in all its 
forms.  Without Linux, there'd be no Android and Apple would well and 
truly own the tech world. *shiver*

Once Linux is killed off, I'm going to start growing turnips.

-Ken

On 07/09/2012 19:55, Richmond wrote:
> I am asking this question for a number of reasons:
>
> 1. If I buy a book I can, if I want, use it for lighting a fire,
> throwing at the cat, and so on. As the book
>      is my property I can do what I like with it. The intellectual
> property contained within the book is,
>      generally, restricted by copyright saying whether I can copy bits
> of it, resell it, lend it to friends,
>      lend it while charging a fee for its use, and so on. However, the
> copyright restrictions do not tell me
>      where I can read the book (in the bath?) or how (standing on my
> head?).
>
> 2. I am running Mac Snow Leopard in VMplayer on Non-Apple hardware.
>
> Before I continue, I should point out that as I own a physical install
> disk for Mac OS Snow Leopard
> I don't feel MORALLY wrong running the software it contains in VMplayer.
> I am running software I own
> in one instance and do not feel that because I bought Ferrari hubcaps
> for my Lada I should be forced
> to buy a Ferrari.
>
> 3. Other people on the Use-List must face similar questions.
>
> 4. I really wonder if this belongs in the same category as the previous
> set of postings about
>      software piracy - I don't feel it does.
>
> A. How legally binding is a EULA?
>
> B. I have connected to Apple via software upgrade, so, one assumes, they
> are well aware that at
>      least one person "out there" is violating the EULA.
>
> C. Anybody can purchase software online or in a shop without background
> checks to see whether
>      one has the necessary hardware to keep to the EULA.
>
> Of course this can extend to Livecode, and all the products we folk are
> doing our best to produce
> with it.
>
> There are also some 'funny' rumours flying about that Microsoft are
> doing some deals with PC makers that will lock the machines in some way
> so that they will only function with Microsoft Operating Systems, rather
> than Linux, UNIX, Haiku and so on.
>
> Richmond.
>
>
>
>
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